Gloucester Saint

Could be a similar story in the summer if Saints lose out in the play-offs, Martin has hinted at it previously. If the tactics are more pragmatic aka last Saturday at Leeds, and Dragan’s willing to invest, then a loss at Wembley where we’ve had a good go at it, then he could stay even with the turnover of players as it’s a weaker league next season. If he reverts to Martinball, then it could be a similar story to Rosenior. Rosenior is well regarded as a coach, and done well overall in his first major job as #1. Where I think it’s hurt him is that their owner backed him apparently in January to strengthen but presumably on the basis of making the top 6. Dragan could make the same argument if WBA beat us in the semis.

How I see it too. Didn’t mind him moving on to W Ham, had a very productive honeymoon there but since Christmas has been in and out of side with their midfield getting overpowered. Ideal CM partner would have been Rice, blend of pace and power, JWP more technical but hence the money to sign him contingent on Rice being sold. I can see a loan to Leicester or Fulham next season. In the event SFC won the play offs, the template tactically for next season would be Saturday’s from Elland, so after signing THB, maybe Downes if their new manager needs to bring in £20m, priority is pace and especially power. Victor/Morgan/Diop MK2 and a couple of them, Charles loaned out.

Deluded https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68961195 and inevitable Sewerella pops up. She has ratings in line with Truss and the same delusions - if they move further to the right they will shred any vestiges of economic credibility post-Truss disaster and leaving the ECHR is banana republic talk. Tice’s dream come true would be Sewerella as Tory leader after the GE, she’d finish off Boris, Truss’s and Sunak’s chaos and her own party in the process. A pound shop, plastic Enoch Powell. The fact that more moderate Conservatives held Harlow and Andy Street outperformed the national party by miles dy distancing himself from their cheap, tacky populism eludes buffoons like her.

Good point, beer is brewed at Bourton but farm is at Chadlington over the border in Oxon. Chipping Norton pleasant enough, if expensive, we like Burford, big garden centre and bookshop there. Not cheap with to be fair!

Their Hawksmoor Lager, Cider and IPA is on sale in most places up here (I’m not in Gloucester itself), the farm is at Bourton on the Water not too far away. Pretty place but spring onwards tourist central a bit like Broadway is, so he’s always going to do well with the footfall. Will have a look at series 3.

He’s at it again around inciting political violence https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/02/trump-vance-jan6-election-results/ This time around though, there is an incumbent and I don’t think the National Guard will bottle taking out violent Trump fanatics.

Good cartoon about Swinney’s entry into the race for First Minster in the Guardian today https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/may/02/martin-rowson-john-swinney-entering-snp-leadership-contest-cartoon Some diverse views certain north of the border about it https://www.scottishwomensrightscentre.org.uk/news/news/a-statement-from-scottish-civil-society-organisations-on-the-uk-governments-intervention-o/ and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7200756wz7o The SNP are a shitshow and if this is a further stick to beat them with then I’m all for it. England and the other devolved nations will run a mile from that stuff. Biological women should clearly have been covered. I had a look at the Census data from 2021 and the ONS reckoned there was what 40k transgender people declaring as women and another 18k I think it was non-binary (which is where my middle aged brain starts to fuse). Edit it’s 30k non binary and 18k ‘written in a different gender identity’ https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/genderidentity/bulletins/genderidentityenglandandwales/census2021 That’s out of 30.4m women in the UK. 0.13%.

Well, they shouldn’t have done, none of the MSPs should. Crap piece of legislation, and largely unenforceable. As for the trans stuff, I usually (not always) vote Lib Dem and I’ve no idea what Davey has said or hasn’t said on the issue. I don’t much care either, I leave it to the ‘my pronoun is x/y/z’ brigade and the culture war wallies to battle it out. I’ve got nothing against trans people whatsoever, I’d just want to focus on sorting out NHS waiting lists, the economy, public services, education, transport, armed forces, get the borders policy and asylum (NOT the same thing as migration) in better nick before anything else gets a serious look in. By all means call me old fashioned.

