Rayvin

She looks like a reanimated corpse.

140,000 jobs... High end ones as well. Brain drain imminent?

How exactly is this going to work with the EU's stance on not picking and choosing the four freedoms: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/21/may-risks-row-with-brexiters-over-plan-for-single-market-for-goods Seems 100% free movement of trade is what the government wants. Willing to compromise on 'some' aspects of freedom of movement to get it. Personally, I think that should take the form of the government conceding that anyone who voted leave needs a visa to get into the EU, and everyone else just continues on as normal.

Ineptocracy. Fucking stupid people voting for fucking stupid people. Who then vote for fucking stupid things.

I don't doubt that this is the truth of it. But still, the establishment lost people and Russia just capitalised on it. Our trust in our governments had to be lost first.

Still don't think he's done irreparable damage tbh. The next President will just walk them back into the treaties again and it almost feels like there's a general sense of just waiting for the whole thing to blow over as far as Europe is concerned. He clearly wants to be a dictator, but he doesn't appear to have taken any steps to centralise control over the army which feels like it would be absolutely fundamental to such a plan - and there's no way the US would swing that way in the first place. If he gets a second term I'll be worried, since it will represent consistency in the American mindset. As it is, I still think he'll be impeached before his term is out, and don't really see him getting us into anything that can't be undone by whoever the democrats field in 3 years time. Plus he's creating a good opportunity and impetus for the EU to get its act together and start taking on some of this 'world leadership' business.

I fucking hate England.

Did anyone ask exactly why we have to wait until November?

Tbf to him though, this just makes him an honest Tory. As opposed to a standard one.

Surely he must have had a reason beyond "I don't feel like this should be illegal" I mean maybe he doesn't but I'm struggling to think how any serious politician could get away with such a view.

I've started to think that I should reign myself back - not a binge drinker but I'm slightly concerned that I may have moved into the territory of being a functional alcoholic as I'll drink most nights. The thing is, I don't tend to have difficulty 'not' drinking, but if it's there I'll choose it over other things. The solution presumably is to leverage my laziness against the issue and only drink alcohol if I've made myself go on the 10 minute walk to go and get it. I put it down to a weak response to general mental health issues. Can totally see how alcohol dependency happens tbh. That said, I haven't been anything approaching 'drunk' in quite some time. Years probably.

At which point Ashley hires someone like McClaren and spunks £80m on them.

Please post pictures of the end result

See also: American woman criticised on Twitter (of course) for wearing a Chinese dress: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/american-woman-qipao-china-cultural-appropriation-minorities-usa-dress One guy in the comments under her tweet saying that she should have made the effort to learn about the cultural importance of the dress, along with talking to members of the Chinese community to gain their consent.

With Mitro going out so that we can spend the c.£15m + Mitro's fee on someone decent. Aye tbh, I'd take that too.

I forgot this admittedly, but I'm not sure what difference it makes..? Unless you're saying that their 'reason' is a lie and that they actually just want to show off their anti-racism credentials. I'd be tempted to argue that this is more the fault of the far right than it is of the Royal Mail - they're the ones who poisoned the flag. Maybe the rest of us need to claim it back, but I feel like more non-racists are more aligned with the Union Jack than they are with St George's Cross.

I think they've made the right call personally. If they've done it before, and they're allowing people to have flags in actual post offices, then the right of the culture war won't be able to meaningfully make it stick.

If this is true then he's still primarily focused on reducing the debt. I don't see why he wouldn't just say that but there we go. I assume this takeover is properly dead anyway...

A decade of evidence concerning how Ashley runs the club, sure. Is there a decade of evidence of him taking money out? I can recall one occasion, i think. All I'm saying is that if the money isn't "leaving the club" it must be going somewhere. Why would it not be released to Benitez? If it is leaving the club then fine, Ashley is lying to buy himself time and it is paying off the debt. But even so, i dont understand why he wouldn't just say that.

No arguments from me

As with all things, I only try and make judgements based on the evidence I have. And my post broadly supports Alex's one in the sense that he can see an argument for minimal spending on season one after relegation but not in season 2. All I've said is that it seems Ashley is holding the season 2 money back until the end of the coming season. Which is the same as noting that he isn't spending it now, and that he could do so. Has HF done any analysis on the accounts for that season yet, I miss his input into these things frankly.

In which case where is the money going? It can't surely be going back to Ashley otherwise he's just setting himself up for obviously being called a liar in a couple of years time when the accounts are released. Is the club just going to sit on it?

Aye but isn't a lot of that going straight into paying off the relegation season? The accounts released on that were grim. It's disappointing though, I agree. It's as if Ashley has looked at it and decided that we can't spend the money we know we will get for the coming season, and that it only becomes available at the end.

I think they might need hundreds of thousands though mate. I'd love to see Scotland leave since it would be a backdoor to Europe and tbh I would just move there anyway - but 10s of thousands won't do it.

I guess if the club doesn't have the money, it doesn't have the money. Honestly don't see the point in stressing about it now, Ashley is clearly not going to put anymore money in. On the plus side, we should get £20m+ for Mitro which I guess pushes this back to the same sort of figure as last summer. Maybe we can move on another couple of players also.