PaddockLad

Well, that's not exactly news old son, that's the subject Rents has brought up If it's a close "in" vote, they're more likely to get exceedingly uppity, see the Scots Nats post referendum bullshit for details He's been temporarily gagged by the Tory press because they want to present Boris and Gove as the "acceptable" face of the "out" campaign. But it's plain to anyone with a titter of wit that with 7million voting ukip at the last election something had to be done to placate all the anti euro backbenchers. You can be sure that regardless of the referendum result, with the scenes of all the refugees streaming into Europe beamed nightly into our homes, leaving the EU is the biggest political issue of our times and it's frankly ridiculous to suggest any of this drive for an exit will just go away, especially if the "in" vote wins narrowly. Based on what??! What result in the referendum is going to cause that? unless your just talking about normal capitalism boom/bust bullshit then yeah, but that's not exactly putting your head above the parapet. Agree Labour will never win with Corbyn et al, but they were annihilated from the centre ground too last May. Neither can I. Unless someone with a bit of charisma and leadership appears soon they're fucked for a decade at least.

You seem to be suggesting a vote for staying in is likely?... If that's the case, they won't pipe down, it just won't be reported as much by the tame Tory press. The whole thing has come about mostly due to the rise of UKIP and the huge amount of Tory euro sceptic backbenchers threatening to join Farage. Cameron filled his nappy accordingly and placated them with this referendum. If there's a actual split in Labour about direction then I think they'll be one over Europe with the Tories.

Burnham is a decent bloke and a good politician but only slightly more electable as PM to middle Britain as Milliband was, i.e. "Not very much". The idea that Milliband or Burnham would be beating Cameron up at the dispatch box in mid 2016 and taking advantage of the mess the Tories are in isn't a runner for me either when it would be the easiest thing in the world for any Tory leader to turn round and say "your manifesto in 2015 was virtually identical to ours ya knob" i.e. Austerity & stay in Europe. If it wasn't a vote grabber for Milliand who's going have a change of heart 12 months later with "a fuckin scouser" (you can just hear the Sun readers) in charge? In a way all this is academic until the country's fate is known after the referendum. If we're out, Boris is PM, if it's in, it's Gideon. I can't see anyone from the Labour ranks beating either of them as things stand tbh.The thing that may change the game is the inevitable breakaway of Scotland in the event of a vote for leaving. It was interesting how the right wing media were turning on Cameron when it looked like there was going to be a "Yes" vote; "the PM who lost Scotland " etc etc....that could cook the Tories goose iyam but it would probably lead to another coalition unless someone emerges who is acceptable to the right wing press. Thing is the ones with a bit of charisma or an attractive backstory (Creasy,Jarvis?) aren't pushing themselves forward and are pretty inexperienced in any case. It's a shite state of affairs, but one that a year or so of Corbyn and his gang can't really influence until after June. If there's an out vote then that may be a real starting point, a clear difference between the parties.

You keep claiming things would/would've been better with a more mainstream leader Rents...how would it have been different to Milliband if Burnham had got in?..

Named and shamed I'll say now what I said at the time, I thought a lurch leftwards would, with the support of the parliamentary party (haha), would get us somewhere near the middle again. I fully admit to being wrong, Corbyn is a protestor and not a leader, which I pretty much knew at the time, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for any of the Blairites. That was also a recipe for more of the same, i.e. losing an election by being the same as the tories and sleepwalking into the privatisation of the NHS etc, which will still happen and I can't for the life of me see how Andy Burnham would have stopped it. As for the anti semitism bullshit smear thing, I suppose this is what you get when the likes of Livingstone are front and centre of the Labour Party. Pretty much agree with NJS, being factually correct for Livingstone is far more important than alienating most decent people (on the back of the Tory propaganda machine; what the fuck is Goldsmith doing getting involved in it for? I'd have thought being 2nd in a two horse race with Sadiq Khan would be enough to concentrate the mind but he's plainly been told "don't forget the big picture") and indeed a Jewish community that outside the moneyed elite tends to lean to the left. I don't get why you'd call any of them anti Semitic though, unless you've bought the media spun bullshit of the last few weeks, or have difficulty separating criticism of the Isreali government policies re Palestinians with being religiously prejudiced against those of the Jewish faith. In my mind it's a piece of piss to separate the two. So @@Renton, there's my "mea culpa" where the fuck do we go from here, oh great Labour sage?

Am at the stage now of telling myself he'll run a mile from Ashley ASAP regardless of what division we're in. Still very likely to be the championship. I also wear a horse hair shirt and sit on thistles for pleasure

We were 6 points off safety after the Southampton game on April 9th....if we stay up it'll be as unlikely as Leicester winning the fuckin league....

good effort squire

Better off going all in on Palace & the draw....anything else as good as relegates us so you'll at least get a drink out of a it...

I have a terrible confession to make re this game....I was there, but didn't see a blade of grass...was in the Fullers pub at London Bridge at 11am, got train to Norwood or wherever the fuck the ground is, went into the "home only" pub outside the station (cherries?) about 1330, an hour later the barmaid said there were 40 minute queues at the turnstiles so we hang around in the pub long enough to miss at least two goals, eventually got to the ground and there's now apparently a bar next to to the turnstiles am sure you can guess the rest, apart from me "double clicking" at least two unsuspecting TFL customers on a tube line somewhere on the way to Waterloo as I'd lost my ticket. Just to point out I'm 46 years of age I'd take more pleasure beating these than any other club in the division bar the mackems. If we turn up motivated I think we will.

