canarydan23

Number of votes is the number of votes. And lower turnout was indicative of the disappointment of his four years in office. And for context, Attlee added both votes AND vote share in between 1950 and 1951, it's only because of our utterly **** "democracy" that he was out of power. In fact, in 1951 no candidate had ever received more votes than Attlee, and wouldn't again until Major in 1992 when the population was 15% larger. And he didn't win the election. Democracy, ladies and gentleman.

I think you're opinion has been understandably clouded by the American experience. A British constitution would only need to provide a broad-brush overview of society's values. That they reflect them at the time they are written is absolutely correct and not a drawback. A manifesto pledge followed by a general election victory would be sufficient to remove or amend part of the constitution. The constitution could make that a requirement, so any clandestine behaviour from duplicitous politicians who pledge things just for votes and then abandons it all when they get power (sadly it would only work at government level and wouldn't present the rank dishonesty the thread's titular subject in the leadership election) would be stamped out; the Supreme Court and/or a democratically representative second chamber would have the authority to block any unconstitutional legislation that wasn't previously pledged. Our politicians have consistently proven that they are not fit to wield the power they have, diluting it is a good thing. Anyway, it's a pipe dream, along with PR; the majority of our MPs are power-hungry narcissists, on all sides of the House, so they won't vote anything that might limit their sway. And the lack of a written constitution allows them to do so.

Not really, the UK public tend to be kind to governments in their first term, Attlee, Wilson and Cameron all added votes after the public had a chance to see them in office, Thatcher only lost a few hundred thousand. Blair lost 3 million. I suspect Johnson would have lost more but thankfully we won't get the chance to see it. There is an alternative reality somewhere that saw John Smith govern for three terms, potentially handing over to an untainted Blair with experience of high office, where we didn't involve ourselves in Iraq, have a proper, written constitution and a Tory Party that was dragged left in a similar way to how Thatcher encouraged Blair to drag Labour right.

Blair certainly won by default; the Tories were the walking dead well before the 1997 general election. John Smith was enjoying 20 point opinion poll leads when he died. It's a tragedy that doesn't really get talked about enough given its pretty far-reaching consequences. Had he stayed around, Labour would still have enjoyed a landslide in 1997 and probably have kept the vast majority of the voters who gave him it with him rather than driving 3 million votes away. I suspect Starmer will do an almost identical thing and get a landslide before his time in office bleeds support. The only advantage he does have is that people were energised and excited at the prospect of a reforming Labour which may have fueled a greater level of disappointment when it did very little to change and actually kept some of the most long-term damaging Tory ideas (PFI, anyone?). There's no excitement or expectation about Starmer, the prevailing anyone-but-blue tide will carry him home. At least New Labour bought in Sure Start and the minimum wage. John Smith's heart-attack ****ed this country more than Boris Johnson and his cronies.

It's been slow as **** for me too. Awful.

Jesus. Just read this thread, you're tying yourself in knots and saying that I'm being contradictory? Really? One minute you're saying Farke was "lucky" to have Pukki and Buendia. Then you're saying he was involved in the disastrous recruitment in the second EPL campaign. So he's lucky when good players are signed under his tenure but to blame when **** players are signed?! Two points out of thirty is atrocious for one manager, but for another it was the mean fan's fault. Then, inexplicably, you're telling us that the second EPL relegation was Farke's fault before coming out with this; "Smith didn't fail to bounce back on the first time of asking, because he was dismissed half way through the season." It's actually f*cking hilarious!

I'm really not, it's quite a simple premise I'm positing here, it's a worry you can't grasp it. I'll try my best to dumb it down as much as possible; at the point Dean Smith came in, relegation was not inevitable (source, Dean Smith himself). We got relegated. Therefore it was Dean Smith's fault we got relegated.

Lol, 27 games left in the season, level on points with Newcastle, 5 points away from safety. Yes, Dean Smith did take us to the Championship, any argument to the contrary is fueled by either cognitive dissonance, a pathological inability to admit you were wrong or rank stupidity. He said himself the aim was to survive; he was a catastrophic failure. He had the opportunity to match Farke by bouncing straight back; he was a catastrophic failure. And actually, my words at the time we appointed Smith were something like, "the only good thing about Dean Smith is he's not Frank Lampard". Pretty on the money there too. You'll start listening to me one day.

You think Farke was taking us nowhere. We know Smith took us to the Championship with little prospect of an EPL return.

But he only got 2 points out of a possible 30.

