tajjuk

It is a good read and I think a lot of football fans seem to forget that refs are humans and also ignore that they get so many decisions right but might get one or two wrong and that is all that gets focused on.

It also highlights what I think is the main issue with VAR, the technology is fine, the people running it are not and it's good to see they are looking at training specific VAR operators rather have existing refs doing it as it's basically a completely different job. 

Got to be something to do with defensive work rate/tracking/pressing I would reckon. Though considering Mo completely let his man go who then scored at the weekend I wonder if we will see a change. 

Orsic is a very odd one, something going on there, maybe something has happened to him mentally that the club obviously doesn't want to comment on.

RS just seems to trust certain players to do certain jobs, whilst others don't seem to be trusted. 

Edozie was always one for the future IMO, probably has already got far more minutes than anyone expected this season. If we go down I think he could be a key player for us getting back up. 

16 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

Out of all of our January signing he was the one I’d say most of the fanbase were across the board happy with .. look at the Orsic thread,zero questioning or negativity towards this signing .. many thinking he could be our next tadic, and how he actually looks like he has end product unlike most of our options 

I have a suspicion maybe he had a fall out behind the scenes or that  his fitness is way way below par .. he looked like he had such finesse in his shots when cutting in 🧐

Agree, think there has to be something else beyond just not good enough, he's hardly had a look in and he's clearly caused trouble to good teams in the past as shown by his European performances, plus the guy is a regular in one of the best international sides around. Got to be an injury or he's having a really tough time settling or something or he's had a falling out with someone. 

1 hour ago, S-Clarke said:

Confusing post. We scored 3 goals, Adams and Theo from open play. I don't think you can look at Bazunu for any of the goals y/day, if you're really nit-picking maybe, but the first for example was down to a wandering Perraud and a non-tracking back Ely.

I've seen Orsic play a few games, against Grimsby the last one, and to say he was inept is being generous. He's done nothing to get mins ahead of anyone else. It's another mysterious case of ''they're not playing, so they become world-beaters''.

Yeh mainly Elyonoussi completely switching off, Perraud had gone round on the cover so don't think you can fault him. Porro then absolutely hammers it and from that close Bazanu has no chance, you either hope it hits you or the guy skies it. Honestly all 3 of their goals had a little bit luck in them, the way Porro hit it it could have gone anywhere not sure it was the most composed finish. Then the Kane header probably isn't a goal if we don't lose two centre-backs to injury and the other one it's the bounce that takes it over the keeper, he's not really hit that cleanly but the bounce takes it into the top corner. 

Not sure it can be claimed we are 'hopeless', not very good certainly but the team are working hard, they seem to be better organised and there is plenty of fight there, but overall just not enough quality to make the difference especially in the 'on paper' easier games against teams that defend deeper. 

14 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Everton will stay up because their squad is not and should never have been relegation material. Dyche will keep them up by being mediocre where Lampard was dreadful. Next season expectant Everton fans will demand progress towards their rightful place in the Champions League; Dyche will provide further mediocrity with turgid football, uninspiring results and a forgettable, bottom half league position. Around Christmas the board will decide he has taken them as far as he can and sack him.

Selles has 8 points from his 6 league games in charge, exactly the same as Dyche in his last 6. I doubt we’d be any better off with him here.

This, Everton have been doing this every 2 years or so, spend shed loads, appoint manager with good style, goes tits up, appoint clogger, clogger saves them, next season clogger produces expected turd football and they go again. 

Dyche is not some sort of magic man, he's done no different to what Selles has done which is basically go back to basics and try to be as solid as possible. He's only got as many points as he's got because no one expected an old full back like Coleman to run into the channel and shoot from an absurd angle, which somehow fluked them 3 points in a game they were completely outplayed in. They have been turgid in pretty much every game since he took over. 

Said it before but I think seeing as we have gone back to pressing basics we are always likely to do better against teams that play more than defensive longer ball teams. IIRC Brentford are the most direct team in the league and we just don't seem to have the guille to break teams like that down, we are much better creating some chaos in the opposition or on the transition which showed against Spurs.

And yeh its pretty bad luck to lose two centre-backs, I don't think Kane scores that against Bednerak or ABK, he's decent in the air but not amazing and doesn't have the leap or size of like Haaland who will trouble even the biggest centre-backs. 

Someone played the MOTD theme outside no.10 as the cabinet were leaving. 😆

18 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Lineker fell foul of the guidelines he agreed to as part of his contract - guidelines I believe that have now been rewritten (again!!).

