revolution saint

Theresa May is taking over the club and has a plan to get us back into Europe. Can't wait to see her dancing and celebrating when we win the Champions League.

Honestly, I really don't understand why you keep insisting that Hojberg is not a ball winning midfielder - he's one of the best in the league! I know he's not everyone's cup of tea but quoting stats that back the very thing you're arguing against is just bizarre!

My money is on Folarin Balogun: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/folarin-balogun/profil/spieler/503770

I don't understand why you keep on about Hojbjerg not being a good tackler and ball winner. The stats you refer to are pretty clear that he is.

Sherlock more likely.

Sorry, should have made it clear the myth was that it was they bought it thinking it was Tower Bridge. I've actually been to Lake Havasu (which is why I know all about it). Very nice place too.

Apologies for getting all pedantic but that's an urban myth and never happened. Must be all those drugs n stuff. Anyway, I agree would be a superb deal if it happened and not sure why PEH has (it seems) Spurs and Everton fighting over him but I'm not about to argue them out of it.

Jeez, you absolute muppet! Julian Lewis is a remainer? What planet are you living on? Personally I'm just glad for the first time in my life I don't have an official conservative as my constituency MP.

TBH Neither has been outstanding. They're OK but I don't think either are going to have stellar careers at the very top level. If we let one or both of them go then I'd be doubtful it would be something we might later regret. One option no one seems to talk about is maybe moving Redmond back into a more of a central striker role - seemed to do OK there last season and would give a bit more opportunity for Djenepo (if he gets fit again).

I'd agree that equality of opportunity is a good starting position and both you and hypo are right about that. I'd also argue that some degree of equality of outcome makes for a healthy society but that's another argument entirely. However, how do you explain black graduates being twice as likely to be unemployed than white graduates? These people presumably have had good parents, have got qualified and yet still lag behind - they can't all have been slightly worse than the white candidate. In academia I think it's something like 16 - 18% of academics are BAME which is actually a higher representation than the 14% of the population so that's a bit higher than you would probably expect but they only make up 2.1% of senior positions. Same with football - a higher representation when it comes to players but a pitiful level at the management and coaching levels. I don't accept that it's because they're not attracted to these positions - it's that they don't get them (and they've had decent experience/qualifications/good parents). You're right - you won't get a completely proportionate split on everything and at a micro level you will obviously see more pronounced differences due to the small numbers but as a country we should be doing much better. It's too simple to blame this all on bad parents / poor opportunities because even when that isn't the case BAME people have worse outcomes. As I say, I don't have the answers - no one has all of them but we can recognise that this is a problem and has been for decades. It's all too easy to blame a lack of opportunity but that doesn't tell the whole story.

Hi Hypo, thanks for replying. So if it isn't unconscious bias then what's the reason for under-representation? I'm assuming here that you accept that there are organisations and pay levels where BAME are under-represented? By the way, you seem to be under a bit of a misunderstanding about representation as a concept - those lower paid jobs would also have a fair representation of BAME employees (so in the case of the UK about 14%). Given BAME people are under represented at higher pay levels then they're actually over represented at the lower and unemployed levels and so it's hardly surprising they're not calling out for more jobs of this kind. As for how you tackle unconscious bias I'm afraid I don't have all the answers and wouldn't pretend to. All I'm pointing out is that with regard to employment (in this case) BAME people are proportionally worse off than white people. Hope that helps!

I'm not sure why a F1 team is any different to a builder's merchant in Bradford? Anyway, the point is that BAME people are under represented in many jobs. In F1 Mercedes have said that only 3% of its workforce are BAME despite BAME people making up 14% of the (UK) population so there's a clear disparity for you. Forbes found that black graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts - why do you suppose that is? I think the problem is that as a society we've largely eradicated overt racism but at the very least unconscious bias is still there and the stats bear this out. We can't really hide from that anymore. So, we can moan about the forms protests take, the language being used or whether we should be forced to take a knee or not but it would be very difficult to deny the thrust of the argument which is that BAME people get a raw deal when compared to white people. Anyway, I'm not having a go at you Lighthouse - your post just caught my eye.

Bit of a bump on this one but seeing as we've had a couple of transfer links with potential Brentford targets does this mean Phil Giles is the fella they had in mind as a player trading expert? Transfer links: Arsenal kid: https://tbrfootball.com/report-southampton-one-of-many-clubs-interested-in-arsenals-folarin-balogun/ Ljubicic: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8489905/Brentford-weigh-Rapid-Vienna-midfielder-Dejan-Ljubicic.html Would seem to tick the boxes in terms of what we want and presumably wants to stay at Brentford until the season is over. I don't know much about him and it's speculation on my part but he seems to have a pretty good record at finding decent players.

