Wes Tender

I recalled reading about that at the time and having refreshed my memory by reading this... http://www.hooli-news.co.uk/researchitem.php?15 ...I have some sympathy with your contention that the sentence was out of proportion to the crime. It seems that those caught up in this incident were given those sentences as a deterrent to others and that does not seem fair against the background of the examples of other criminal acts highlighted, where much lesser sentences were meted out for arguably much more serious crimes.

There appears to be a typo in the title under the photo of the statue outside their HQ building. Its says that it is a statue of a man "walking"

There you go again, making up stuff that you imagine I would think in a vain attempt to justify your position. You know nothing about me or my background, my education, what I do etc, so how can you possibly know what opinion I will formulate on any particular subject? You arrogantly generalise as to what you think my environment is, what newspapers I might read and therefore what my position will be. When it comes to me asking you what qualifies you to comment on these matters, you say it is none of my business and yet knowing nothing about me, you presume to guarantee that you know more about things than I do. Just to surprise and confound you, I am in complete agreement with this:- But also much of what lumuah says about it too. Good points raised by both.

You can rest your case all you want and continue to ignore the opinion that Wade and I made, that if the judge hands out a sentence of 10 years, that the criminal should serve 10 years. I think you are confusing what I acknowledge to be the current system, with what IMO should be the future system, which you seemed to agree I might be right in wanting. I really can't make it any simpler than that, so if you can't understand it, I'd better give up trying to explain it.

Really? Then that is also brilliant! Well done, Jagermeister. A superb parody of your typical Skate.

Well, you may have hit the nail on the head there partly, as there are undoubtedly some habitual criminals of the Norman Stanley Fletcher type who become institutionalised and fear life out in the big bad world. I'm not saying that it is many, but it is definitely some. As for the general publics' perception of prison sentencing, again, it's very patronising to assume that those who hold an counter opinion on the matter don't understand the parole system as a factor in the early release of prisoners. But you carry on believing if you like that anybody who calls for criminals to serve the term handed down by the judge is ignorant of the background to the current system.

Another 24 carat nugget from a brain-dead Skate:- 50 Jägermeister Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 05:06 PM Somehow he is privvy to information that the club is up for sale and that nobody wants to buy it. Of course, a billionaire bought us when we were a less attractive proposition than we are now, up a division closer to the promised land, whereas who bought them recently? Oh yes, a fake sheik, somebody who apparently doesn't exist, gun runners, loan sharks and now they are attracting the Russian Mafia. Our average attendance last season was greater than the capacity of their entire stadium. But if Skatesmouth was bigger, then somehow they would manage to fill a 70000 stadium. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it, this care in the commnuity scheme?

A post on The News' article: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/great-matches/get_set_for_the_south_coast_derby_again_1_2688310 Absolutely brilliant!

Well, that's progress at least. And thanks for patronising me about how the current system works. But maybe you think that Wade and I might be right in expressing an opinion that it should be?

And your expreience is......? You're perfectly happy to jump to conclusions about which newspaper I read and to fabricate in your imagination what I perceive to be the daily routine of a prisoner. Saintandy666: What a pity it is that those that you have spoken to with experience of prison are not capable of speaking generally about the entire system, only about their own experiences in a small part of the system. The experiences of say a Warder, are very different to those of an inmate. An inmate in a maximum security prison, very different to those at an open prison or one for psychiatric offenders. But don't let that prevent you from making your judgments about the entire system based on your acquaintances' experiences and claiming some superior knowledge to what I have read in articles or books, or seen in documentaries about the subject.

Yes, I AM clearly getting it. The end result is that the judge can issue a sentence of 10 years and the criminal can be out on the streets possibly after 5 years if the parole board allows it. The contention I and Wade Garrett have made, is that the sentence meted out should be adhered to and any disincentive for the inmate to behave should be countered by the imposition of a lengthening of the sentence for bad behaviour. What is so difficult to understand?

Apparently the Skates have a pre-season friendly against Chelski, at Krap Nottarf on July 16th. Does anybody seriously believe that the Skates will be able to field a team by then? What is the purpose of this little exercise from the Chelski perspective? Do they reason that when they beat the Skates by a hefty margin, that team confidence will receive a massive boost? Or will Chelski just use it as an outing for their reserves and youth team?

Agree entirely. If somebody is let out after 5 years of a 10 year sentence, it makes a mockery of it and reduces the deterrent effect of a custodial sentence. It should be the term set by the judge and be extended if the prisoner behaves badly.

What experience have I had of drug taking, of burglary, rape, murder, extortion, blackmail, or any number of other things? None, I'm afraid. And neither I presume, have you. But that ought not to prevent either of us expressing an opinion on any of those things, should it? And even if one had experience of prisons, then I'm pretty confident that there is plenty of variety between the spectrum of regimes that cover everything from maximum security prisons for serious offenders, right the way through to open prisons. How does one gain knowledge of anything to be able to express an opinion on it, without having to experience it first hand? By watching documentaries, reading about it, listening to those who have experienced it. But unless you or others on here have direct experience either as an inmate or an employee of the prison system, then most of those opinions will have no more validity than mine and will be based on perceptions and hearsay.