LOL no he didn't, which is why initially they did nothing to him at all. All they said is they would have a word with him. Multiple people literally working within news and politics have been allowed to tweet political views, Alan Sugar depicted Jeremy Corbyn as a Nazi, Andrew Neil ran BBC news politics but at the same time was the chairman of the very right wing magazine the Spectator and again tweeted political stuff all the time. There are countless other examples, Gary Lineker did nothing wrong, broken no guidelines and that is shown by the BBC's initial reaction. 

They then bowed to government pressure as every far right Tory idiot MP piled in to call for him to be sacked so they flip flopped their decision. 

They then u-turned it again when it became clear they were very much in the wrong, all their double standards got called out and all the Tory influence in senior positions was pointed out. 

The Guardian has been handed a load of whatsapp messages and e-mails that show the Tory government has been pressurising the BBC for the last two years, they asked the BBC not to call the lockdown, a lockdown, when pretty much every other media outlet did. They asked the BBC not to comment on the affair Johnson had when London mayor with the american woman who then got government contracts. They also asked the BBC to be more critical of Labour during covid when they were proposing different plans to the government, which the BBC dutifully did. Seems like ordinary people within the BBC are fighting back against the Tory rot that has infested it. Multiple ex-employees have talked about the Tory influence in the management and the fear they spread around employees if they didn't toe the line of not criticising the government. These would be people like Robbie Gibb who literally worked for the conservative government before joining the BBC, or Tim Davie who was a Tory council candidate, or the chair who is a Tory donor and helped arranged a loan for Boris Johnson. 

Oh and hilariously all of those Tory MPs who tried to get him sacked for speaking the truth, now are shouting the BBC should lose it licence fee, because they backed down. So they couldn't cancel Lineker for speaking the truth and they now want to cancel the whole BBC because of it, many of them currently have shows on GBeebies and talktv, literal rival media companies that would clearly benefit from the end of the BBC. These people have no shame. 

 

What's funny though is he has scored that amount of goals with Man City not particularly playing to his strengths. At least 3 of the goals last night I think were from set pieces where they actually put crosses into him and he was causing chaos, he's got a giant leap on him together with him being 6' 4". 

Just a thought but I wonder if part of the reason some of these players are not getting minutes is not down to them being bad or useless but more to Selles going back to basically Ralpha pressing triggers and the 'playbook' and these players just not up to speed with them yet. 

Also the guy has had a handful of minutes so far, so considering he has come into a new league, new country, I thought he has done ok. You don't score that weight of goals without having something about you so I think he'll come good, I don't think he is another Carillo. I am not saying he is suddenly going to score 20+ goals a season but I think he could easily be a 10-12 goals guy in the PL who also adds a few assists and just generally helps the play by being this big presence up front. 

Vitinha, who was basically are other main striker target, the one that went to Marseille is yet to score for them in 6 games. 

On 13/03/2023 at 15:09, sydney_saint said:

Is the league actually lacking quality? Or is that there are just lots of teams with similar quality squads? Most teams now have a squad costing well over 100m and all but a few sides have a side costing over 200m. I know cost doesn't guarentee quality, but I'd back most of the sides in the league to do pretty well in Europe. West Ham did well in europa league last season and are cruising the conference league, yet are seriously struggling in the league. 

Premier League transfer fees are massively over inflated because of the money in the league. You only have to look at the fees for like Antony, Scammaca, Paqueta, Sancho, Nunez, Richarlison, Gordon etc. and see the returns/quality those clubs are getting to see that. I'm also not saying those players are flat out flops or bad players, just that when a PL club comes calling in Europe or to another PL club the fees are off the chart and not really reflective of how good they are.  I feel like someone like Antony or Nunez moves to like a good Spanish or Italian club they aren't paying £70-80 million but probably more like £40-50 million. 

Also yes West Ham did well in Europe last year, but they were doing decently in the league as well at the time and the conference league is not very high quality. 

Again I'd point to Spurs still sitting 4th, fairly comfortably, despite on many occasions this year being pretty damn average, and a lot of discontent over how they playing with Conte rumoured to be sacked etc.

As far as I can see anyone that basically isn't a Man Utd fan seems to have said the calls were pretty much spot on. 

As I said the other day the whole bottom of the league is just bad, there is not a huge amount of quality deciding games right now, or teams clearly dominating others, so whilst we are still bad and people criticise the lack of quality in our squad I think it is not that bad compared to a lot in the PL. 

What baffles me is Utd has multiple black and mixed raced players. I mean FFS was Rashford not racially abused after the pen miss in the Euros final? Are these 'fans' just waiting for one slip up by a Utd player to racially abuse them or does their racism get trumped by club loyalties, all very odd. Hating on someone because of their skin colour just baffles me full stop, I can get disliking someone because of their actions, I mean Fernandes must be one of the most hated footballers in the country right now, and a lot of that comes down to how he behaves on a pitch and presents himself, but going straight to the racism against a guy just because of one tackle, when your club has multiple black players in it just makes no sense. 