Most really don’t I’m afraid. JK Rowling does but that was more in response to testing the ill-fated and ill-designed new speech laws in Scotland. There’s the Kathleen Stock case at Sussex Uni but that’s about it. Outside of a few cultural warriors in the Tory Party who listen to too many Steve Bannon speeches and are obsessed with American Politics/Trump and the Daily Mail, it barely registers. Maybe it does if you’re transgender, a family member is, or you work in elite women’s sport but otherwise, it’s really not an important everyday issue for 99.9% of the public. If CCHQ thinks it is, it needs to sack its researchers. Top 6 issues featuring consistently and overwhelmingly in You Gov polls: - NHS - Cost of Living - Housing - Climate Change - Crime - Asylum and immigration I can see defence joining those with the threat from Putin, China and Iran maybe nearer the GE date.

If your benchmark is Blair, Hague, Thatcher, Robin Cook when deputising, John Smith, Denis Healey, and John Major was also good at the dispatch box, then Starmer isn’t much cop there and neither is Sunak. Boris and Corbyn were appalling at it, the former getting humiliated cross-party and by his predecessor Teresa May (correctly) over party-gate. If you want to see a demolition job with a bit of theatre, watch this by Rayner on Dowden, a counter attack he didn’t see coming and as many Tory MPs as Labour enjoyed it. PMQs is not the place for detailed policy answers, never has been, that’s what green and white papers are for. It’s just a high profile mechanism when either a policy goes wrong or is likely to (Rwanda, or queries on Iraq War) or there’s a suspicion a Minister is trying to mislead (Boris, Braverman). As Badger identifies, it’s 30 minutes of Punch and Judy for the cameras and tea time news. It rarely features unless the shit is hitting the fan somewhere. If you want change but not sure about Starmer et al, contingent on where you live, try Lib Dem’s or Reform, according to whether you are more naturally left/right of centre. Or do what I did in 2019 and abstain as there was no Green candidate and a choice of Boris, Corbyn and Swinson made me feel physically sick.

The cheating was worse at Pride Park 1996/7 I can assure you with Eranio and Baiano diving for penalties with no defender in contactable distances. Refs fell for it (pun intended) both times in league and cup, dense then and now. Then Dean Sturridge got Franny sent off at the Dell. Then there was 2005 where Redknapp and Bassett looked like they were going to combust at the referee. Derby were a typical physical team at that level with an effective big lump (Steve Howard) and some finesse (Matt Oakley and Pearson). What cost us was Claus’s injury final day v Southend, which left Pele exposed to Howard in the first leg. He’d been signed as a DC but had played DMC during the better runs of form. Fagin deserved a red card but that Saints team were a bit like this one - some of the most gifted players in the division but went missing went it got tasty. Whereas under Nigel, Poch and Ronald, the likes of Morgan, Victor and Oriol ensured teams didn’t take liberties. Saints need at least one CM who can mix it.

Looks like a 2 point fine as well unless the final two wickets can put on stands bigger than the rest of the innings. It is a poor performance but when you look at their team and ours, how many Hampshire players make their first team, genuinely? Possibly Dawson for Cameron Steel (ex-Hants loanee, was an opener then). It’s internationals vs second XI in places. Their other 90mph option (Overton) was injured too! Curran brothers at the IPL too. Durham would have been a better litmus test than Surrey or Lancs. Worcs, Notts (even worse start), Kent and Somerset - they are the games that are must-win. Points elsewhere are a bonus.

116-5 close, unless it’s rain all day tomorrow it’s going to be a Surrey win. Vince and Prest did put on 46 but Gus Atkinson came on bowling 90mph+ and Vince needed treatment after a hit on the shoulder and out not long after. Surrey with their weapons with ball and bat won’t define Hampshire’s D1 status, it’s the Worcestershire, Kent, Notts and Somerset where wins need to be accrued to stay up.