OK here's a question for you: Why exactly do you think we've suffered more excess deaths? Obviously not the governments fault in your opinion, in fact, it seems to be anything but that. So they're completely blameless, is that it? Or are you arguing that we've fared no worse than anyone else? I've got a job to do pal and I can't be arsed to subscribe (busy enough as it is) so I won't be replying so take your time.

Prepare to get the virus under control so that track and trace can work at manageable levels and prevent unnecessary deaths like, I dunno, virtually every other European country and China. Seems if the plan was to allow a manageable spread then we did a bloody sight worse than everyone else did and took us longer than everyone else too. I'm not claiming unlucky by the way - I'm claiming total shambles.

I'm probably being dense about this but we've got more excess deaths for the size of our population than virtually all other developed nations - is that not the fault of the government or were we just unlucky? It seems particularly unlucky given we were supposed to be behind Italy, Spain and most of the other European countries and had more notice and time to prepare than they had. Obviously there are structural issues that may make comparison between countries difficult and you can chuck in long standing funding issues not necessarily entirely the fault of this government but surely they must be to blame for an awful lot of our "bad luck". There were times during this crisis where they looked in complete chaos and not a clue amongst them. I'll give the Chancellor some credit though - he at least seemed to have an idea.

Ringo Starr innit? Easy mistake to make when you don't have your mind cast firmly back in the good old days though

Strange Lord D, thought you'd have been full of praise for Starmer's stand against anti-semitism. You were pretty outraged at Corbyn and his lack of it - or is your support only conditional when it suits you?

His motivation or instincts are entirely irrelevant. When lockdown was announced we weren't told to use our common sense - we were issued a directive that we were to adhere to and failure would result in criminal charges or a fine. He broke his (or at least the govt) rules. Failure to sack him undermines the government position and any further directives they might issue.

I live in Dibden and can confirm there's been literally hundreds of Amazon delivery vans in the area. I suspect they're scouting the area out. I've spoken to a few of them recently as coincidentally I've also had some deliveries. Although none of them could officially confirm these rumours, crucially none of them denied them either. The only thing that concerns me slightly is the Amazon smile logo looks like a circumcised ****.

I'm working more from home than I ever did at work - it's a sodding nightmare!

Thanks for the reply. Your argument now is very different to the one employed during the referendum though (and still be used by Boris and Nige). Brexit wasn't just going to give us our country back - we would be better off and whether you like it or not it's success will be measured in economic terms. If your argument was being used during the referendum then the result would have been easier to accept but it wasn't. Any attempt to show this has real risks and is more than likely to make us poorer was "project fear" - now you seem to be saying that we probably won't notice a difference but if we do then it's a price worth paying. That's a huge backtrack. I do accept that for you it probably is a price worth paying - you'd be happy for an economic sacrifice in exchange for an airy fairy concept of freedom and sovereignty but those were not the terms presented to people when they voted. By the way, I think the average Joe is already noticing a difference financially (for example if they like to go abroad for holidays) and I think they'll notice more of a difference in the coming years but that'll be dismissed as "project fear" again. What I do take issue with is this idea that sovereignty matters that much more to your "average Joe" than the pound in his pocket. Frankly I think that idea is pony (to coin a phrase). I can't imagine many people besides you cheering a vague concept of sovereignty that makes no difference to their daily lives whatsoever whilst at the same time they face increasing job insecurity (extreme example) or just being worse off financially. I hope that explains why I really don't like this idea that suddenly it's a price worth paying - that wasn't what we were sold.

Care to come up with some kind of answer - IE you do believe we'll be better off - or that you now think that sovereignty is more important than wealth? Or perhaps you'll bottle it and fail to answer as per usual.

Hold on, hold on. The Brexit argument was that we would also be better off. No money being paid to the EU, better trade deals etc etc etc - anyone who said otherwise was all part of "Project Fear". You don't get to start some things are more important than money - if we're not better off after leaving the EU then we were sold a slogan on the back of lies.

I watched 100 days yesterday evening and they did a piece on this. What surprised me was the only angle they were interested in was whether football clubs can afford to p*ss off China - no mention on whether the allegations were true or not. In fairness Newsnight did a piece not that long ago but it's disappointing they weren't prepared to look at the substance behind the story. That'll be modern journalism for you.