You won't be drawn on it because you were hoist by your own petard with your 2 points in 30 comment. And as I've said, people will continue to bemoan the dismissal of Farke whilst it can legitimately be speculated on as a crossroads moment for the club. We chose a route that has led thus far to failure; until that changes, his sacking will continue to be a debated topic on a Norwich City football forum. It will stop eventually, as people have said, football is cyclical and there will come a season that everyone absolutely loves that would never have happened without what had come before and at that point the should they/shouldn't they debate over Farke will become a footnote. Whilst we flounder around mid-table playing largely unimaginative and unentertaining football it will continue to be referenced here. Don't like it? Tough ****.

Why is it a joke? You've highlighted his WORST run during his time as a Norwich manager as a reason for sacking him, yet vehmently defended a manager with an identical record of 2 points out of 30, despite almost a third of those points being from Championship fixtures. Were you a joke in moaning (putting it lightly) about people wanting him sacked then? After all, by your own standards he should have been sacked after the Hull game. The fact of the matter is, Farke is our last successful manager. He was sacked on the back on an away victory in the EPL. Given what happened to the club since his departure, Norwich fans will continue to look back ruefully on that decision until such a time that we finally have another successful manager. Fans need the whole, "well, if we hadn't sacked Farke we'd never have got X, Y or Z". At the moment, we have "if we hadn't sacked Farke, we might not be in this mess". And that's entirely true. We might not be. We might be in an even bigger mess as well. But you can only deal with what you know, and what we know is that nothing good has happened with this club since Farke was unceremoniously dumped out of the club after a match that saw him revert back to his previously-favoured 4-2-3-1 and gain three precious points. You're just going to have to put up with it. Similar to how we had to put up with the absolute joke that was people defending Dean Smith.

So we should have sacked him after the Hull game? Great, we have some common ground. Well, maybe not that common as I thought we should have sacked him at the end of the EPL season, but I'd have taken three games later. Strange that having thought he should have gone then, you were so passionate about him staying on later in the season, thought. Did you think it possible that someone who had only managed 2 points out of a possible 30 could improve?

Man Utd 3-2 Norwich Norwich 0-3 Newcastle Aston Villa 2-0 Norwich Norwich 0-4 West Ham Leicester 3-0 Norwich Wolves 1-1 Norwich Norwich 0-5 Tottenham Cardiff 1-0 Norwich Norwich 1-1 Wigan Hull 2-1 Norwich Ladies and gentleman, I give you 10 consecutive Dean Smith league games, 2 points out of 30, with the benefit of three fixtures in the second tier. Would you believe LYB that there are people who think he shouldn't have been sacked?!

What about 2 points out of 30 when 9 of those points were from Championship fixtures?

Completely agree. It worked really well yesterday, it was just one moment of Coco the Clown defending that stopped us getting a clean sheet, one moment of Coco the Clown finishing that stopped us scoring a tap in and bad luck that all our attacking players had a bad game on a day when Nunez and McLean smashed it out of the park with their remits. I doubt we'll have another match where quality players like Rowe, Sara, Sargent and Sainz all have poor games on the same day. You can almost guarantee that at least one of them will do something to cause an opponent trouble. Same team v Liverpool for me subject to fitness issues and get some momentum going with this group.

No, but I can expect one of the league's highest paid players to be actively marking him. He even steps slightly forward after the cross comes in, another shocking error for someone with his experience and pay-packet. It was just awful, awful defending. And it cost us a point. And it's not the first time Duffy errors have cost us points.

It's not scapegoating, and it was every bit as bad as I made out. You describe it as if Bamford ghosted into position behind Duffy and he just failed to check his shoulder. Still pretty criminal for an experienced centre-half, but it does happen. Duffy had the advance knowledge of KNOWING 100% that Bamford was behind him because Bamford began his run right in front of Duffy and jogged past him to take up his position. Duffy ignored him and continued to mark air. You can argue that maybe Stacey could have given him a shout, but Stacey had their number 30 to keep his eye on, had he charged in to cover Duffy's incompetence, then James would have had an easy unmarked target to aim at at the far post. It was dreadful, dreadful defending. And not for the first time from him this season. And when he is reportedly taking home more than every other player but Gibson and is certainly a top 10 defender in terms of remuneration, we should be holding him to a higher standard.

Do you think? Yaya Toure didn't do a huge amount in the final third, Bellingham is all about the final third. He will probably surpass 50% of Toure's career goal total by the end of this season aged only 20.

McLean fluffed one first half as well.

Nunez is looking better and better.

Bamford ran from in front of him, right in his vision, straight past him, and he still looked shocked he was there. Unbelievably bad.

There are only two possible conclusions I can draw from this post; you haven't seen the goal or you aren't using the word scapegoating correctly. He very nearly cost us a second goal.

Such a shame, but for defending that would embarrass a grassroots U10s team from Shane Duffy, we'd have got a deserved point there.

Duffy is so ****. That was absolutely pathetic.