Chris Philip’s name also popping up here although no longer a member of some of these racist groups https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/27/tory-staff-running-network-of-anti-ulez-facebook-groups-riddled-with-racism-and-abuse They have some huge problems. More garbage this morning in the wake of Dr Poulter’s defection about a leadership challenge to Sunak if the local elections yield the expected 400-500 council seats lost. With the hope of persuading him to go apparently rather than actually winning apparently. July GE talk again in response - do it! Private Eye reporting that Steve Watson, Chief Constable at GMP looking into Rayner housing allegations spoke at the right wing Freedom Association session of the Tory conference (Campbell Bannerman Chaired it FFS). So no prospect of any prosecution when there’s clear political bias. It’s already backfiring on them in the wider media and public before this.

Certainly not holding back, but then he has speaking up on these issues for years https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/27/top-tory-mp-defects-to-labour-in-fury-at-nhs-crisis All the post-2016 infiltrated Tory Party cares about is culture wars in a lame attempt to distract from the disaster their economic policies eg Truss and the laughable Laffer Curve crap and including but far from exclusively Brexit has been. Unless you used to vote UKIP or BNP there’s not much there for you as a voter, and Reform is probably the alternative some will pick if you want a full fat option of the populist strand.

What a surprise (not) that Van Den Bogard is a People Services & Change Director eg operational senior HR. ‘Defending the Post Office line’, aggressive tactics 1-1, economical with the truth, happy to drive a coach and horses through the law, agitating for expensive restructures which halve efficiency, only interested in defending the exec’s backside and yet the memory of a 120 year old when challenged. Yet lots of nice talk about caring for people with mental health issues, EDI, celebrate this day, that day, whilst hundreds of innocent people were incarcerated, lives destroyed and tragically some took their own. It’ll be the same outcome it is always is with that profession (fully qualified in it but happier to not be in it any longer), lots of muscular upwards talk ‘yeah, let’s kick the crap out of those dishonest subbies/staff’, go totally OTT, ignore the processes and policies they are responsible for which even then are based on the worst expected view of people, be exposed as unreasonable (which has taken far too long with this scandal) and end up either having to settle a botched case for double what it should be if they’d been reasonable, or worse still like here, getting torn a new arsehole and found to be suppressing evidence at an enquiry or employment tribunal. https://news.sky.com/story/post-office-inquiry-latest-apology-meaningless-without-accountability-former-sub-postmaster-says-as-ex-executive-faces-questions-13122120 I’ll exclude the HR Org Development people from the above as they’ve got an independent brain and you can actually have a realistic conversation with them. The senior HR Ops people and partners have made so many fuck ups in the different places I’ve worked costing eye watering sums in all sectors and always defended the indefensible, this being an extreme on the scale but very similar behaviourally to what I’ve observed. They avoid me these days as they know I’m like Neil Warnock with referees!

They did recover, and slightly in front of the game on 123/5 to Hants 151. Key first hour tomorrow which will go a long way to deciding the game. Get Burns early, Steel and Clark quickly and could limit the lead to 20-30 runs. Can’t afford any partnerships to build though. Abbas brilliant bowling 13-7-7-1, Abbott 2-35 off 13, Wheal adding pace and kept it accurate 1-25 off 12. Fuller a bit looser but did get Pope out plus made vital runs in our innings. Must have been a real green one, even the Kookaburra would have swung let alone the Dukes which seams as well.

There’s some truth in this, and some expectation management, I still remember (and laugh at) the Smith and Jones Intershitty sketch. The one big improvement which can made if gotten right is on cost and the ticketing system. It’s horrifically expensive under the current mess of a ticketing framework to travel any distance on the faster lines which is also where the environmental benefits stack up in getting people out of cars. I drove to work for years because of this (through some dreadful traffic) but in moving here have found a way of commuting to the Midlands using a free car park and split tickets on fast rail routes. Takes planning and organisation, far more than it should, but it works. The local franchises such as West Midlands Rail I’d probably leave be tbh, but the nationals and biggest regionals - LNER (which makes surpluses and runs better in public hands and loses money in commercial), Cross Country, Arriva, SWT and GWR work better nationalised as their margins are so much tighter than the local ones and maintenance bigger, more complex staffing. The key is to be able to invest strategically on upgrades when needed which where BR fell down a bit. And they’ll be competing with defence, education, local authorities etc, all of which have been hollowed out in recent years. The case for renationalisation is strongest in water because that has never really worked and to invest in the infrastructure and sewerage needed means the margins aren’t there. Hence the Thames Water debacle and also it’s unfair that for example millions visit Devon and Cornwall every summer yet the bill for keeping some of the beaches clean falls on the water ratepayers there via SWW. In rail, it’ll be popular and not as expensive (I don’t agree it will be cost free but it will save the commuter some much needed money). Overall I support it as at least there’s more accountability potentially and like water, it’s not an obvious profit generator like telecommunications where investment, innovation and good margins go in hand in hand.

