Verbal

Hang on - is this the 'straw man' argument?! You're just copying now, and just adding a large dose of bizarrely demented anger. Calm down.

You're right. It seems the allegations and Harwood's record were discussed in the pretrial hearing, but the coroner ruled, unusually, that the information should not be disclosed. It seems, however, that not even the coroner was given a full and accurate description of the sheer scale of Harwood's past behaviour - had it been, i doubt it'll have been excluded. Having said that, the coroner's case verdict of unlawful killing seems the right one. The rules are much more restrictive in a criminal case, nonetheless - not even pretrail hearings about past record are permitted.

Based on a true story.

Would you like to put a name to your straw man?

You might be confusing the military with the Nazis.

Exactly. I'm not disputing that, just addressing the inconsistencies between the two cases (coroner's and criminal), and the Met's admission today that Harwood was not suitable for re-employment.

But if the jury had known about Harwood's past, what's your guess as to the outcome? Remember, even in ignorance of this, the jury was deadlocked for four days, and in the end were only able to deliver a majority verdict.

There may be the same burden of proof, but there are still many differences between the rules of a coroner's court and that of a criminal court. For example, the jury in the criminal case were not - as is standard - permitted to know of Harwood's appalling disciplinary record, and in particular his involvement in incidents that turned violent. (Incidentally, the Met has now admitted that his disciplinary record meant that he should never have been re-employed.) A coroner's jury, on the other hand, is permitted to know this kind of important information.

Then you should watch your language, because you certainly seemed awfully sour about the supposed vendetta against the Echo - for which, as I say, you have no evidence at all regarding the supposed timings.

I don't think anyone has claimed that anything is "perfect and without fault". But there's no evidence for your vendetta theory about timings.

"I am just waiting for the club to sort itself out." Hmm.

...

Something to keep in mind if you do: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/shark-attacks-in-australia-timeline.htm

You'd think that would be the case, but the Boat Race this year suggests otherwise. The visible show of force - lots of speedboats rushing up and down, etc - succeeded in dissuading all the nice white middle class spectators from committing an act of terror or disruption. However, the one person intent on stopping the race hung out on Chiswick Eyot (google map it) - the one and only place on the course where you could attack the boats without having to be on either shore AND see the race coming for about a quarter of a mile. He had remained completely undetected on the Eyot for hours (having got onto it at low tide). Not reassuring.

You left the question mark off. Brilliant signing.

I'm going to go out now, so when I get back you'd have better damned well have signed him.

I thought the money was supposed to run out at the end of May. This is so disappointing. I believed Birch when he announced that - trusted him completely.

There are many reasons why outsourcing contracts so regularly go pear-shaped, but one of them is that there is absolutely no project management skillsets among senior civil servants. They simply do not know how to begin thinking about managing a contract, setting regular performance targets and ensuring compliance of those targets. People with those skills do exist, but they are so far down the chain of command that their warnings, etc., are ignored.

Or a member of a British Government. Privatisation of police and army functions, as well as prisons, has been advocated by Home Secretaries of both parties for donkey's years. How do you think G4S became so gargantuan? Only one way: convincing well educated but socially blinkered British senior civil servants, under political direction, that they could do things better. G4S, like the PFI companies and almost all other outsourcing companies are terrifying stupid, inefficient and monumentally greedy state spongers. And their MO is is always and everywhere the same: cut wages to the legal minimum (or get them working for free, in some cases); pay huge salaries, bonuses and dividends to the wide boys (and girls) who run these companies; fail abysmally in their contracted duties; retain the profits from the contracts anyway; hand the job back to the state to pick up the pieces.

It's good to have the pedant on the side of the angels.

Au contraire! Cuts to VAT are believed by economists to have wide-ranging benefits for the economy. http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4418

A very telling remark, this. BC, not the Football League, will ultimately decide PFC's fate.

It really isn't. Bad puns, for example, are far worse, as are Skacel jokes and the hackneyed rejoinders. Anyway, capitalsaint's point is well made. We don't know how many signings are in progress, or what that progress is. We're just a bunch of whinging forum bellends.

What utter garbage. I'm not going to say any more than that because I'd just be repeating myself. I suspect there are deeper motives to your irrational postings on this subject - guilt, perhaps? It's funny, though, don't you think? This is a thread started by the court case concerning the offensively racist language and abuse used by Terry, and the fruit loops right have turned it into a far more indignant whinge about one black man calling another black man a 'choc ice'.

That's the thing - you never know, even if you get an answer. Is the remark ITK, or pseudo-ITK, a wind-up, or just a wild guess. We are condemned forever to live in a hall of distorted mirrors.