CB Fry

The rule hasn't encouraged clubs to act more recklessly, the climate around the football bubble has. A rule that would encourage more reckless spending would be to treat football creditors the same as the others. Massively overspend, whoops, admin, 5p in the pound all round, ten point deduction, back in the game. Not sure how you work out that a rule saying you must honour every single penny of every football contract encourages more reckless spending. The reckless spending is a beast of it's own making, not created by that rule.

It is bizarre that after all that has happened all Cameron has acheived is to just about get the Tories to where Labour were in 1992. Not a complete embarrassment, but just not enough to get the casual voter to fully back them. Not enough for people to think "I'll stick with the incumbents, even though I don't really like them either". And Brown is more hated than Major was. The Tories will win, but it won't feel like a win if all they can muster is, at best, a majority of ten seats.

And both these rules can coexist. PL/FL says - pay all your football debts or you're out of the league. Taxman says - pay your tax bill or we wind you up. Both of these can coexist. It's not one or the other, it's both. Taxman doesn't really need to challenge the league's rules, it's easier for them to just drag individual clubs through the courts as they have been doing with regularity. As you say, the Taxman doesn't care about League rules, and doesn't need to care. Not their problem. Pay your bill.

As in Sidthesquid's post above, the football debts rule is one of the rules "set up by the governing bodies of the game" that you refer to in your second paragraph. It's not a legal thing - this isn't government legislation that treats football differently to other businesses. Legally, clubs could pay players 5p in the pound or whatever, but they'd probably find themselves kicked out of the league. And at the end of the day, what you seem to be suggesting is "everyone gets treated the same" which would still mean St John Ambulance and the Pie Supplier still getting 5p in the pound, and the players the same. Mr Pie Man wouldn't gain much because the players would still be far bigger creditors than the Pie Man. When businesses go under suppliers get stuffed - that's the same everywhere. So football isn't being treat differently legally, it's just their internal rules and you seem to be happy for football to have internal rules. You can complain about this system all you like, but the idea that Pompey would stroll off scott free by paying all their agents and players 5p in the pound would be far harder for me to stomach. Not sure why you think that would be better.

This is fair enough but you have to remember the rule isn't there to protect overpaid footballers, but to prevent cheating. If the rule wasn't there, think what Pompey (or any other club) could get away with short term, signing swathes of players on massive contracts that they then welch on one year in. The rule is there to stop clubs overspending and cheating by signing players they can't afford. Of course in the context of Pompey it looks absurd but the spirit of the rule is correct - if you commit to paying a player x then you have to pay it, in full.

History books show the match was a draw, the tie was won on penalties. That's why the penalties aren't added onto the goal tally at the end of the game because they are not part of the match, they are a mechanism to settle the tie. That's why the result of the match is not 7-5 or whatever, but 1-1 or 2-2, with the shootout listed seperately. That's why goals scored in penalty shoot outs don't count on players' tallies for the season. Because they don't count as part of the match, just to settle the tie. So your argument that "we scored more goals and saved more shots" is just factually wrong. We didn't, because penalties scored in a shoot out are not "goals", they are converted penalties. Even commentators acknowledge this - you never hear them say "he's scored a goal" in a shootout. Those cup games were drawn games.

That would be pretty good. There are people on this forum that think the PR system would return 75 UKIP seats to Westminster, but I am prepared to take that risk........

Sorry - just far, far too many assumptions and you're missing the wood for the trees. Britain doesn't vote extreme, the Parties won't be any more extreme, and the extreme minority parties will get piddly numbers of seats. And in all your assumptions you seem to be forgetting the general process of parliment - ie votes on each and every bill. Your assumption that some ultra-hardline right- or left- wing government will take power and steam roll through legislation is just pie in the sky. The rest of parliment, and the members of the ruling parties will have a say in it all. In recent years, Cameron has whipped the Tories through to support a Labour education bill and Blair and Brown have narrowly fought off massive rebellions against their plans on schools, hospitals and tax. So your idea that a Tory government will just dance to the tune of the BNP or UKIP because they have 15 seats between them is just lunacy. Ken Clarke, David Willetts and Michael Gove are not going to sit back while the loons run the show. And neither will the opposition of course. And there is no electoral system on earth that is ever, ever, going to return 75 UKIP seats to the UK parliment. 75 seats for a one-note single issue dog whistle party. I think that's just your wet dream. Hague banged on about Europe in a UKIP style in 2001 and got bloody nowhere. It's not a big enough issue in the General Election. That's where your claims of "common sense" go down the toilet. And we may see whether a Lib/Lab or Con/Lab coalition creates this super efficient governing machine you seem so afraid of next week.

This would include the army of 27 megafans that went to the Coventry third round replay would it?