If the people doing it can be found and are from the Uk then hopefully they get banned from social media and all football grounds. 

21 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

Up to 50k people turning up on our beaches uninvited and unannounced, is an invasion.

But the over 200k from Ukraine, that's apparently not an 'invasion' ?

65% of the people crossing in boats in 2021 had their asylum applications approved, I don't know of any 'invasion' in history where the invaders, that are apparently 'hostile', were then welcomed to stay.

Also as Badgers says what invasion landed less than a thousand people a week and also 'attacked' with women and children on rubber dinghies.  D-Day involved nearly half a million combat service personnel, on around 7k ships, with hundreds of tanks and nearly 3k aircraft, all landing within about 48 hours. THAT is an invasion ffs. 

I also find it hilarious that grown men are shit scared of men, women and children from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan etc. arriving with nothing pretty much but their clothes on their backs on rubber dinghies. 

23 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

I have just seen Sunak’s contribution to the Lineker debacle from yesterday. Having sent out his henchmen and women all week to whip up a media frenzy, added and abetted by his right wing media friends, he finally say a few nice things about our Gary then washes his hands of the whole affair by saying it is a matter for the BBC! Why then wheel out the odious Braverman to comment? She even managed to drag in the Holocaust for good measure just to make sure the Jewish contingent were stirred up despite the fact that he only spoke about the language used and said nothing about the Holocaust in his Tweet. If nothing else his point has been proven. This Government helped by the right wing media are playing exactly the same mind games and are trying to manipulate the public in the same way. The sad thing is that we have learned nothing from history and those of a certain mindset, a number who post here frequently, swallow the red meat thrown to them gladly and carry on the job the likes the Daily Mail do through social media outlets. Thank goodness the vast majority seem to have their number and it is good to see the push back against those who continue to propagate the right wing bullshit on here and elsewhere. I think we all know whose names will appear on the posts following this one.

The current position appears to be that if anyone associated with the BBC says something supportive of the Government, that falls under the “impartiality” umbrella and they embrace it. If anyone associated with the BBC says something critical of the Government, that falls outside of the “impartiality” umbrella and they work to shut it down. Sound familiar?

I think Sunak's response shows several things, which probably also shows he's a bit cleverer than the other idiots in that government as he's seen the bigger picture here.

Firstly clearly he's not in control of the government/party, he couldn't muzzle the far right lunatics and media from spouting their mouth off and blowing this up like idiots.

Secondly they are supposed to be the party for free speech and being against 'cancel culture'. Yet here they are trying to silence Gary Lineker and getting him cancelled, whilst also showing clear government involvement into the BBC. So any right wing voter who holds these things as important will be put off by how many of them have acted this week. The BBC is held in high regard I reckon by your traditional Tory voter and as will free speech standards, so that alone will hurt them in traditional tory voting areas, where they are already struggling and where those people give no shit about immigration. Loads of 'safe' traditional Tory seats are already looking wobbly, this will only hurt more. 

Thirdly its completely overshadowed multiple of his announcements, no is talking about his 'Stop the boats' really and his 'deal' with Macron barely got noticed by anyone.

Fourthly I think they know Lineker is popular and well liked (hence his near 9 million followers on twitter, way more that read any of the tory rags), plus popular with football fans, many of whom who will probably be in key voting areas, so him speaking the truth to them is bad enough (which is of course why the tory controlled media hates him, they can't control him and he has a bigger platform than them), but making a massive thing about this just spreads his tweet and the truth to more and more people/ 

And finally it has completely exposed the Tory rot and double standards within the BBC, so their careful planting of Tory stooges throughout the organisation is getting more and more exposed. Plus the common myth of the 'lefty BBC' is being debunked as well. It might lead to resignations/sacking at the BBC so they could lose their influence and at the very least it harms BBC credibility whenever they talk about anything praising the government going forward, anything they now report on about the government will come with a lot of suspicion from the public. 

So none of it really helps Sunak or the Tory government going forward. 

3 hours ago, Singapore Saint said:

The oppressed and vulnerable are the British people who have to put up with illegal immigration. 

65% of all asylum applications from those crossing on boats in 2021 were approved, so the British people are not 'putting up with illegal immigration'.

Plus the majority that got declined were from Albania, where we have an agreement on deportations of failed Albanian asylum seekers to very quickly send them back to Albania, but the agreement is not being enforced and isn't happening. So yet another example of this government's continued failings.

