Gloucester Saint

Wow https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjmmrwexv4ko

Speaking of which https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/09/crank-tory-candidates-accused-of-sharing-online-conspiracy-theories Reform and Tories kicking off about candidate selections and alleged educements, Nice little sparring in there between Tice and Andrea ‘middle finger’ Jenkyns who is concerned Reform (as well as her huge gob) cause her defeat https://uk.news.yahoo.com/richard-tice-accuses-tories-dirty-104518823.html Reform also dropped two candidates on Friday - I guess C4 did their due diligence for them then! https://www.channel4.com/news/two-reform-uk-candidates-ditched-after-accusations-of-racism-and-religious-hate

Don’t read the Mail but apparently Boris used ‘Sir Kier Schnorrer’ which Robert Peston confirmed is an offensive Yiddish term in the Jewish community for beggar and scrounger. He also from the screenshot used the word gimp. Brexit was a fuck up Boris, your fuck up, you never ‘got Brexit done’, I’ll criticise Sunak on many things but you left him a horrific mess on that topic, and the next government will be cleaning it up further. And to think many Tories want this obese lazy, bigoted (see umpteen examples), oaf to be out campaigning. When I think about the unreasonable pile on Ed Davey suffered as well, I want to see the Tory Party destroyed.

Don’t forget about Priti Patel. Lighthouse isn’t, he bought an extra large box of Kleenex for the election campaign and he hasn’t even broken the seal yet on the box due to the lack of sightings. At least let the bloke have some opportunity to do so in the weeks after 4 July during the leadership campaign. There you go Lighthouse, to get you started, she looks particularly stern in this article and the headline says ‘aggressive’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8077495/Aggressive-Priti-Patel-threw-briefing-folder-officials-face.html Cant stand her myself but let it not be said that I don’t do anything to help my fellow Saints fans

Yep, and any advantage they gained is now well and truly eroded into the negative after yesterday. It’s a long enough campaign to take a day with world leaders to commemorate, and it’s the last chance to mark D-Day with survivors, I’ve heard what he’s said to Sam Coates on Sky but I don’t think he still realises the full meaning to the public. It actually makes the £2k item a bit more grubby now after the Treasury pushback and Clare Coutinho being caught out. He got his punch in at the debate but all people will think of now when the ITV interview is screened is that he wasn’t where he should have been. Mercer letting him have some pelters https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rishi-sunak-grilled-over-decision-to-leave-d-day-ceremony-early_uk_6662dcb8e4b0bf0f81652e84 Farage in particular will be into this slip up with relish. Starmer getting photographed in discussions with Ukraine PM will rub further salt into the wound. Interesting, I heard on Times Radio that apparently You Gov changed their analysis methodologically just before Farage announced he was standing. Using the old method, it would leave Tories and Reform tied on 18% each they were saying. Best he can do after this episode is finish ahead of the LDs on seats and Reform on the popular vote. Astonished that I’m saying this but not sure either or both those are a given right now. Edit - apparently Angela Rayner’s brother served in Afghanistan. Does Penny now defend using her own naval career tonight, pushing Sunak under the bus further? Would boost her own ambitions post-GE, and maybe first and foremost holding her seat in a military place.

Apologies for posting on a different WW2 thread - hadn’t twigged straight away that there was two - but this one seemed more active on the experiences of those at the time. Thought the experiences of my own grandfathers in WW2 and some Southampton connections might be of interest. Maybe, maybe not!