Maybe not the right place for this but a giant of a politician who worked cross-parties all his career from the 70s at CPAG to Thatcher, Minister under Blair (fell out with Gordon Brown), and finally a Conservative-nominated cross-bench Peer. https://news.sky.com/story/labour-veteran-frank-field-dies-12914087 They don’t make them like that any more

How many goals conceded this season now? Must be 60 or getting on for it. I know we’ve had a Tyro League goalie for much of the season who Rasmus wasted £14m on, but if Maresca, McKenna, Farke, Corberan, or Wagner have the quality at this level of Bednarek, KWP, THB in a back 4, they ain’t conceding 60 odd goals. Thanks S-Clarke - 66 conceded so far. That’s disgusting. What happened to basic organisation?

Whoops - not a good day for Trump and his legal team https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68848464

Hideously expensive too for what, 1% of cases - one figure circulating of £230k per asylum seeker https://www.ft.com/content/3a8e4b8b-1e30-4423-83a0-818f2b7dec05 Some of the figures are eye watering here https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-stalled-rwanda-asylum-scheme-could-soar-to-500m-watchdog-says-13083968 Four times the cost of accommodation whilst processing appeals. Far better to invest that extra funding to speed cases up and put extra venues on for hearings. As Daniel Finkenstein says in The Times, the main USP of the Tory Party was that although public services wouldn’t be everything you want to be, there would be fiscal caution as a trade off. Now that’s gone out of the window over the last 14 years, the national debt doubled even from the credit crunch highest point under Brown before Ukraine war and even Covid, there’s no point in voting for them. He thinks Truss in particular will be the same millstone the IMF 1976 and Winter of Discontent was for Labour in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. This outrageous waste of taxpayers money for a publicity stunt does nothing to solve what is a very difficult issue. Can you hear the Taxpayers Alliance complaining? Only about aid given to groups appealing against it https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/millions_given_out_to_groups_campaigning_against_rwanda_plan £3m vs £500m. Hmmm, looks like their maths is as wonky as the Tory Party. No wonder the Truss 44 days was such a disaster with Matthew Sinclair their former research director (ha ha) a core part of Truss’s team as economic advisor.

No sign of Priti Patel on that list then… Denials from a few of the names at the time https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5039385/Two-ministers-condemn-dirty-dossier-claims.html but Bob Stewart (now without the whip…) was then cited for using the phrase ‘totty’ to a female reporter the previous year, which hasn’t been used in the workplace since 1990-something. No response there on being allegedly ‘perpetually intoxicated’ either. 2017 wasn’t the best year in the Stewart household https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4257998/Claire-Podbielski-Stewart-banned-drink-driving.html

Ukraine aid bill finally passed, along with a further package for Israel and Taiwan. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68848277 Never thought I’d type the sentence ‘well done Mike Johnson’ but real guts there to get that through, and a heap of skill across the aisles. Greene is a Putin puppet, in his and China’s pocket as much as Trump. Comrade Marj. Vote Trump, get Putin https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/20/republicans-ukraine-aid-package-congress -

Tidy but Warks attack even more toothless and slow than Hants. They’ve got some height but the pitches are too slow early season to come into play or to help the spinners as any turn is easily covered and not much bounce around. 85mph minimum to get anything out of it and neither of the XIs has a bowler of that type without Wheal and Turner. Good first drop partnership. Orr doesn’t look any better technically than Organ so far, both fish outside off but at least Organ had to deal with the Dukes on wet pitches.