The vulnerable British people in this country are being oppressed by their own government, and they are trying to get everyone to hate and fear other oppressed and vulnerable people to deflect from the issues they are causing, and the sad thing is idiots like you believe it. 

Tory 101, screw the country over, country should be angry with the tories, but the tories gets everyone to hate everyone else, particularly blaming minorities for the problems. Divide and rule. 

 

If people want actual facts around the channel crossing and immigration https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Refugee-Council-Channel-Crossings-briefing-March-2023.pdf

 

9 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

The biggest claim I remember from those who thought Covid was a conspiracy was that we were willingly giving away our rights and that the government would keep us in lockdown forever, not giving up those special emergency powers they had. That proved to be a load of nonsense without even looking at anything else. 

Yep, it should also be noted that whilst lockdowns were an unprecedented move by governments, pretty much every government across the world came to the conclusion that they were the best solution and these were left wing, right wing, centre, they all agreed and all the scientists all agreed. 

Now of course I am sure some whacky conspiracy theorists will claim that is evidence of some sort of worldwide cabal pulling the strings, the simple reality is that the world can barely ever agree on anything and left and right within many countries never agreed on anything, but the vast majority of nations in the world all came to the same conclusion.

The only real different path iirc were Sweden, who then regretted it and I think went to lockdowns later and the only major loud pushback (aside from the conspiracists) came from the crazy libertarian wing of the Republican party, who are fringe politics 101 pretty much and their policies on most things will end up causing harm and carelessness to people.

 

45 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

The Redcafe is hilarious, absolutely delusional fans - I doubt any of them ever go to Old Trafford tbf - but apparently they were playing 10 vs 13 (ref and var against them), it was never a pen, they committed no dives, and they should have had a blatant penalty... also, we played for the draw apparently... despite having 17 shots and hitting the woodwork like 3 times. What a truly obnoxious fanbase....

Anyway, added bonus over how mad its made them 🤣

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/post-match-vs-southampton.476151/page-2



This gem in particular - "we got robbed today. One of the worst performances of a ref I've ever seen. I really hope ETH goes berserk now, ban or not. There is no excuse anymore for the refs, absolutely pathetic performance.

Soton are horric though and I hope they get relegated. 1 man more and they still play for the draw those absolute C***ts."

🙄

Jeez I know all football fans are biased but that is hilarious. These people are pampered fans, they win too much and get too much favour from the refs that they just cant handle things not going their way.

De Gea was MOM, we hit the woodwork, they were clearing off the line and we were at the least competing if not outplaying them when it was 11 v 11. 

Utd are used to getting everything their own way at Old Trafford with the refs, so its no surprise they get sour grapes when a ref isn't biased to them.

10-15 years ago maybe that is not a red card but everyone knows if you go over the ball like that, without control you are going to get sent off, it was dangerous and reckless. 

The real sad thing is, if the owners had just gone with Selles straight away we'd probably be comfortably mid table right now. Yeh we are still struggling to score but not much he can do about that, but we look far more solid, organised and confident so I think easily would have picked up 2-3 more wins and few draws in the Jones period and probably be on like 30+ points right now. 

On 10/03/2023 at 11:04, LuckyNumber7 said:

Try travelling around the US and you will see what 'huge amounts of empty land' looks like, it ain't this country where you're rarely more than a few miles away from the nearest town or village. Countryside is important for many reasons and does not just exist to be built on.

Yes I get that people die, emigrate etc, and? NET migration is currently over half a million people and that's not even including the ones coming over on boats. That means we have to effectively build TWO Southamptons every year just to accommodate the people coming here legally, and still you want more. That is nowhere near sustainable and is it any wonder so many younger people will never be able to own their own home.

We take less because we are a much smaller country so it's not nonsense at all. If France want to take in millions then that's up to them but should have no bearing on how many we allow in. When would enough be enough for you, or should we just wave everyone through who wants to come here?

Yes they have a right to apply for asylum, that is very different to travelling over on dinghies. On that last paragraph I agree, we should be doing that AS WELL as cracking down on the illegal boat crossings.

I never mentioned stick, I said remove the carrot. If they know they won't be allowed to stay then they would be pretty stupid to still pay thousands to a criminal gang to risk their lives and be permanently banned from the UK.

Then we need to re-draft it or rip it up altogether as it's not working in this day and age. The rights of foreigners should always be second to those of the people living here.

Lol and this just sounds like anti Tory, anti Brexit frothing at the mouth. Some valid points in there but I have no love for any of the political parties. 

