sonyc

Revenge posting is not a good look LYB. Even if you're correct. People are allowed to have opinions and feelings and moreso, to express them. And if they don't want to move on it's also fine. If you don't like an opinion just let it pass and dissolve. I don't think it is helpful to have a pop at others. Just my view so please don't shoot the messenger.

I think there's a good shout for him being player of the season but Josh may win that the way he is going, with stiff competition from Sara and Sainz. Kenny has been a great servant for us.

Thanks. Just reminded me again that Kenny was everywhere. A real energetic performance all over the pitch. Sainz aside, who was terrific, Sam McCallum had another decent game. I like what he brings every time he plays. I really hope he is part of our future team. Dimi's injury has given him a chance at such an important part of the season.

Yep, that was a small turning point early in the season. Josh is a talisman for us for sure. What an amazing run he is on. Like you I'm confident now we can nail it. The team look very motivated and they definitely have a spine. Good times. Off on another tangent, I noticed that King's Lynn have won their game with their near rivals Rushall. Likewise, I'm more confident they can stave off any relegation threats and prepare for next year.

In theory yes. In practice, it was a cynical Johnson ploy. You can't just throw money at stuff and think it will magically improve. That's the damning thing reading that article, that there is no follow up or ideas on evaluating - and these are relatively large amounts of money. The process for applying looks convoluted and even a waste of time. There are numerous hoops to get £20m. It provided Johnson with his 'boosterism' needs. He could always use the slogan. There was little interest apart from self interest most probably. Any levelling up needs a proper longitudinal approach. The Germans spent 2 trillion post Berlin wall in the reunification process over 14 years. They knew it needed that kind of effort and resource and time. The levelling up budget here is 4.8bn in total. West Germany spent 71bn a year for 14 years. The city programme was aimed to be a 20 year plan. The lessons learnt were to close the productivity gap and it needed cross party support (independent), not at the whim of any party. People then would learn, train and stay in their towns and cities. Very Keynesian really.

Well, there is the phenomenon of looking backwards in time with rose tinted glasses. Hindsight is such a thing. I'm guessing that your last paragraph is tongue in cheek (or an attempt to find positives somewhere). Those two would definitely be in a list of worst PMs for many people. Such a list would also be subject to similar debate I'm sure. I doubt anyone will ever beat Truss. She looked utterly out of her depth to the point where one almost felt sorry for her if it wasn't so serious.

Quite. Some of the reasons are in this article today, from which I quoted. It seems the process has been chaotic and there is no long term plan to even evaluate. The PAC is an all.party committee.so I believe it has to be taken seriously. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/15/no-compelling-examples-of-what-levelling-up-has-delivered-watchdog-finds?

I believe you are correct. If there's one thing that is uniting the country (it seems) it is a deep dislike of the current lot. We require a very long term view of every problem and then some grounded, serious management to begin to tackle it. On funding local services for starters (to give a chance for local government to plan finances for starters, rather than always looking where to cut services), on the NHS (hospital capital projects and revenue support for increasing staff and training them), to tackle uncontrolled immigration (our infrastructure simply cannot cope), on skills acquisition programmes. The latter is linked to many life outcomes....Anyway, the list is long. There are so many priorities. It would be nice not to have a lot of fanfare and less of the kind of talk we've witnessed on recent years (Johnson, Truss).

Public accounts committee report shows hardly any of 71 projects due to be completed this month are on track Josh Halliday North of England correspondent 15 Mar 2024 05.00 GMT Rishi Sunak’s levelling up agenda is beset by an “absolutely astonishing” level of delay, and the government cannot give “any compelling examples” of what it has delivered, parliament’s spending watchdog has found. The public accounts committee (PAC) said barely any of the 71 “shovel-ready” projects due to be completed this month were on track. Dame Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, said: “The levels of delay that our report finds in one of government’s flagship policy platforms is absolutely astonishing. “The vast majority of levelling up projects that were successful in early rounds of funding are now being delivered late, with further delays likely baked in.” The report found that only a 10th of the £10.5bn of promised funds had been spent by councils. Just over a third, £3.7bn, had been handed out by Michael Gove’s levelling up department by December. Hillier said Gove’s department appeared to have been “blinded by optimism” in funding projects that were “clearly anything but ‘shovel-ready’, at the expense of projects that could have made a real difference”. She said MPs were concerned “and surprised given the generational ambition of this agenda” that there appeared to be no plan to evaluate success in the long term. Boris Johnson made levelling up the guiding principle of his premiership after winning the 2019 general election on a promise to improve the lives of voters in left-behind parts of the UK. But the project has floundered under his two No 10 successors and been further derailed by surging inflation and a crisis in local authority funding.

