RandoEFC

Sounds like the Tory MP and ex-minister arrested last night for rape and a couple of other offences is "Sir" Iain Duncan-Smith. I couldn't be less surprised. Knighting him was bad enough. The way that politicians get held up as "serving the public" and half of them end up getting honoured for getting repeatedly re-elected in safe seats and achieving the square root of fuck all while getting paid triple the national average wage is already farcical. IDS is actually worse given that, as a politician, he's been a failed leader of the opposition before presiding over a financial assault on the most vulnerable in the country in the form of Universal Credit. Don't forget though it was Corbyn and McDonnell who wanted to "STEAL ALL OF YOUR MONEY". If he is found guilty of these offences then it should raise serious questions about the process of the honours system in this country, along with all of the cronies that were given places in the House of Lords earlier this week including a Russian media baron whose father is a known former KGB agent. Don't hold your breath though. We've already seen over the past year that it's a greater offence in the royal family to be (or get married to) a black woman than it is to be an actual paedophile. I don't want to ramble on but "Sir" Iain Duncan Smith getting charged with rape pretty much sums up how rotten and corrupt the good old British Eton establishment is and how untouchable they think they are. Predictably, though, too many in the UK continue to fetishise the royal family and the class system despite it actively making most of their lives worse.

Very odd line of argument for me. Is it lazy to say Mane and Salah have had great seasons because of the numbers they've posted? Sometimes a spade is a spade mate. City have had a poor season and their defence has let them down on multiple occasions but De Bruyne has dragged them kicking and screaming to a level of quality that has at least seen them recover to a comfortable 2nd place. What's lazy and wrong is arguing that because Man City haven't won the league, he can't have contributed to their season. By definition, this award is supposed to be based on the output of the individual, not a judgement on what they achieved along with the team around them. Henderson has not been better than De Bruyne this season. Nobody can really objectively look at this season and say Henderson has been the best player in the league. He hasn't even been the best player for his team, Mane has in my opinion. There's a slice of sentimentality behind this award and the people who chose Henderson have done so for other reasons on top of his performances on the pitch, which is fine if that's what the award is going to be for, but I'm not having people pretending that this is the right call based purely on his individual performances on a football pitch.

It's all subjective. It's not exactly a travesty that Henderson has won it by any measure. I do think De Bruyne has been head and shoulders the best performing individual in the league this season which is what I think it should be based on but it's far from the first time that an award like this has been given based on other factors such as leadership, team achievements, lifetime achievements (remember when Ryan Giggs was given Sports Personality of the Year for retiring from football when Jenson Button had won the F1 championship?).

Henderson has not been a better player than De Bruyne this season. Individual awards shouldn't be given out based on team achievements. I'll readily accept that the Team of the Year could be De Bruyne and 10 Liverpool players with the possible exception of Vardy instead of Firmino. Liverpool have been that good across the board. But Henderson hasn't had a better season than De Bruyne whichever way you want to spin it.

Given the current perception of the Labour Party, fighting the anti-semitism thing in court would be political suicide. The right thing to do is to make what appears to be an apology, even if some of the accusations were unfounded or exaggerated, and draw a line under the whole thing. Labour's image with so many voters has been in absolute tatters, and rightly or wrongly they need to get this anti-semitism stuff out of the headlines. Get rid of that and Brexit by the next election and the Tories will destroy themselves trying to lie their way out of the disaster they inflict upon the country through a hard Brexit. Very easy steps for Labour to go into the next election in a good position.

Three more races added.

Hopefully this is another step towards Jeremy Corbyn becoming irrelevant in mainstream politics. He is damaging to Labour now and will always be associated with failure. I would have voted for him quite happily, especially when Boris Johnson is the alternative, but some of the things coming out now that were allowed to go on in the Labour party, and some of the things that had already come out, are inexcusable. Keira Starmer is doing the right thing in continuing to distance himself from the old regime. It's time for the died in the wool Corbynites to let go. They've become an absolute embarrassment on social media now, more interested in criticising Keir Starmer than the Conservative government. At some point, these people will have to decide whether they're more upset about the right-wing government being in control of the country for another 10 years, or the moderate-left taking control of the Labour party from the far-left. Corbyn's failure as leader of the opposition has been one of the biggest failure in paving the way for Johnson's government with it's deadly combination of corruption and incompetence, to gain a huge majority and impose this damaging hard Brexit upon the country.

Neither really in most cases. Unfortunately the majority of the electorate will vote based on which leader they like the look of more and, this time around, which one was (supposedly) going to make the newsreaders shut up about Brexit. The only thing that's really cut through since the election was the Dominic Cummings scandal but even that is wearing off and the Tories are drifting back towards a 10 point lead or so. It's a long, long game for Starmer to turn the tide after Labour decided to become a party of activists for the last 5 years. Make no mistake, Labour need to have a strong wing of activists to support them but they also need to remember how to look like a realistic government in waiting, that's going to take a while and there's going to need to be a reason for a wider audience to pay attention to Starmer. Now is not that time.

This isn't news anymore. It's news if something that Boris Johnson explicitly promised during the election campaign actually DOES happen.

The Russia report will be released this morning. My predictions: There will be some evidence that there was interference in the 2016 EU Membership Referendum to boost the Leave vote. The interference will be relatively minor, but we'll be hearing about it daily for at least 3 months from prominent FBPE Twitter accounts. There will be a lot of other waffle in there that we should probably all care about but will ignore because Remainers will zero in on the Brexit stuff and try to make out that it invalidates the result of the referendum while Leavers will zero in on the Brexit stuff and try to explain away how it isn't actually Russian interference and everyone who voted Leave would have voted Leave anyway and that it had no impact on the referendum and that they know what they voted for. There will be nothing in the report that seriously compromises any particular politicians and will, at worst, shine a light on the amount of money the Conservative party have received from Russian donors over the past few years. Nothing in the report will cut through enough to significantly impact upon any party's polling numbers and so the whole thing will ultimately be forgotten in less the month.