5 UKIP MPs alongside 300 Tory MPs is not going to create an extreme government. Likewise, 5 Greens alongside 300 Labour MPs is not going to create an extreme government either. You're using the words "minority" and "concession" but don't seem to understand what they mean. You don't turn a centre left or centre right majority party into some rabid left- or right- wing extreme government through "concessions" to a "minority". A Labour Prime Minister with 300 MPs behind him is not going to "concede" to 5 frigging Greens and say "okay, you win, we'll scrap Trident and renationalise all the energy companies. And shut down Eton." The concession will be - yes, Caroline Lucas, you can be junior minister of state for higher education and yes, you can write a green paper on wind turbines which we might read.

Why would it be a choice between hardline left and hardline right? The British population haven't elected a hardline left or hardline right party at any point in the last century, so why on earth would they start once PR was brought in? As others have said - it doesn't happen on the continent (where all major states have elected extreme parties in the last century) so it's even less likely to happen in Britain with tribal cynicism hardwired into our culture. And with PR meaning every vote counting, why on earth would the major parties retreat to the fringes? British politics has been a land grab for the centre ground for the last thirty years and PR would only exacerbate that.

Which is fine, but you are a pioneer in thinking that proportional representation brings about radical politics. Everyone else on both sides of the PR debate from passionately for to rabidly against would agree it does nothing of the sort. Everyone (except you) who is vehemently opposed to PR hates it because it creates coalition, compromised mush of a government with no clear political vision with each government an inch left or right of the one before it. And those that support it do so because it creates a government of plurality, of lots of different voices compromising and it prevents radical government. So you are clearly a visionary because you're out there on your own on this one.

So what you seem to be saying is PR will deliver more decisive government than the current system which delivers middle ground fudge? I have never heard one opponent of PR ever use that argument before now and it certainly isn't the argument the Tories are using.

This is a most bizarre set of assumptions of what a PR-driven house of commons would bring about. PR by its nature will force compromise and coalition. You'll get extreme parties in the commons - you might get a Green MP and a BNP MP but not swathes of them. And it certainly won't make the middle ground any less attractive, because most of the country are in the middle ground. And, again, you've started a thread based on tonight's headlines with your usual "ah-haaaaaaaaaa" finality. Nothing is "categorically stated" until the dust clears which might not be until a week after the ballot. It's the tightest election campaign for a generation - expect quite a lot of flex and flux for the next week and a half. You're going to have to roll with it.

Fair enough but I think we're going to end up with weak government anyway. A victorious Brown or Cameron will have bugger all discipline with the puny majorities they can only wish for at this stage, and the loons on the extremes of those parties will have a bloody field day running rings round the whips.

It's a self defeating argument. British Parlimentary democracy is not designed for coalition government, so when there has been coalitions they are seen by all parties as "broken" pretty much at point of birth and they don't last long as a result. There are plenty of non coalition governments that have "failed" as well - Wilson/Callaghan in the late seventies, Major from 1992, the Tory administrations of the fifties. If we end up with a coalition this time, it will probably last for eighteen months tops. But I'd expect an election in October this year, especially if we end up with some co ck-eyed coalition with a Labour prime minister who didn't even take part in the leadership debates (not the likeliest outcome, but not impossible).

If you call winning the second world war a failure then yes, you're right.

Au contraire. You're following things far too closely and getting over excited by isolated quotes. If you think Mandelson and Brown were "quite content" a couple of days ago then I don't think you're following politcal events at all, especially if you are using the Di-ly Express as your primary source of news as your avatar suggests. Both main parties are simultaneously delivering the message of "vote for us, a vote for the third party lets the other lot in" as well as leaving enough wriggle room to deliver a compromise that will deliver their man to Downing Street. This hasn't really changed much since Cleggmania kicked off a couple of weeks ago.

Not noticed that at the same time Cameron has begun cosying up to Clegg as well in recent interviews? I love the fact you see seismic conspiracy in every single quote. Madelson gives a quote to a Mirror Group Newspaper along the lines of "vote Labour". Who'd have seen that coming?

No, but then nothing is guaranteed for anyone at anytime anywhere. We'll be favourites.

Sounds a lot like the pompous "reality checks" we had in August when those oh-so-jolly-clever people decreed that anyone saying we could challenge for the play offs this season needed a "reality check" when all we could expect for 2009-2010 was simply to stave off relegation. Well they were completely wrong then, and you're wrong now. We'll be red hot favourites to win the league next season, not according to Saints fans, but according to everyone. That's reality.

Whereas people who spend their time t w atting off on fantasy land football management simulators are infallable experts.

Lee Holmes was just like Robben as well.

Which is fine. I'm not questioning the decision at all. But having a sub on/off the pitch for twenty minutes is a conversation point. It just is. Pardew could have answered it better but he was clearly angry with himself that they didn't do the job so came across a bit arsey. Perfectly understandable. Anyway, I have contributed enough to this thread.

That's what I think too. People like the ones who take one pretty tame post match question and turn it into a conspiracy against SFC by, er, Radio Solent. Any chance you'll ever explain what Solent's "agenda" and what their "grievances" are? It's you making something out of nothing, Prof.