He's only attempting to get the job at West Ham because he has a Hammer's tattoo.

Yes, you're confined to one place for a long time, but you're fed, housed and clothed. Prison in some third world country must be hell, full of rats and cockroaches, the food and sanitation awful. But in the UK, most prisons resemble something more akin to a holiday camp and there is the opportunity to go crying to the Human Rights people to complain about things like slopping out, that you have been deprived of your right to vote, etc. Sentences never seem to be of a length commensurate with the crime and can be reduced with parole on good behaviour, whereas they ought instead to be increased for bad behaviour. Somehow, drug taking seems to be rife inside. How the hell do they get into a supposedly secure environment? I personally find the Sharia Law to be barbaric in cases like this, but who are we to interfere in the customs and legal matters of other countries? A different matter if immigrants attempt to enforce it over here, where it should be stamped upon. And yet personally I believe in the death penalty under certain circumstances, where there can be no doubt of the guilt of a perpetrator of pre-meditated murder.

Yes, definitely quite a bit of Schnauzer in there

Lambert, isn't it? He just can't wait to drive down the M27 and fire up his career with the recent FA Cup winners and the bestest fans in the World.

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, I meant the season after. Exactly. That was totally cringeworthy and helped to perpetuate the myth in the media about what great fans they are, when most of that noise was produced by us.

It's going to be great next season when we're playing them. Because when they are chanting it, everybody will think that it is us chanting.

Why ever not? If the whole exercise was run properly and a clear majority favoured us forcing the EU to either allow us to draw back to purely a trading agreement or else we would leave altogether, then the Government would be forced to listen to the will of the people and act. Granted that "enough weight" would have to mean a considerable majority against the current European model, or else they would be able to say that the decision was not clear cut enough. Had Goldsmith proposed that he would fund a referendum himself because he had felt that the Government had reneged on promises to do so, then the Government IMO would have had no alternative but to run it themselves so that they could attempt to debate against it in the media. Distancing themselves from it would be shooting themselves in the foot. So why did Goldsmith not go ahead with it? I see no reason why it could not have been done, but IMO he was a bit of a charlatan and thought that his ego would be massaged better by being the leader of his own Party. I'm really quite surprised that you do not consider referenda to be democratic. Surely it is the purest form of democracy. Undoubtedly most MPs believe they know better than their electorate and it suits them that they believe they have a mandate to govern, when they present a manifesto that covers a massive array of policy proposals. A voter must be a rare individual if he supports every policy proposal of the party he votes for. Most normal people vote for the party that comes closest to satisfying them on most issues. Anyway, the situation would only arise in precisely the sort of rare situations like the European question, where successive Governments signed treaties tying us to political union with Europe , reducing the sovereignty of our own Parliament, without gaining the agreement of the people. The other pressing question is the West Lothian situation where the electorates of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been granted their own assemblies whereas England has not. Surely these situations are far more undemocratic than what I have proposed?

Of course, there was an opportunity to have had a referendum regardless of whether the government wanted one or not. Instead of his egotistical posturing as leader of the Referendum Party, all billionaire Sir James Goldsmith had to do, is finance a Referendum himself. Public access to the voting lists is easy attainable, polling stations could have been hired and the Referendum itself overseen by the Electoral Reform Society or something similar. The whole thing wouldn't have cost Goldsmith that much and would have gained the result that he wanted, with much more success than was achieved by his Party. The problem with that, was it a single issue Party and the National Interest of voters was much more important than a single issue. Had the Referendum produced a clear public vote to leave, then the Government would have had to abide by it, or risk the wrath of the electorate.

Roll on the SNP referendum on whether they wish to stay as part of the Union. The West Lothian question has festered for too long, as English resentment grows year by year. Perhaps simultaneously we could have one on whether we wished to remain in the EU, or whether we wished to revert back to solely a trading agreement, a common market, which was what we voted for in the last referendum. The successive governments certainly never gained a mandate to bring us into a political union with Europe with the resultant loss of sovereignty.

The significance of the Lib Dem votes has more to do with the fact that they were able to act as power brokers, rather than because slightly more than one only in five of the electorate voted for them. As we are discussing our beloved Eastleigh MP, the same significance can be attached to the UKIP vote in the election which made Huhne an MP. Add the insignificant 3.4% of the UKIP vote to that of the Conservative and Huhne wouldn't have been elected. Therefore, is it more apposite to call that 3.4% significant too? After all, Huhne also needed them to attain power.

I wasn't throwing up excuses, I was citing reasons. You say that it was more or less the same team as we have now, but that has been disputed and not only by me. OK, it was a bad reason in my opinion. IMO it was a poor example, irrelevant to the discussion because of the gap between the two teams. The table doesn't prove that they were the worst team, merely that they achieved the worst results. As you say yourself, a better manager could have the same players performing better. One of the pundits on Match of the Day commented that had Fersuson managed any of the top 4 teams, he would probably have made them champions, so it doesn't necessarily follow that the team that finished top or indeed bottom, were the best or worst team. Both the Skates and West Ham were managed by Uncle Avram when they were relegated. There might be a clue in there somewhere. Perhaps that why Portsmouth sprung into your mind.