Both my grandfathers were active in WW2 on different continents - one was a career medic, saved wounded troops, sometimes picked up the pieces, and was always at great risk in theatres such as Dunkirk, El Alamein and Montecasino. Dread to think what he dealt with and saw, and that generation rarely commented on it. I also know that he saw a ship sink which one of his brothers was on, I think in Dunkirk. The other was in Asia, captured by the Japanese and held as a POW on the Burmese railway. Once a champion boxer in the Army, he lost a leg. Was a steward at the Dell in the 1950s and 60s. Gave me his 1976 FA Cup Final mirror. I don’t think he’d appreciate my Honda car ownership! The other served post-war at the Royal Victoria Military Hospital, a remarkable building, until that itself was decommissioned, as was he, in the very early 1960s. Apparently the fighting was so loud during D-Day that it travelled up Southampton Water and could be heard at the hospital itself. Wonderful to see the old boys getting celebrated as they should be in Normandy today and really made me think of them both. As a sad postscript, one of my grandfathers was burgled in the 1990s and had some cash stolen - people who lived in the 1920s and 30s weren’t always fully trusting of banks. That we could replace - but not his war medals from the different campaigns, also taken. How low can you go? The police eventually found them again during a raid - they’d been buried in a suspect’s garden - and the detectives very kindly paid from their pocket to have them restored and re-polished to their original glory. He was never re-united with them…he passed away the week before they were found. The RBL organised with us a wonderful military funeral as he was in service for the best part of 30 years. There’d been a bit of media coverage about trying to get his medals back for him, the members of the public and ex-services folks turning out to salute the hearse will stay with me for the rest of my own days. The medals now are proudly displayed, as they should be. Love them both and very proud of them.

He’s one of the more objective Conservative commentators out there. The £2k figure is being widely de-bunked today but Starmer needs to be better on his feet, I’d have simply interjected ‘so your SPADS claim Rishi’ each time Sunak popped up with it. He did deal with it well later but it shouldn’t have taken 30 minutes. You Gov poll afterwards reckoned Sunak edged it 51/49 which was also my impression of it on the night. The manifestos coming might help Starmer getting the measures across, I think he could have countered more on Rwanda and said ‘the cost is extortionate, our proposals would process x faster, cost y less and finish with the point he did make around reducing the accommodation cost’. He could have expanded slightly on the Border Security Command as well and compared to the VFM of Rwanda. It would mean he was answering the questions more which is an area Sunak was slightly better on. Sunak scored some genuine hits but got laughed at and jeered three times which is unusual. He was too aggressive in the first 40 and tangled himself a few times verbally trying to get too many blows in at one time. Boris could carry it off but Rishi can’t. The other debates will need far stronger presenters than Julie Etchingham - Sunak just ignored her (which took a few points off the hits he did score) and Rayner/Shapps or Michael Green would have really destroyed her on Friday night. Can’t imagine Rigby, Burley or Kuenssberg getting owned like that by Sunak.

Further evidence, as any was needed, that social media is especially a sewer in an election https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ww6vz1l81o Some of it was teenagers on a wind-up, but some of it suspiciously like overseas chatbots. Doubt if many, if any, were actual Reform supporters

Yep, don’t agree with throwing things at politicians in a democratic society, but yeah, laughing it off is the best option as he’s done. My favourite reaction was from Arnie when egged out and about: ‘that guy owes me bacon’. Excellent.

Latest polls grim for the Tories - Sky breakdown forecast based on the data seat by seat and when Grant Shapps/Michael Green was phoned to say his seat was at risk, he ended the call! https://news.sky.com/story/tory-support-has-fallen-most-in-areas-where-it-was-previously-highest-mrp-poll-suggests-13147397 Farage obviously thinks Trump will be a busted flush then. Mind you, grumbling about too many students doing social science degrees, anyone willing to guess what Farage’s son studied? He is a character though and more of the Tories focus will now go on fighting him. Which is a problem as the FT reports this morning that three of their major donors have pulled the plug for this campaign. Edit - agree with Whelk that it was a bit underhand of Sky to call Shapps/Green as private and out it in air.

Agree, the only fees will be £8m for Onachu, £3m as agreed on DCC (he was cheap to buy as his reputation was slipping), Perraud similar fee, and Lyanco’s case, dumping the wages would be a result. Whoever thought even at £6m that was a good purchase should never be allowed near professional football again. Of course, the one fee that we don’t want to contemplate is KWP. But the reality is that he only has a year left, at 27 in his prime. Spurs have a £30m buyback apparently should they want to use it but are notoriously stingy and were hoping Leeds won so they could pick him him off for £15m. Now Saints will want £25m at least and rumours of Chelsea interest which might push Spurs up. The best case is that KWP signs a new deal with maybe a relegation release clause for £20m or so, but this has to be part of the equation.