I can only comment really from Thatcher onwards because I was simply too young at the time to know what McMillan or Wilson were like for example. I've seen TV programmes that have painted Wilson as a canny operator and he kept us out of Vietnam. I hated Thatcher but grudgingly now realise she had a sense of values or a certain integrity that she stuck to...and that's because I compare the recent administrations to her time. She was also the first woman PM. That's a plus. Yet, she was a cold fish and I'm not sure all of her wires were connected. As Bobzilla has stated, she certainly did not sow hope where there was despair (the Francis of Assisi speech). The exact opposite maybe...Her housing policy opened up opportunity for many to get a foot on the housing ladder. That must be applauded even though it was a form of political gerrymandering. Yet, it ultimately failed because of no follow on investment. The selling off of national resources was a way of not investing but putting the profit motive first. I suppose it has to be Blair because of his social programmes (Surestart was a positive thing, reinforced by Brown, especially in disadvantaged areas). If you look at many economic indices Blair's era was broadly successful. Yet, he was a successor to Thatcher and I never voted for him either, and like many, was appalled by his foreign policies later on. His opening up of immigration channels I believe was a mis-step post Serbia / Bosnia and fall of the Berlin wall. That's for a different topic but it represents a negative. In recent years Major has gone up in my estimation because of his views on Johnson and on Brexit. Brown continues to talk much sense on the few occasions one hears from him. But he wasn't without fault. His expansion of the benefits system by the time he'd left as Chancellor was a chaotic mess. Far too many rules and complexity - trying to fill every hole in the safety net. I don't really know. 'Favourite' seems an odd term for an MP. It often ends with failure. Very few have really set about building a national infrastructure or even a 'narrative' (a word overused today) that genuinely brought a whole country together. I don't see one emerging in the future either. I think we're doomed quite honestly. I think that because we need a solid 10 year plan, at the least. I will be voting for whoever can oust my Tory MP but if it's Starmer to emerge as the next PM I remain quite sceptical. A good few years of solid and serious administration might persuade me in years to come that things might be different.

You might be on to something here. More Tories standing down now...perhaps a few words are being whispered. Saving the embarrassment of losing too. If he calls one then the £10m of Hester money might be forgotten? I've read it represents 20% of the money they are putting aside for the election campaign. We really are in the death throes of this lot. The latest move being a definition of extremism.

Thanks so much to Mr Angry and Mr Apples for the NMA memories. I watched Justin Sullivan do an acoustic version of Vengeance and it brought out the hairs down the back of my neck. He referenced Klaus Barbie. There's very few who can put anger and injustice into a song. Winter is a newer song of theirs. Still the same unsettling vibe and messages though.

A great song yes. But Apples I can trump you on this one! He used to go out with a lass from Bradford (Joolz)...and I was around when they recorded Bitter Sweet. A fantastic song btw. And I have some old video somewhere of them in the attic. I used to talk with their drummer Rob too in the local pub (sadly he died). Great band. Must put up a song or two on the music thread some time.

Was reading about this and again it is no age. It's getting to the stage where folk around my age are dying...then you realise that death truly is the meaning of life. The core of it anyway, to care and show love and respect to others while you can. Like ALOS and Herman I liked that song the most. Wistful stuff. This is a rather nice article just published about him.. https://www.stereogum.com/2255269/karl-wallinger-world-party-the-waterboys-dead-at-66/news/

I know I've mentioned before that I have 3 season ticket holder friends at Bradford City (plus I've watched JT a couple of times now). He is quick and I agree with the Bradford manager, he is cultured too. I have no doubt that he is Championship standard. Bradford fans are unanimous in wanting their club to buy him but doubt also they'll be able to. I'm sure Adams and others will be watching him very closely. JT now starts in the centre (and on the right side) of a 3 in defence. Surely he has to be given a chance and maybe can be one of the successors to Hanley and Gibson. He is the right age and this experience is valuable. Btw, he played very well also against L1 opposition ...Wycombe in the EFL Cup) so I do think he is far away from the standard we need.

