um pahars

I'd have gone even further with new technology and brought in the text-a-sub thingy that some Scandanavian club has been doing. Fans get a chance to text in their substitution (player on and off) and our Nigel has to comply with biggest vote. FOTB, fan power and terrace managers all working together.

That's what they would want you to believe, but as is often the case this is substantially oversimplifying the issue and IMHO a red herring. The following article refutes this claim quite well (although I accept certain tax policies can hit the consumer at the till). http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/10/12/why-stopping-tax-evasion-would-not-increase-prices/ And apart from that I think the main cry from people on this issue is the notion that we're all in this together!!! this just doesn't come across as being equitable or just. Having been involved with HMRC as both an individual and with a small company, I can assure you that HMRC at that level aren't quite as accommodating!!!!!!

What about if the deal was only for the Council to buy and own the ground?? Could it be justified in the context of owning a community asset for the benefit of all? Or would this be still too much for them to take on? What about when people were asking Southampton City Council to help us out and buy our ground?

Can presume the consensus is that whilst we apparently have another good batch of youngsters coming through none of them are that special to be able to make the step up at the moment. But not even worth risking one on the bench to either give us an option or to put on if game is already won (or heaven forbid, lost)??? What was the point of both Holmes and De Ridder on the bench Sunday (we really must be threadbare)??? And of course the other question is why we didn't get anyone in on loan?? No one available, right player not available, too much wanted, hoped others would be fit???

If I was FOTB then I would be pushing for us to strengthen in the January window. I would initiate a weekly quiz with all proceeds going to fund the increase in wages.

I'm sure he mst have put his periscope up somewhere at some point!!! Had an interesting time in Baltics in the summer. Vilnius was a wonderful place and younger generation were lovely, but food was terrible, customer service was non existent and older generation really rude and miserable. Then went on to siauliai and it was truly horrific (racist, xenophobic, drab). Beautiful countryside but wow the Russians left their mark. Ended up in Palanga which had a wonderful coastline etc but was full of ****ed up Lithanians and Russians going hammer and tong with each other!!!

Are you on a wind up??? Would have thought someone who had travelled so much would be able to come up with some well decent places to go to. Where's the best place you've had a stretch ashore???

So much depends on how old your lot are and what you're looking for. Think I must have gotten old as whenever I've seen some recently (at home and abroad) most of them made me cringe. The organised ones were the worst and couldn't imagine having to be led around by someone. Of the places you mentioned I would.say Barcelona and Berlin are best. Barcelona has a decent beach to lounge around in during the day and some good nightlife (can be a bit moody though in places). Berlin has more of a party scene and of course shedloads of culture (that said Barcelona has got loads as well). I think the problem is that so many places are just full of the Inbetweener gang!!! and are old hat.

We don't have that good a track record though do we??????? The last thing remember we got from there was Jan very Poortvliet!!!!

John, in total agreement with you on this one!!!! What they think they are doing is anyone's guess. It doesnt make any commercial sense whatsoever and seems to me to be way beyond what a local council should be doing!!!!!! The creating or saving jobs line just doesn't wash for me. I have no problem with councils supporting the Arts, sport or other "worthy" or "community" events and providing facilities, but this is way beyond that. As for Mr House, well I remember talking to him a few times around the time of Stoneham and couldn't believe someone as ignorant, ill informed and generally stupid was in such a position of power. I rememeber one good debate when he was arguing about how Southampton shouldn't extend past the M27 and I pointed out that a) Stoneham would be south of it and b) he lived on an estate that was north of the M27 and a few years earlier was farmers fields. Even back then he had a thing for the Rose Bowl and was saying it was a different proposition to the hooligans that Stoneham would attract and that was why he had no problem with a cricket ground!!!!! It's now a tens of millions problem for him.

A very funny, eloquent and insightful piece from Boris there, so thank you DP. Sometimes Boris is spot on with the things he says, but at other times it's as though he is from another planet (and to be honest given his background and upbringing he is from another planet to the majority of us in this country e.g. his £250,000 chicken feed for Sunday morning diary writing!!!). A good commentator, fine for the odd funny quote (not so good for his many foot in mouth moments), extremely intelligent, but not at all convinced he should be in charge of the London and definitely not up for leading the country!!!!

Why not just ban away fans? Or at least insist they must travel in official coaches under escort? Make all stadiums alcohol free? Out of town with no pubs nearby (like Colchester)? As you say, let's just sanitise the game.

Who would you have replaced him with?? We had no one on the bench

5 points from 15. A threadbare bench. Letting a lead slip through sloppy play (to give the corner away and defend it). Time to start earning the money. Of course I would have snapped up top at Xmas, just can't help but feel we've lost our way.