A lot of that sounds fair to a layman such as myself. But this is from 2009, a year before the coalition came to power and with the Lib Dems putting the anchors on for 5 years there wasn't much room for manoeuvre. It's as plain as day that the first priority after last years election was the final nail in the NHS coffin: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/aug/16/tory-mps-back-nhs-dismantling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I take it there's been something disgusting on Twitter?

70 years old according to wiki....Peter Wright, the chief constable of SYP at the time is broon breed, he died in 2011. David Conn's piece today... http://gu.com/p/4ht3n?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It is mostly about money, you're right. But why should the people we should value most in society be penalised in order to provoke a punch up so the government can deem the NHS "ungovernable" or "disfunctional" before they hand it to PPP, Nuffield and Bupa? Not to mention the ones in power who will profit from the whole thing...

Can anyone see the mackems and Norwich getting more than 6 points?....it's as unlikely as us getting 9 so I agree, we're fucked...

Ewerk, You say you didn't have a position, you've (and this is being very fuckin charitable) played devils advocate, you've been told that it's fuckin ridiculous for several different reasons. And you still claim not to have a position on it. For a manager you seem a bit indecisive tbh. If I was your old man I'd fuckin sack you.

Changing corporation tax rates for major PLC's would be a good change. And, being "middle income" myself, I've no objection to a penny in the pound increase on my income tax for the NHS. Pissing doctors off is the only change being offered at the moment though.

Who says I was talking about you? You did, ironically enough, say something about "9-5 being eradicated from most businesses"or some other such apologetic Tory lite bullshit blandism for people in the workplace being shat upon. The tories are running the NHS into the ground so they have an excuse to privitse it. I know what you said about Hunt being a twat but you then basically excused him by saying it sounds like a good cost cutting measure. Your kids will have to pay for what we get for nothing. The NHS is the only thing that distinguishes the UK from any other westernised country. Of course we can afford it and it's rising costs by taxing the right people and corporations correctly. But there is abosoutley no will in government for this to happen, the tories sitting on the boards of private health companies tells its own story (not to mention their Labour counterparts in the last government) so it will probably happen, because the propaganda which you appear to have fallen for but "hilariously" claim not to have seems to have an appreciative, if easily lead, audience.

Taxi driver agrees with family firm director that we should value highly skilled doctors the same as teenagers hungover on Sunday morning stacking shelves in sainsburys and dolly birds on production lines keeping an eye on press machines....."quel fuckin surprise" The ins and outs of it are irrelevant in a way, for me it's about who we value in society. And before you get smart, doctors pay income tax and national insurance the same as any other fucker. No one asks an accountant to save their child's life though...

All down to the CPS now. I do get the impression they're out to make a name for themselves in PR terms so the families can have a bit hope that they'll charge anyone they can get. Duckenfield is the obvious one but if I was ex premier league chief exec Sir David Richards I'd be " speaking to my advisors" pretty sharpish.. EDIT: is that horrendous arsehole Graham Kelly still alive?...secretary of the FA who didn't care that Hillsborough didn't have a safety cert..

All 96 victims found to be unlawfully killed by new inquest

I thought we'd seen the future that day....as you say Shearer went off injured and Lua Lua had come on for Carl Cort, from that point we ripped them a new one. Robert,Solano,Dyer and Lua just ran over the top of them, promoted by Jenas who at that point looked brilliant. We were all stood right along the back seats but ended up lying sprawled in the gang way 20 feet down when the winner went in. Don't know if any one has mentioned Leeds at Elland Road the same season just before Christmas, similar stuff we were 1-3 down and wom 3-4, I came out if that game hugging a lad I'd never met before, he had tears in his eyes, which was about a week before we won at Highbury to go top, Henry tried to kill the ref? The pace we had in the team was unreal at that time, even under KK we didn't have so many players that would just run past the opposition which just sent the support in the stands insane at times. If you were stood near the back at Derby the Scottish voice you heard may have been a poster from this very message board

Completely agree re the media, but its not the Arsenal fans to blame for any agenda the slugs from the press have. I think the similarity is in two systems set up with no real ambition to achieve above the level the clubs are at. Wenger keeps buying dainty no. 10s who are lovely footballers but won't buy a Gattuso type or a centre half to replace that German cart horse. As you say our system is completely different but amounts to the same thing; treading water, and ultimately in our case, falling below the surface completely.

Didn't they parade through the streets in support of him when they were going through a bad spell?...got roundly condemned for carrying not just supportive banners but an actual framed portrait of the man?

You could also say ( pre this season obviously) that we shouldn't complain as we're in the premier league and the likes of Leeds and Sheffield Wedsnesday aren't. It's about expectation more than anything. 1200 quid for a season ticket at the Emirates doesn't entitle you to a thing tbh but it does concentrate the mind I imagine. I'd say it's difficult for anyone to properly judge how it feels as a gooner unless you're stumping up the cash and watching their board being happy with 3rd/4th and the odd cup. In a season where Leicester or, in a way even worse, Spurs are going to win the league, it must be driving them around the bend.