I always think we will stay up. Never once have I felt when winning the league with Farke or in Neil's season via the play offs in recent times, that we wouldn't survive. As a few posters here have mentioned we have Sara, Sarge, Sainz and Gunn plus Rowe. We do not have the so-called spine however with a quality centre back (ideally two). That will be the key. Get a defensive mid and 2 centre backs as the priority. I feel Mcallum and Stacey might make decent back ups but we would need upgrades. There are often 3 leagues in the PL and our task would be to be the best of the bottom set of 6/7 teams. Having a kinder fixture list would be a massive help especially at the start of the campaign. We've had shockers on the last two occasions.

I think the vandalism of statues is mindless too and a bit pathetic. Statues relate to the past, literally, immortalising a person in stone or whatever. And the past has all kinds of different contexts that it's impossible to compare. All you can do is observe and learn. Some vandalism like that of Isis bombing historic sites of ancient Persia is horrific to give a rather dramatic comparison. Also last week with the recent example of the woman cutting up an oil painting and spraying it red. Sad and pathetic whatever the oil painting represented. As for the old woman, she can do what she wants but she will have to pay for it in one way or another. What's important is that people have a right to protest. But there's still.sometimes consequences. If you don't have liberty to do stuff like that you risk society becoming totalitarian. It's ironic that the values and integrity of Thatcher are quite missing in the current regime. I'm with Fen overall in his take about her. She was divisive (and didn't need to be) and set herself up to be confrontational. Her St Francis of Assisi speech when elected was ironic but perhaps somewhere in her mind she thought she meant it...but then people often don't mean what they say ...or even say what they mean.

Yes of course GB. I've always loved the fact that we sing something like "Steady on....." It's one of the greatest songs and it's a matter of pride for many I reckon. Ps. When I joined some bugg3r had taken NMTD too!

Raw honesty post of the season. It will come back I believe....but football has become more cynical generally and there's other stuff to do. The PL often bores me for example because there are effectively 3 leagues. And in Farke he somehow felt what the club was and could articulate it. So, I do think as you've hinted, that many haven't yet got over it... fully, anyway. If we do make the play offs Wagner will be gain more buy in. It's what the fans expected. I am starting to like some of his weird tactical formations, like his 4-2-2-2 at times. That has been an interest for me because I used not to fathom his style or selections. There's also interest for me in seeing players played in different positions (Lungi, McLean and even Nunez we've seen as a kind of sweeper). Clearly too, we've not quite had the luck (injuries, decisions, let alone matches where we just should have won). Luck plays a massive part in most matches. You can say things are often marginal and small things that make the difference but you still need luck. So, in conclusion, although I certainly agree with the drift of your well argued and thoughtful points, it has been interesting! Just not in an all out excitement sense. Sainz is the one who provides that for me. He is all that I like in a midfielder - if he is supported well enough of course. OTBC....NMTD.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_1/9410559.stm

Not just a great attacking performance but we have restricted Rotherham to not have one shot! Is that some kind of record?

They will now need to defend much more caerphilly

That's Borja back! What a star. Just need Howson now to be booked and QPR to win....Karma restored then (for now). OTBC! Edit. Leicester equalised. We are in 6th atm

That Kevin Drinkell was one of our best ever strikers. And had one of the hardest shots and genuinely you felt he might score from a corner each time we got one. Happy days under Ken Brown and the precursor to football played the Norwich way later under Walker. Of course we have had some great coaches since too. Not forgetting Williams and Stringer. But yeh, Drinkell.

I was there for that and the old fella next to me with his wife (dressed up to the nines) in the Jarrold Stand just blurted out "w4nker". That summed it up. As did a returning Chris Brown, useless for us of course, scoring an impressive volley for them. My eldest was being prepared from an early age to the occasional disappointments of following us😏 What are the chances of a penalty today? We must be due one.