Sour Mash

So you're just not going to answer.

How much money did you make betting on the election result? I know a few who did well, wish you'd given us the definite heads up before. Out of interest, what is an "elitist society"?

All part of the Labour party process though. There was definite criticism of him, but not exactly huge unrest to get him removed. The wider point comes back to if Labour can be in govt. without full on Blairite in action?

Clearly you didn't, as he was chosen and supported as the Labour leader. Unless you're one of the few that made an absolute fortune from the election results.

No party seriously touches the NHS, it's the guaranteed Holy Grail for any party. Check the current spend. Why are you concerned for 'minorities' as a result of this election (what are they?) If you're so concerned about the working poor I assume you're campaigning to cut immigration?

You questioned whether Alderweireld is still interested, I just gave you an example that he most likely is.

Yeah, he only played through the pain of a broken bone the other week didn't he, clearly not bothered at all

If anything they'd get more votes, as more chance the vote would actually count. Only Labour and Tories would lose out from PR, which is why it won't happen.

I don't think that many people base who they vote for on their local MP, most focus on the party as a whole. You could make regional representatives that front campaigns locally and are ranked in terms of who would take a seat in parliament depending on vote gained, so local personalities are not completely done away with. It is the lesser of two evils. Will probably never happen though.

Still a long way off and depends if Labour wake up to the fact that a lot of those votes come from their "traditional" support base.

Pretty much sums the whole thing up nicely.

What's your source for that opinion?

I don't exactly follow Welsh politics that closely, but wasn't the voting there a bit of a surprise? Tory wins, UKIP getting a big % of vote, Plaid Cymru not doing that well. Fairly different situation to Scotland.

Conservative support across England is a obviously a lot more than that. Its that narrow minded view that holds sections of the Labour party back.

UKIP could really go one of two ways after these results, loads of votes and positives, but difficult to keep it channeled effectively and the momentum going year on year. I've missed a lot of this thread, but I think some were talking up Russel Brand's influence previously, which tells you all you need to know.

What on earth are you going on about?

Woolfe, Nuttall etc would have much more populist appeal than Farage, continue to take votes from 'traditional' Labour sources.

Yes, because saying it's going to happen, but not being able to explain how it would work in practice adds so much to the debate.

You haven't looked up the meaing of the words yet. It might help you to understand the difference between the games of cricket/NFL/Tennis and football, but who knows, they all just seem the same to you.

Look up the words "consistent", "regular" and "prolonged" in the dictionary and see if they apply to the stoppages in football the same way they do to stoppages in cricket/Tennis/NFL. Give us a shout once you're done.

Better to call it quits when you realise you're wrong I guess

Why only one or two a game? And if a its going into the dying minutes of the game, managers would risk using their appeal to stop a great chance of scoring for the opposition if they're ina good attacking possition, the point I was responding to suggeted it would be a managers appeal and not when the ball is next dead. Unfortunately, basic health and safety concerns for players will always mean that play needs to stop for injuries/treatment, that's fairly obvious and not really anything to do with this debate. The amount of money in the game isn't really relevant if the solution to your problem doesn't actually work anyway.

I was responding to a post that was comparing to the system that works in those sports as an example of this system working for football. But to answer your point, managers would use any spare appeals they have in the last 5 minutes of every game to break up play, stop opposition breaks, throw the appeal in when the opposition is around your 18 yard box, would happen all the time.

That's why I think that on the basis you have more than one club bidding to help drive the price up, its almost better to sell a player with only one year on his contract, then having to pay up 4 years of his existing deal?

Football doesn't have the consistent, regular, prolonged stops in play that NFL, Cricket and Tennis have. I'd have thought that bit at least would be obvious.