Nuff Said

Kick them to pieces probably.

While we’re linking to things in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/football/picture/2024/apr/23/david-squires-on-fa-cup-meddling-replays-premier-league-clubs-var-nottingham-forest?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A great read. I could just quote the whole thing but this stood out for me (and should be some sort of AI-generated reply on here whenever anyone tells us how much better Chase’s record was). Talking about Sheffield United: Transpose this team into, say, the 1993-94 Carling Premiership and they would be greeted like some superior alien life form: relentlessly fit, technically on a different plane, probably winning the league by eight points.

I wonder how Luton fans are feeling about it now. Unlike the Binners, I would guess that they went up with realistic expectations though. There seems to be at least a section of 1p5wich fans who think a magical combination of pension fund money, momentum and history will propel them to the Champions league. 🤣

That wasn’t what I said. “Implied” = your confirmation bias. I talked about values and experience. I reject the values of the right and I reject the right based on the results of their government of the UK over my adult lifetime. I also said things are not black and white. If a party doesn’t match my values and they have demonstrated they do not deliver for the benefit of this country, I wouldn’t vote for them. However, I then raised the point that the apparent binary nature of what I’ve said may be influenced by the choice our electoral system forces us into. So while Labour don’t offer everything I would like to see in a government, in a simple Tory or Labour decision which is where most of us will be when the election is eventually called, I will be voting for Labour. I acknowledge that this has been true my whole adult life so it has become ingrained, but I am aware of that and the influences that have formed that. Where is the lack of critical thinking or focus on personality in that? It’s all in your head, or perhaps your own lack of critical thinking.

It is very much tribal for me, I have a visceral dislike of most on the right and what they stand for. I hope I am man enough to acknowledge it’s not black and white, and I know from personal experience most people are tolerable one on one even when their values differ greatly from mine. I would even go so far as to say there are some decent Tories (or were, not many left these days). Not all though. But what they’ve repeatedly done to the country throughout my lifetime, and how they continue to punch down while spouting some brainless creed about personal responsibility, all while getting and giving legs up from their background and their mates, makes me want to puke. That is ingrained in me forever. I very much don’t want to (re)start the proportional representation debate on this thread but I do wonder how much my pretty binary attitude has been formed by our voting system though.

Shouldn’t this be in the too dull for conversation thread?

Disappointed this thread wasn’t called “Beating Birmingham Could Relegate Them” in memory of Wiz.

If it helps, I think of the three of them as tw4t 1, tw4t 2 and tw4t 3. Edit; I can’t use tw “at sign” t?!? Well, take that swear filter!

(Ignore the “xxxx said” above, first one is me, second and third are you) If she is innocent, and we don’t yet know, then she hasn’t been hypocritical. Yet you’re accusing her of hypocrisy in advance of any conclusion. Wait and see what happens first. Having said that, I don’t believe this is about the result of the investigation, it’s mainly being done to generate some noise to try and counter the repeated negative news coming from the government. Especially given that most of the potential offences happened too long ago for any action to be taken now. On the doorstep and in interviews, Tories will be able to cast some shade and say “no smoke without fire” regardless of the outcome. Whether the public see them as equivalent in scale remains to be seen. We support Norwich, so we slag off Ipswich. We support Labour (or the Lib Dems or the Greens or whoever), so we slag off the Tories and stand up for the side we believe in, especially when we believe they are being criticised unfairly. Is that so surprising?

You really do live in a parallel reality in your head. Her autobiography complains that government bodies like the BoE and the OBR were trying to conspire against her, probably the IMF and World Bank are in there too. Are you seriously suggesting they did this by *not* warning her that her policies were going to be suicidal? I mean, if they really were closet Labourites, it was a successful strategy with hindsight but at the time it would have been 1) extremely high risk, 2) very damaging and enormously problematic in the short-term and 3) only going to make things harder for Labour in the long-term. Occam’s razor would suggest she deliberately ignored any protests they did make.

You appear to have decided she’s guilty in advance of a verdict from anyone with actual access to evidence. Or is it a case of throwing enough mud to assume some of it has stuck? Even the Tory who eventually pressured GMP into investigating what had happened when asked what he wanted them to search for could only say “Certain matters… regarding certain things.”

I can only defer to your clearly far more comprehensive experience.

More evenhanded than I would be, but this says it all. “Another thing the Conservatives might ask themselves is whether their prospects are going to be enhanced by making the conduct of politicians the primary electoral battlefield. Voters are realistic enough not to expect a Labour government to be a congregation of saints, but they already look at the Tories as a cesspit of sinners. For breaking the law, bullying civil servants, sexual predation and just about any other form of bad behaviour you can think of, the past 14 years has seen a huge rollcall of ministers who were fired or forced to jump before they were pushed.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/21/the-tories-are-playing-a-risky-game-with-their-relentless-pursuit-of-angela-rayner?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Doesn’t it say “clear and obvious” in the rule? If it’s borderline then by definition it’s not clear and obvious.

Blimey. And we thought our squad was thin.

It doesn’t matter but why is Rotherham Birmingham 30 minutes behind the rest of the league?

It was though.

Like a knife through butter! 1-1!

Maidstone. They could have made so much more of being the team that beat the next Champions of Europe.

Hadn’t the donors given the money to the Tories?

Hmm, this feels like reductionism to me. Just because Rayner has one small - and so old that it is unprosecutable - potential offence against her, it is in a different league to the way those like Rees-Mogg behave and think is acceptable because it’s “business”, or within the rules if you twist them far enough. If you lose your temper and shove me, that doesn’t justify me stabbing you back. That's not the point of the post though. Boles is an ex-Tory MP. Even those on the same side as the government think this isn’t a good look.

I think we’ll all buy you one if it works! Let me know where you want the cash sent.