I agree with you, Sulemana might as well stay and be an impact option on the bench. He was a regular through the autumn for Martin, got that bad hamstring injury, Ryan Fraser went from impact sub, scoring vital late goals at Hull and Millwall, to starter and never let anyone else have a look in. Sulemana could play further forward if we’re one down with 25 to go and a side have dropped off. Very disappointing for what £22m, but Rasmus was hopeless. Alcaraz I’d keep as showed some form in the PL last time, but Onachu if grey can get £8m plus full wages take it, and draw a line under it, as he’s a few years older and depreciation eats into the value. ABK they won’t sell unless they get above circa £17m, which they won’t get until clubs are confident his shoulder is fixed. He was at the PO final and I’m happy for him to compete with THB, Jan and Jack, as we’ve got so much other business to do all over the squad.

From a Lib Dem perspective, independent of the main two parties, Starmer has dealt with the hard left better. The Diane Abbott episode has not been good enough I agree. That briefing to the Times was just daft and inflamed things needlessly. As I think Duck said, he’d already proved he’d got the hard left under control by expelling Corbyn, and Abbott has lost the whip for quite some time after those terrible comments. She probably wasn’t standing on health grounds but now is. He’s suspended two others on that wing though who have some repellent allegations against them. By comparison, Sunak has constantly been undermined by Truss in particular, who he should have expelled after she was a nodding dog on a platform where Bannon was praising Tommy Robinson FFS. She beat him in the internal contest and she, Clarke, Jenryck and others have rubbed his nose in it every day since. Every mention of her loses them another 20 seats. If he’d kicked her out, and she’s since appeared on another far right platform which joked about rape https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/kemi-badenoch-liz-truss-podcast-carl-benjamin-b2555595.html, he’d have helped detoxify the Conservative brand a lot. Not totally, but limited quite a bit of the damage coming. There was a segment on Times Radio where Matthew Paris said that the Tory hard right will never like Sunak or agree with what he does, so he’d have been better off having a purge like Boris did with the Tory left and centre MPs over no deal. He had the majority to do it. Sunak was too scared of the Mail and Telegraph to wield the 🪓 when needed. That said, I’m pissed off with us and Labour not giving James Bagge a free hit like Martin Bell had in Tatton against another disgraced Conservative. It’s in the national interest for Truss to be humiliated like she did our country. Revenge via the ballot box against her and that other loon Sinclair from the IEA. Braverman goaded him for months to sack her also before he grew a pair, revelling in comments about homelessness being a lifestyle choice for example which appalled everyone cross-party. Anderson was clearly racist towards Khan yet there was days of indecision before giving him the push because he was so scared of the ERG What’s App groups. I would give him some credit for standing up to that lot on smoking, but then he’s timed the legislation out now. BTW, not being pious as Lib Dem’s have their share over the years too.

FBI needs to be tracing every one of those comments threatening jury members and coordinating some dawn raids to get these thugs out of circulation, charged and on the equivalent of remand for a while. Appeasement won’t work with Trump’s movement any more than it did in 1930s. 🇩🇪 If you threaten juries in this country it’s a custodial sentence, the length depending on seriousness of the threats. It’s playing out as I thought, Trump’s base making lots of noise but it’s all the people who were going to vote for him anyway. The 10-15% swing state voters are the key, time will tell but polls consistently showed before the trial that if there was a conviction, voting for him went off the table. Usual morons like Boris and Piers Morgan brownnosing.

Agreed, we’ll need two frontline strikers with Che joining Wolves, AA more of a wide forward and Stewart, well getting him to start a game would be huge progress. The latter has to be a bonus ball as competition who can force his way in with a pre-season under his belt and a view to being match sharp by the autumn. Broja could be the second of those but nearer £15m if it is a permanent deal or loan with an option/mandatory at say 10 PL goals at £20m if the ACL hasn’t robbed him of that change of pace he had. Agree that the club transfer record needs to go on the frontline striker signing, maybe even £30m, if some of the Sulemana outlay can be recovered to help fund it.

Far more serious cases and trials to come arising from his role in the violent facist insurrection on 6 January. I suspect the loonies will rally around him in the polls initially and then reality will dawn over the coming weeks and months in some of the swing states that re-electing him will 1) destroy their entire democratic system and 2) their nation will join the rogue list of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. The timing of the case was political but the verdict is as damning as it could be. All 34 counts is shattering.