But yeah let's make things better by welcoming in more of these 'poor, desperate' people, like this guy.

https://www.aol.co.uk/news/man-came-uk-illegal-boat-171222786.html

 

You get that most of that net migration is students, a huge proportion in fact and that is welcomed by this country and our universities, in fact it's massive for the economy.

Then there are all the actual visas given out, by our government by the way. Hundreds of thousands of people are basically invited in. 

I mean if it's such a problem and we are overflowing with people, no space, blah blah all your other dumb arguments then why when we have full control now over non-EU and EU immigration has immigration GONE UP since Brexit and the end of EU freedom of movement?, and why are giving so many visas to people exactly?

Also if it's half a million or more people that we are welcoming with open arms by the way, then why are a particular 30-40k such a problem?  These people are apparently a tipping point now are they? the 450k others oh those are fine, but the ones coming on boats it's suddenly 'OMG there is no space' and all these other silly excuses.

I wonder why.

'We take less because we are a much smaller country so it's not nonsense at all'

Land mass or space is a pretty irrelevant argument overall, but if you want to go with it then how come Italy took in more than us, despite having a similar land mass? 

Austria is about 1/3rd the size of the UK (and a lot of its mountains) yet it had 38k people applying for asylum in 2021, which is only 10k less than the UK had.

Germany had 190k people applying for asylum in 2021, almost four times what we did, but Germany isn't four times bigger than us, it's not even twice the size. 

So yes it's a nonsense argument. There are a displaced people in the world, there are refugees fleeing all sorts of things, many from countries that we had a role in fucking up, yet we take in far far less than our fair share. Which makes the whole fuss and all the absurd language about it completely dumb, it's a completely overblown problem. 

'Yes they have a right to apply for asylum, that is very different to travelling over on dinghies.'

No it isn't. 

They have a right to apply for asylum in this country and if safe and legal routes do no exist to then people crossing on dinghies have that right and in fact around 90% do then apply for asylum.

And aside from those coming from Albania, which has around 25% asylum approval rate, all the other countries have around 80-90% asylum application success rates, which means in basic terms around 65% of those crossing the channel in the boats are genuine refugees who get given asylum to stay in the UK. 

Also just on Albania -

"Since 2014, UK Governments have also agreed eight bilateral agreements with the Albanian Government relating
to migration issues. This includes an agreement for the readmission of respective citizens of the two countries.
Despite being agreed on 8 July 2021, this agreement does not appear to have come into force. If it did, it could in
theory allow the UK Government to more quickly return Albanians who arrive via small boats"

So we have an agreement to quickly process Albanian asylum applications and send back to Albania any that don't get asylum granted, which would be around 75% based on previous figures, yet we are not doing it, many of them are sat at tax payers expense in migrant centres and hotels.  People harping on about 'Economic migrants', well they are mainly the Albanians, and we can already quickly deport them, yet the government isn't doing it. 

So the solution for those people is already there. 

'Then we need to re-draft it or rip it up altogether as it's not working in this day and age. The rights of foreigners should always be second to those of the people living here.'

Not working according to how exactly? You.  It works fine, as the statistics above show, people come here as genuine refugees, and the vast majority are granted asylum. Over 65% of those coming across in the boats in 2021 got their asylum applications approved, and considering a large proportion of the others are Albanians who we could quickly deport but aren't, I think it's pretty clear what is not working. 

What is not working is the laws preventing them coming here safely and legally, there are no safe routes of passage for most of them.

As an example no Ukrainians are recorded as crossing the channel in 2022, yet over 219,000 visas have been granted to Ukrainian citizens to stay in the UK. So hundreds of thousands have come here and have wanted to come here (and many of them would have come through multiple other European countries on the way, I see no one is asking why the Ukrainians didn't stay in Poland or Germany or France etc. etc).

So why didn't the Ukrainians come on the the small boats? Why, well it is obvious why, they have safe routes of passage into the country to apply for asylum so of course they did that.

So no the laws on refugees do not need change, they have worked for last 70 years as laws of compassion and humanity for suffering displaced people. What needs to change is the routes to apply for asylum so they don't need the boats. 

And yeh using a anecdotal really shows you have a well thought out argument....

I mean there are no British people who stab others are there, no, and stereotyping a whole group of people on the actions of a handful that is perfectly fine, cos all football fans are hooligans right?  

On 10/03/2023 at 11:04, trousers said:

I think we can all acknowledge and agree that international law allows people to claim asylum in whatever country they choose to do so. That's a given. I guess what some people find hard to comprehend, perhaps understandably to a certain degree, is why someone fleeing their homeland for fear of their life wouldn't naturally seek to claim asylum as soon as they reach safety, in whatever country that may be. I guess what some people are thinking is: "surely the relief of having saved their life would lead them to claim asylum as soon as possible rather than possibly risk their life further by extending/prolonging their journeys more than they need to in order to stay safe?"