A liitle note to them might not go amiss!!!

I could just about forgive a lazy journalist looking for an easy story and not bothering to do the research, but when "Club Historians" try to pass it off then it really is small time. Fine if they want to hate us, no problem with that, fine if they want to call us scummers and the city scum, but peddling that mythical line is just so small time.

Small time, very, very small time. When you have to fake something, you're always going to be small time.

Given discussions with the Swedes and the Irish, plus Merkel's comments, what price a U turn (or at least a partial U turn/accommodation of the treaty????)

We were only talking about this today at school and saying how University should be elitist and a place where the brightest in our country go. It would be about investing in the future of our country turning out Scientists, Inventors and those who will drive our country's economic future. We will never be able to compete with the low wage economies of many countries, nor should we want to, but we need a cohesive policy to drive this country forward (IMHO Univeristy for all and prohibitive fees are n the way forward). But in elitist we meant by ability, not ability to pay or ability to have a leg up (to Oxbridge). Educational mobility does this country a great disservice and robs us of many bright students (something that the reduction of EMA and other policies have played their part in).

Being top of the League I thought we weren't doing threads like these;) Doesn't sound a very impressive operation down at SMS ticket office at the moment!!

How did it do so much damage at Ibrox and Valley Parade???

A coalition that accepts the principle of collective responsibility and all its implications. Methinks the coalition may soon start to unravel as this issue is fundamental to the Lib Dems (unless Cameron does a bit of a U turn)

Within reason would be my response, as I was never impressed when Blair used to deflect questions/attacks away by using this diversionary tactic. To be honest when people in any walk of life start blustering and try to turn things in to a "what would you do then?" I always think they aren't that assured of their own position and are looking to deflect the issue. Plus I would have thought an easy response would be that I would never have let us been put in that position. Unless Cleggy has got a decent excuse (and I mean something over and above the "I would have been a distraction") then I agree it is an extremely poor decision. Make shim look even weaker than I feared he was in the first place. I think this might be the first sign of real tension in the Coalition and I wouldn't be surprised if grassroots Lib Dems start to put pressure on the parliamentary party and the Coalition starts to unravel. General Election just before the Olympics!! I would wholeheartedly agree, not least as I'm still not 100% sure anyone really appreciates the full complexity of what has just happened and it is impossible to quantify just what impact this will have on UK PLC. The jingoistic tub thumping by some on the far right has been excrutiating (just like on here LOL) and that's coming from someone who also does not want to be a part of the EU in its current form and certainly not a EU where Central Banks/Bureaucrats can dictate and limit individual countries fiscal policy.

A bit like my old boss and former Taunton's student Clive Hollick then, BUT he still didn't award Goodwin with his outrageous and out of touch pension, that's one thing he can't be tarred with. On a seperate issue, would it be OK to be a tax dodging capitalist/Conservative, because I'm afraid the Champagne Socialists haven't got a monopoly on unethical and immoral behaviour of that kind (in fact I'd say they're probably massively outranked in the tax dodging stakes. Totally agree, losing the ability to set your own fiscal policy is outrageous, unrepresentative and undemocratic. There is no way we should have agreed to such a doctrine. I think you'll find many of the lefties are just as outraged by the idea of surrendering fiscal policy to an undemocratic Central Bank/Bureaucrat. You must have missed this earlier. Consider this: as Paul Mason has written, "by enshrining in national and international law the need for balanced budgets and near-zero structural deficits, the eurozone has outlawed expansionary fiscal policy". Read that last bit carefully. Left-wing governments of all hues will, in effect, be banned by this treaty. If the French or the German left returns to power in the near future (and both are in a good position to do so), it will be illegal for them to respond to the global economic catastrophe with anything but austerity. An economic stimulus is forbidden – because the treaty has buried Keynesianism. Cameron opposed the treaty because he feared the effect it would have on the City, which,after all, bankrolls his party. But just because he opposed the treaty doesn't mean the automatic response of the left should be to throw its weight behind it. I proudly marched against the invasion of Iraq; I wasn't deterred by the fact the BNP opposed it, too. François Hollande – the Scoialist candidate for the French presidency – has already spoken out against a treaty cooked up by Europe's overwhelmingly right-of-centre governments. If we're going to listen to European leaders, Hollande is a sounder bet than avowed right-wingers like Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. After this stitch-up, the left really needs to have a long, hard think about its attitude to the EU as it is currently constructed. There's still a sense that any criticism of the EU puts you in the same box as swivel-eyed Ukip-ers who rant about gypsies in shire inns. But there's a powerful left critique that needs to be made.