This thread is about to get busy. Guilty on first count apparently, 33 counts to go once the results of the jurors sheets come through. EDIT - found guilty on all THIRTY FOUR counts https://news.sky.com How about some music?

At his peak, oh certainly, different calibre to Che altogether, Che would admit that himself. But he’s struggled at West Ham and declined after a good start at Villa. We’ve already got one striker we can’t get on the pitch, the others signed need to be reliable on at least that aspect. If taking him on a season’s loan helps persuade them to sell us Flynn to help them take wages off their FFP then I could live with that a bit more.

Lallana is ok if it’s a player-coach role first 12 months and coach after that, but if the Ings rumours have any mileage then these days that would be a downgrade from Che, great as Danny was first time around. Hopefully we will see some proper business with pace and energy, because we will need plenty of both.

Lallana is OK with me if it’s a one-year playing-coaching deal and coaching beyond that, as he has a growing reputation as a coach already involved with the England u21s and has at least some of his qualifications I think. Two years playing would be too much at 36 I agree. Ings is on £125k p/w at West Ham, let them stay saddled with that. I’d rather remember how great he was for us under Ralph. The stories on the Hammers websites have more than a whiff of West Ham seeing a solution to free up their wage bill. Let’s hope that’s all it is.

They are ripping themselves apart on this ‘policy’ https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/tory-campaign-in-meltdown-as-minister-criticises-sunaks-flagship-national-service-plan_uk_6654b7a4e4b0f5ad55979a43/ Steve Baker seemingly also at loggerheads with CCHQ along with other ministers about his Greek holiday relating to a leaked email https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ni-minister-steve-baker-among-tory-mps-accused-of-lack-of-effort-by-conservative-hq-as-he-campaigns-from-greece/a540078450.html

Downes if there’s a £12m option and Hammers News are correct is a no-brainer. We will need to go alongside him a Wanyama/Bouba Diop type giant. In terms of upcoming free agents, Callum O’Hare has been linked heavily to us and Villa, Jack Clarke as others have said. Hamer is another option - but not a free agent - if Alcaraz doesn’t come back and Stu moves on. Of one the key variables will be what happens to the large number of loanee have out. The club supposedly wants around £20m for ABK which I can’t see anyone paying until a run of games proves his shoulder issue is fixed once and for all. Alcaraz is probably coming back, and Perraud would be a step up on Manning. Tall Paul to stay in Turkey on loan again or permanent if they can agree a deal. Will need a couple of first choice level strikers if Che goes to Wolves as expected. Clearly a first choice keeper, Ramsdale on loan wouldn’t be a shock.

Great day, so please for the players, manager, coaches and most of all the fans. Game panned out how I thought, Leeds pressed hard in a fast start but we held them off, and settled in, with a great counter-attack. Superb pass by Smallbone and AA composed finish across the keeper. We had chances to get a second before a hairy last 10 + all the injury time. Only real scare was James hitting the bar. Defensively excellent, THB joins us now for £20m. Alex assured in goal and what a way to finish if that’s his last game. Ditto Che, delivered what he promised in last season’s tweet. Fraser did a brilliant job both offensively and defensively doubling up Huge recruitment summer ahead but we can just enjoy tonight. Potentially a financial sliding doors moment with the Covid loans coming up. Great to see Kat there, Dragan looked delighted but had gone through the wringer emotionally!

There’s already the very successful Duke of Edinburgh awards though, and Cameron launched a National Citizen Service in the early 10s as part of the Big Society umbrella https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-national-citizen-service-b2337765.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Citizen_Service I don’t dislike the idea in principle but the NCS had its budget slashed again in 2022 - and it’s had some serious coin spent on it - under Boris because it had become a holiday camp for middle class kids https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-national-citizen-service-b2006983.html If they want to throw more money at it again, around double is what they are proposing which is a lot, then Sunak should explain how it’s going to get beyond being a post-Brexit alternative to a gap year and level up from the insidious internship culture existing in Whitehall for years. Otherwise 1) it looks like a gimmick for the very elderly thinking of switching to Reform and 2) a continuation of a pet project which has had a very patchy impact at best. Fan the Flames - re-thinking and invigorating residential experiences with the armed forces is a good thing, I agree, for 16-21 year olds where that is appealing.