In other words, just because the law allows someone to do something, it may not actually be logical and/or sensible to do what the law allows you to do?

I saw this eloquently explained the other day.

If you are forced out from your home, your country, your people, your family, friends, possibly suffered trauma or injury or persecution, basically having very little choice in your life. Instead of people doing the compassionate, empathetic human response of 'Oh that is terrible, of course you can come here and start a new life in safety', people want to take away the only choice those people have left, i.e. what country they restart their life in. 

So no I do not think that is understandable to question that. 

On 10/03/2023 at 13:21, Whitey Grandad said:

The south east of England is very densely populated.

You seem to think that all you need for housing is a bit of land. This is the simple logic of a simpleton. You also need electricity, gas (or more electricity), water, waste water, sewerage, schools, doctors, dentists, hospitals, roads, and some other land in order to replace the land that you’ve just built over.

Yet thickheads like you (I don’t abuse people very often) haven’t begun to think about any of these requirements.

You also need to find somebody to pay for all this. 200,000 new homes at £200,000 each minimum is £40bn that is taken out of the economy and invested in bricks and mortar. And that is just the direct cost. There is also the detrimental effect in the rest of the economy.

And don’t get me started in CO2 emissions. 

You'd think someone calling some else a 'thickhead' wouldn't be so much a simpleton to not realise the 'land argument' wasn't made by me, I was just responding to it. I'd already said it was a dumb argument.

You'd also think someone who wasn't a simpleton would realise that infrastructure building, house building etc. is actually a huge net gain to the economy. 

Dumbass. 

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

What you really mean is “if I agree with the criticism “

As the bloke who claims this is the most right wing Tory Government in generations, you’re hardly the best person to judge what is and isnt fair & objective. 
 

You rant on about The Daily Mail but at least you’re not forced to pay for it and you don’t get chucked in jail if you refuse to. 

I don't claim it's an undeniable fact. You can literally ask ex-tories about it, people like Rory Stewart, Michael Heseltine, John Major, say they do not recognise this tory party and are appalled by it. You also only have to look at their policies and rhetoric, it's about as far right as you can get whilst still being in a democracy. 

Also I don't need to judge what is objective, facts literally do that for themselves. Calling Boris Johnson a liar is not a political opinion, it's an objective fact. Saying the language used by Braverman and this government about refugees and asylum seekers is not dissimilar to the language used in early 1930s Germany again is a fact, anyone with knowledge of history knows. In fact it's also sadly not too dissimilar to language used in THIS country in the 1930s about Jewish refugees, which was sadly similar, and has been pointed our by several historians. That reluctance and language in this country likely cost thousands of Jewish people their lives, for example over 10k Jewish children were taken into this country fleeing the Nazis, yet their parents were denied entry and many thousands of them ended up dying in the Holocaust. IIRC the Daily Mail was publishing articles at this time questioning Jewish refugees from Germany being taken in by Britain so at least we know they have been true to form for the last 80 years. 

I rant about the Daily Mail because it's a disgusting biased rag that has no journalistic standards and should have been shut down years ago for its continued lying, we should have proper regulation of the press which shows transparency of these organisations, who funds them, who they advocate for etc. and higher standards to clear. Hopefully the multiple law suits going on against it will kill it off. 

49 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Fiona Bruce is an ambassador for REFUGE, a charity that helps victims of domestic abuse.

Oops !

But I think this sadly shows the situation at the BBC, I seriously doubt Fiona Bruce thinks 'but it only happened once' is a good defence for domestic abuse, I also seriously doubt she thinks Boris' dad should get anywhere near the honours list, but such is the culture now at the BBC they have to defend the indefensible and toe the party line to keep their jobs. 

10 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

No matter who is in power. That is why the telly-tax should be scrapped and this nonsense will go away and you only have to worry about your job if you're either over 50 or question the covid narrative - which of course the BBC played its part for the government

 

Defunding it makes it no better.

What do you think will replace it? A fair and balanced broadcaster? You think some rich philanthropist with good intentions and honour will create a media company, news channel etc. ? Of course not you'll just get another version of the Daily Mail or Sky/Fox or CNN, something owned by a rich person or corporation which pushes agenda's for their owners.  The Daily Mail doesn't giving a flying f about the people of this country, it literally pushes an agenda that suits its rich owners, which means keep tories in power at all costs. 

Just because the BBC has been infested by Tories is not a reason to get rid of it, it's a reason to fix and rescue it.

