Gloucester Saint

And that’s been one of their main issues. You’d think they’d read the room with how badly the Tories tore each other apart for year on year and see the public had enough. But no. Whilst Starmer frustrates me, Reeves as a CAMRA activist far worse than that, I’ve realised just how much I loathe the left of that party. Wankers who just virtue signal and won’t make tough decisions. You won’t agree but they’ve been marginally better than 2016-23. But far worse than 2010-15, 1997-10 and par with the Major government. A lot better was expected although there wasn’t much excitement around them. None of the oppositions by their own admission are anywhere ready to go so we all just have to hope Starmer goes and they improve a bit.

Strikes me of a more of a beach man, Aussie is better for him in that regard.

Streeting is clearly on manoeuvers, has been for a while, combining transparency to stop innuendo towards him whilst pushing Starmer nearer the bus wheels. Welcome to top level politics. All of the parties are like it, even the Lib Dem’s will start briefing v Davey if they don’t see their parties’ messaging and good local work translating. He was under pressure before conference season.

I’m enjoying some of them. He deserves what he gets on Mandelson and what they’ve done to pubs. The private schools VAT was a bit of a waste of time for little revenue gained.

This is the worst one, it shows awful judgement. You’d expect decent basic due diligence. Mandelson got kicked out of the Blair government for financial impropriety and behaviourally well known to be a snake.

Didn’t vote for him or Labour, never have the latter, but the migrants/Starmer headline was misleading from whatever the source was. I challenged Soggy about the Crace/Oakenshaw inaccurate remarks, so I’m consistent if nothing else!

The Small Boats issue is a strange one to pick out given the other more unforced errors they’ve made. The rate of returns is higher than before and they’ve stopped over 40k crossing Misinformation in that headline because there were three PMs in 2022 alone so anyone in power for longer than those would have more. Without the context it’s like saying Russell Martin is a better Saints manager than Tonda. It doesn’t take into account return rates either. Not a reliable article. Didn’t vote for Starmer, don’t rate him either. But let’s actually be accurate about the stuff they’ve fucked up on eg too law farm tax rate, pubs, SMEs, NI employers increase.

SR could add Auckland City to the group, make Rasmus DoF there with full relocation, and that would still be far too close to Southampton for my liking.

Bet the SR boardroom beat the bratwurst 🌭 over that bit of player trading.

No, certainly not. Although my late father in law, thought even less of Laura K. ‘Get the channel turned over, get her off of our screens!’ he’d yell. That’s the more polite version, and this from a One Nation Tory/Lib Dem family.

Pity they didn’t give Mad Lizzy the same advice.

Van Wanker is scoring well in the Dutch League this year.

Sarwar isn’t anything colossal, but Chris Mason is. A colossal cunt. How can the BBC can go from having household names and giants like John Cole and John Sargeant as their political editors and this little nomark in the same lifetime is beyond rational comprehension. How the mighty have fallen. Even Tufton St wouldn’t employ Chris Mason for their IEA puff pieces.

The ability to curl one off effectively is always helpful.

And then we wonder why the electorate is always fed up with the government of the day. Even the Thatcher and Blair premierships with multiple large GE victories had large swathes of dissatisfied people and public disorder outbreaks at times. Added to actual real politician ineptitude, and the growth of bots, AI and misinformation, and it’s a toxic cocktail. The nearest to a newspaper I read regularly is Private Eye, which takes the piss out of everyone. The Indy occasionally or the Star for a laugh. TBH I’d rather get news from the Star than any of the newspapers (bar the Indy) which are different flavoured comics for the easily led. The days of quality objective specialist journalists such as John Keegan in the DT about military and wars that I’d specifically buy that paper for are long gone I’m afraid. Occasionally there’s a glimmer of light where a paper takes on their own side (Mirror and what Reeves is doing to pubs and SMEs, Mail attacking Boris on cancer waiting lists) but the status quo quickly re-emerges at the instance of proprietors and editors. As far as I’m concerned, newspapers should be held to the same standard as ITV, Sky News, C4 broadcast news or made to put Cons/Labour/Reform logo across their top page. I would say the BBC in John Cole and John Simpson’s era but LK and Mason are total crap.

Sarwar about to call for Starmer to go. Can’t see how he survives this. In a way it would probably help Labour as the Mail (especially) and other red tops have been gunning for him since day 1 because he prosecuted and banged up the rogue elements of their profession, which has been further fuelled by plenty of unforced errors. Not to say that his successor will get a red carpet laid out but they won’t have that specific baggage either, and the other parties have all admitted they are a process of transition themselves. I’d advise them to go for Streeting.

Labour left is an absolute waste of space as well, just as bad and wasteful as the Conservative ERG, or what remains (pun unintended) of it.

To be fair to the Labour voters/supporters on here, they didn’t seem to want Mandelson returning in the first place, it was a very poor decision on top of a string of politically inept judgements, seemingly inadequate due diligence and Starmer has done what PMs have done since WW2 when they’re in the clag and cut the people around them who were fermenting a wing of their party, which McSweeney especially seemed to be. There will clearly be a leadership contest by the summer. They’ve not had any nuclear Truss/Black Friday epic fails but a leaky, piecemeal approach to governing which will grated on most people I suspect. Not really a lot anyone else can anyone can add to that 🤷

I was in the Northam for the West Ham game - ripper of a finish from Marco. Mixture of celebrating and astonishment.

It’s on the MOTD video I posted recently.

Dawson and Sam Curran get England over the line at the T20 WC.

Have a look at what Whitey Grandad just posted on the Other Games thread on the main board from his trip to Argentina - puts the hot dogs at SMS in the shade…

Streeting would be the most feared option in the other parties as his quick wit would put 5% on Labour’s rating straight away despite their poor record so far and he’d shrug off any links to Mandelson. There are cross-party links to Mandelson - a snake who slivered all over the place for personal gain. It won’t be Lammy v Powell realistically, Streeting v Powell more likely.

Alex Jankewitz wins quickest red card….

Shearer, THB, Danny Wallace and Rickie Lambert all scored on their England debuts.