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What?

You look different than before @CaaC (John)!

@nudge, Kaiden has done well at school and has had good reports from his teachers, so, as a treat, Denise bought him a pair of pyjamas for his Yoda.

I've avoided the Broken Skull sessions after the original series when he slated Ambrose at a time when he was Champion and spent half the Heyman episode talking about himself. Just reeked of a has been trying to remain relevant.

As much as I've reached a point of being pretty unsympathetic towards those dwelling on Corbyn's leadership as some sort of "days of yore", he and his team did come the closest to what I've ever seen towards shifting that discourse. 99% of the public have no idea how commonplace some of the policies he was proposing are across Europe and the world. People don't even know what socialism means in this country and how completely different it is to communism/marxism because anything that involves wealth redistribution in this country has Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Express screaming in unison about communism and the nasty Labour Party stealing your money. One of the standout moments of the election last year was the bloke on Question Time who was absolutely furious that his tax was increasing. He said Labour were lying because tax would only increase for the top 5% of earners, might even have been 1%. The guy said he was on £80,000 a year or something, he was in the top 5% and he was absolutely convinced that he couldn't possibly be. A huge part of the nation has been convinced that everyone else is better off than them. It does my head in when people argue that people who make millions deserve to make millions. You can argue that they do, but they don't need to keep 70% instead of 68% and it's a mentality I'll never understand thinking that those people keeping more of their salary for the sake of making it a meritocracy is more important than making sure that those who come from the most unfortunate backgrounds at least don't have to fork out their earnings for education and healthcare which should be perceived as a basic right in a developed country like the UK.

Problem is that a lot of public sectory pay has been effectively frozen for years, in fact in real terms civil servants have taken pay cuts. This is just classic turning on the public sector because the private sector is going through a tough area. The answer is clearly that income tax must rise for all but the lowest earners. I'd raise income tax to a standard 25% and then 50% for those over 50k. This would work. People just won't do it though, even many on the left baulk at actually raising tax. Even the supposedly 'marxist, red, commie' Corbyn didn't actually outright propose tax rises in his last manifesto. That's how unpalatable it is. I am far from a high earner but extra 30-50quid a month is affordable, we'd sort the debt out in no time.

And on Patel, who has already been sacked from government once for breaking the ministerial code, who has now broken the ministerial code again according to the independent review, but not of course according to Boris Johnson, the question has to become: What do you actually have to do as a part of this government to face some sort of consequence? Cummings breaks lockdown rules and undermines the public health strategy mid-pandemic? Acceptable. Jenrick takes a bribe from Tory donor Desmond to save him millions on his planning project? Acceptable. Williamson completely bungles the primary school reopening project back in June then completely bungles the exam results in the summer? Acceptable. Bullying your underlings in the Home Office? Acceptable but you get a written warning for this one. Refer to Johnson's missus as "Princess Nut Nuts"? Out on your arse.

My response to the public sector pay freeze on its own is that actually, it's fair enough, especially if the NHS is exempt. I'm obviously biased on this but I do think the education sector should be exempt as well. We had to learn how to teach kids through the internet overnight in March, got slated for it if we didn't get it right immediately, then were asked to decide which of our exam students should get certain qualifications without sitting an exam, had our professional judgement slated (unless you work at Eton in which case the grades you provided were definitely accurate) until the cabinet did their u-turn, and have had to completely reinvent the logistics of running a school and timetabling to keep them open after the summer and through this second lockdown. Luckily for me, I'm not under the direct jurisdiction of the UK government's public sector pay policy so financially it doesn't impact me, but that's not what I'm arsed about, it's the disrespect of the sacrifices made by the public sector over the past year. Yes, we're very lucky to have the job security where thousands of others have been made redundant, but apart from the front doorstep clap virtue signalling, any hopes that government and public attitudes towards public sector workers would be improved after seeing how badly the private sector falls to pieces without hospitals, schools, policing, etc., has been sadly misplaced. Time to buckle up for another decade of teachers being labelled Antifa activists by mainstream newspapers with comments like "those that can, do, those that can't, teach" by red-faced morons who wouldn't last an hour in a classroom themselves. Anyway, back to the pay-freeze, all of this furlough money has to come from somewhere, it's just the reality of the economics behind this thing. There will be complaining but due to the nature of most health, education and other public sector workers, I think most of us will understand that we need to accept this as a part of doing our bit to get the country out of debt after all of the spending this year. I get it, but it's the timing again. The amount they've announced in extra spending on the defence budget just yesterday as some sort of show of strength, whether that's literal military strength or "look how much I'm investing in our country" financial strength, now looks ridiculous if they're going to come out the next day and say "sorry public sector, we all have to make sacrifices in these difficult times, we just don't have enough in the treasury to give you the annual pay rise this year". You can't have it both ways without drawing criticism but yes, they'll probably get away with it because 50% or more of the print media will say nothing on the matter and the public are so well trained nowadays to see everything through the lens of "us vs them" that there won't be many outside the public sector who will bat an eyelid at the news.

Tbf I think everyone's a cunt

It was baltic to be fair. Her nipples could have cut glass apparently

I think Pep's a cunt and it's disappointing he's going to be here for longer.

Hopefully! Even at his age he can do a job over here. He can sit further back and play for another 5 years at the top.

He did always say he doesn't want to go anywhere and will stay as long as they allow him. They have some brilliant young players, and he hasn't won them the CL yet has he. Plenty of unfinished business!