The whole point of proper journalism is to question things, discuss things and expose the truth. Challenge lies, expose false narratives, tell the stories and news that are important to people of the country. That is what the BBC should be doing, it should be free to criticise the government all it likes as long as it is fair criticism and especially if its objectively based. 

Literally the BBC has a statue of George Orwell outside its HQ that says "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"

Have Liverpool turned into Spurs? This seems very Spursy. 

6 minutes ago, iansums said:

I’m a fan of Lineker, he is a great presenter and I would be sad to see home leave the BBC. The problem here is that Lineker went too far by comparing the government to the Nazis, this is disrespectful to so many. It is a problem that many on the left have, consistently accusing the government of being right wing or racist, it really isn’t. They lose credibility because of this.

He didn't compare them to Nazi's, he said the language was not too dissimilar to that being used in Germany in the 1930s, which he was factually correct on. Braverman's speech and the government's rhetoric vilifies and dehumanises asylum seekers, it seeks to divide and rule the populace getting them hate on minorities to distract from the real issues (like how this government has basically broken the entire country). He was making a point about the slippery slope of democratically elected governments and people in power using language like this and basically attacking minorities and where it leads. He wasn't saying they were literal nazis or that the government is going to commit a holocaust. 

There was nothing wrong with what he said, anyone with a knowledge of history would know that genocides, the holocaust, extreme regimes etc. they don't happen overnight, there are steps on the way that led to these things were not enough people spoke up and call this sort of stuff out, that is exactly what Lineker did. 

Also calling the government 'right wing' is hardly inaccurate, this government is the most right wing version of the Tory party in generations. It's actions, policies and rhetoric has appalled many former Tory party people. Even Thatcher and Churchill knew the importance of looking out for refugees and asylum seekers. 

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Very much looking like the BBC has shot itself in the foot on this one. 

It's 'impartiality' is a complete lie being shown by its own hypocrisy. You only have to look at Fiona Bruce at least appearing to be defending or diminishing the proven domestic violence by Stanley Johnson. (and a clearly good reason, amongst others why he shouldn't get honoured). The BBC's own staff are scared of any government/tory criticism and if any happens they have to challenge back, even when its completely ridiculous like suggesting Boris Johnson;'s father putting his wife in hospital happening only 'once' or Laura Kinsberg taking issue with Boris Johnson being called a liar by the leader of the SNP.

They are so scared of losing their jobs or being hounded by the Daily Mail they will tell you the sky is green if it defends the government or protects a tory. 

According the Guardian a Sir David Attenbrough programme has been pulled because they were worried it was too critical of the governments lack of action on climate change, so now even one of the world's foremost nature broadcasters, who is a huge advocate for environmental issues isn't allowed to criticise the government or even appear to criticise the government. 

Meanwhile the director of the BBC is having lunch with Boris Johnson getting him a loan, another senior director at the BBC was literally a conservative councillor and was a conservative party member, who allegedly got the Mash Report cancelled because it was too critical of the Tories, another senior person at the BBC has made donations to the Tory party.

Alan Sugar is a BBC employee, he has mouthed off on twitter about Corbyn, about trade unions, and even said the Senegal football team looked like jewellery sellers on the beach on Marbella which caused a diplomatic incident. 

Andrew Neil was senior political editor and presenter at the BBC for years and spouted off all sorts of right wing tweets and was literally running one of most right wing magazines in the country whilst still a BBC employee. 

A Nadine Dorris unhinged and baseless rant about Sue Gray went completely unchallenged in a Radio 4 interview, there was zero push back or counter to it despite it being complete rubbish, to the point that multiple complained to the BBC about it and they have admitted fault. 

This is the 'impartial' BBC, it's a mouth piece for government lies and propaganda. 

8 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

We are already one of the most densely populated major countries in Europe, you may not have a problem with vast swathes of the countryside disappearing under concrete but I and many others do. As you point out, the south east in particular is very over crowded and though you may make some valid points, most immigrants want to live in or near London, not up north in the middle of nowhere.

How are these people not contributing to the housing shortages, do they not need somewhere to live? If 50k per year are coming across then that's probably at least 10-20k extra homes needing to be built just to accommodate the illegals coming over on boats. It's not the only problem but it certainly is a problem. Here in and around Southampton, and also where my parents live in the midlands, there are new housing estates and projects popping up all over the place and more and more green belt land is disappearing. No-one is saying the housing shortage is solely down to immigrants but it's not exactly rocket science, the more people coming in the more housing you need.

You're the one seemingly fine waving through illegal immigrants, so what is the point of a border? Whether you like it or not, they ARE coming here illegally. Crossing through multiple safe countries to get here all of which have more space than we do. Many are coming from Albania ffs, they are illegal economic migrants coming from very different cultures to ours and they should not be our responsibility. A government's job is to look after it's own people first, not anyone who decides they want to come here.

Aside from the immigration issue, these boat crossings need to be stopped purely for humanitarian reasons unless you want to see more people drowning in the Channel. Take away the carrot and you remove the reason for the boat crossings in the first place. Welcome them with open arms and of course they will continue.

Seriously? huge swathes of countryside are not being concreted. Drive like 20-30 minutes out of Southampton in many directions and there is huge amounts of empty land, the north of Hampshire alone is not densely populated at all and that is the South East. Also actually some of the more densely populated places in the UK are in the north like Manchester, Liverpool etc. plus the Birmingham area, whilst other areas like the south west, east anglia, even like Kent, north Hampshire, Dorset etc. none of these places are densely populated. Many rural communities are fading away, they have no young people in them, village shops and pubs are closing due to lack of trade, they have no bus services, schools are closing, no police in the area. If we moved away from the dependency on urban areas and being London centric housing would not be an issue, but of course you have the dumb government demanding people go back to work in the cities after covid even though millions upon millions of people proved that working from home was not only viable but better for them and their productivity, but that would leave offices empty and rich landlords losing money, so mates of Tories get less rich and that is who they really care about.

Also overall we are not a very densely populated country, we are like 52nd in the world, with a population density of around 700 people per square km, which is massively skewed by London where it's 5,700 people per km2, whereas the south east it goes down to 481. So you are painting a false picture to drive a narrative, probably crowded countries are like South Korea, India, Belgium etc. where overall population density average is in the thousands per km2.

You also get that people die yeh? people emigrate, go work abroad, migrants leave, its not a 1 for 1 situation, talking about a massive complicated issue like housing in such simple terms is well just simple and blaming any part of it on immigrants is just flat out wrong.  Again it just highlights the whole point, the real issues are ones within the country that the government has been failing on for years, but instead they try to con people that it's immigrants causing the issues, 50k immigrants have basically nothing to do with our housing issues.

As for 'illegal' well they just aren't at all, people seeking asylum or have refugee status are not 'illegal' immigrants and considering around 80-90% asylum applications are actually approved, that would make the vast majority of the people crossing on boats not illegal immigrants. 

Nor does crossing through multiple safe countries have anything to do with it.  There is no provision in the rights of refugees, of which we are a signatory to and helped originally draft, that they have to apply for asylum in the first 'safe' country they find. We also take far less than most other European countries, including France, so that argument is complete nonsense on every level. 

They aren't illegal, they have every right to apply for asylum here and we take in far less than everyone else. That is also despite the fact that many of them are coming from countries we have interfered with and destabilised, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan being key ones. 

Nor will this stop the boats at all, anyone who thinks that is completely stupid. Not only is this plan by the Tories illegal and literally contravenes international law, but it will do sweet FA about the boats, it will just lead to more people trying to bypass the asylum system, more people going into modern slavery, being sex trafficked etc. 

If you want to stop the boats then you formalise the whole process properly, invest in more resources, processing centres in France, go after the criminal gangs, more people to process asylum claims and then let people come across in ferries, planes, trains etc. open up safe routes of entry for asylum seekers and you cut the boats problem.

This 'stick' you are talking about is nonsense, the Rwanda programme didn't work either, this is just as nonsense as that plan.

As for this line - 'A government's job is to look after it's own people first, not anyone who decides they want to come here.' Well no for a start, we are obligated by international law to look after and let in people seeking asylum, again we literally helped draft these international laws and agreements after WW2, and pretty much every Tory government of the last 60-70 years has recognised that right and thought it was important, right up to this one that has swung so far right they make Thatcher look like a centrist. 

But also they don't do that, the country is a mess, everything is screwed up through Tory mismanagement, lack of investment, corruption, austerity policies. So instead of wasting time, money, attention on a non-existent problem, they should be actually looking out for the British people but they haven't done that for 13 years. 

500 people died unnecessarily last year because of excessive ambulance waiting times.  That is scandalous, yet her we are talking about an irrelevant problem of some people coming across in boats acting like it's the biggest issue facing the country right now. The NHS is broken, waiting lists are through the roof, Tories stole hundreds of millions of pounds in PPE contracts for their mates, cost of living is through the roof, living standards are the worst they have ever been, trade and business is being hamstrung by Brexit, sewage is being pumped into our rivers and seas whilst water companies give their CEOs huge bonuses of millions, people can't afford to heat their homes whilst energy companies pay millions to their shareholders, but yeh let's focus on some desperate people crossing the channel.....