Yeah, I see him as a safe pair of hands though and as he'd clearly not be leading the team maybe the relationship with the mechanics is not that important? Anyway, it's all hypothetical now. I think they'll regret the way they've managed Gasly and Albon though and they really need to see the next one coming through because Kvyat is currently sat in the second team and they already know he isn't cut out for the top table. I remain surprised that they haven't made an effort to get Sainz back into their system but it's too late now. They were really shafted with timing because he sort of had to make his own way with Verstappen and Ricciardo locking down the senior team for what everyone thought was going to be several more years. He was ready to move on from Toro Rosso. I still think Hulkenberg is a real shout though if he's staying sharp. Again with hindsight it might have been the perfect time to put him in the car when they dropped Gasly. Two years ago, Nico beat Sainz pretty handily in the Renault team if I remember correctly, and he didn't stack up too badly against Ricciardo last year, who himself kept Max Verstappen honest more often than not when they were team-mates. Overall I guess you can't blame them for sticking to their philosophy and giving opportunities to their own talent.

I think Vettel would be a problem. Sainz would be ideal. Hulkenberg would probably have been a good option but it's hard to say whether he still would be after a year out. You've got to say if Perez could be getting the boot from Racing Point in favour of Vettel then surely he'd be worth a phone call?

Alex had a decent race on Sunday, but it's hard to see him overcoming the gulf between himself and Max. It seems that the car is really geared towards Verstappen and both Gasly and Albon don't seem to require the same sorts of things from the car as he does. They're in a really difficult spot when it comes to that second seat now. The damage done to Gasly's career by promoting him too early could be irreparable in terms of him becoming a top level driver. I think he has shown enough in the junior team to earn a few more years at other midfield teams but I can't see him making it at Red Bull. Nobody knows if it would have been any different if he'd had more time to find his feet in the Toro Rosso but the move really came at the wrong time for him. Albon's honeymoon period has worn off and there's a real worry looking at the first few races that things could go the same way with him and I really think he has significant talent and could become a potential top level driver, not of Max's standard but good enough to be a solid number two. I worry about what it will do to him if they decide he isn't cutting the mustard right now and he has to take a step back like Gasly. Hindsight is obviously 20/20 but I think the ideal scenario right now would be for them to have Gasly and Albon in the junior team together with Kvyat leaving the stable and an established driver next to Verstappen to pick up solid points and podiums. Where do you guys think it'll go over the next year or two?

I'd get into our midfield right now. We have a lot of problems but Ancelotti isn't one of them. 442 is shite, 352 is shite, I'd like to see us play a 433 but it would still be shite with some of our players. Ancelotti has happily said in public that many of our players are playing for their futures at the club now.

I don't understand what you're saying... My point was that if people were close enough to dying of "natural causes" that they have passed away in the last 6 months, they're not exactly likely to have caught and then recovered from coronavirus are they? It's not going to be that many people. Urgent: Reducing the coronavirus death toll by a few dozen to make the government look slightly better with the help of misleading headlines in The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail. Not Urgent: Giving the public up-to-date guidance on face masks to help prevent further spread of the virus despite most developed countries (even the US ffs) doing so months ago.

Another dead cat, let's be honest. How many people will there be who were close enough to the end of their lives to have died naturally in the last 6 months anyway, that also contracted Covid 19, recovered and then passed away in that period of time. It's hardly going to bring the death toll down by thousands is it? But at least this government has their priorities right when it comes to things that are urgent.

Alex getting lapped by his team-mate had an uncomfortable Gasly-ish feeling to it which I hope is only a one off.

Number 10 losing the plot again. Johnson Cummings had made it known that the infamously nicknamed Chris "Failing" Grayling was his preferred choice of chair for the intelligence committee which was selected today. However, Conservative MP Julian Lewis worked with Labour MPs to get himself voted into the hot seat instead. Johnson's Cummings' response is to remove the Tory whip from Julian Lewis who is now an Independent MP responsible for the intelligence committee. This is the committee responsible for the infamous Russia Report (into the influence of Russian interference on British elections including the Brexit Referendum) put together by Dominic Grieve ahead of the previous election, which was mysteriously never published in the build up to the ballot in December. When questioned about this, the government have repeatedly gone back to the line that it was the intelligence committee's responsibility to publish the report at an appropriate time, the hitch being that it was down to the government to reconvene this committee. They've managed to put it off long enough, but have now been ambushed in their attempts to install a probable patsy as the chair of said committee with a majority of Conservative MPs making up the full roster. Tonight's events would seem to throw an awfully large spanner in their works and the removal of the whip from Mr Lewis is unlikely to make him more sympathetic to their cause. It's unlikely that the report contains the type of massive bombshells that would bring a government down or invalidate the referendum result but I don't think it's going to go well for them when it comes out.

Yeah but you're not a moron and you actually have common sense and a basic understanding of where the risks are there and when they aren't, as well as understanding the concept of making a small sacrifice to potentially improve the health of your entire society. Our government's assumption that every member of the public is like you is an unrealistic ideology. It only takes a small minority of "libertarians" to choose not to wear a mask because their feelings have a greater influence on their opinions and choices than bare facts do to increase the risk of the virus being spread.

The problem for them is that if it's a good idea now then it was a good idea 3 months ago so they're telling people to do it 3 months later than they should be. I've stopped paying as much attention to England now but most other countries seem to have had compulsory mask-wearing as a part of their process of lifting lockdown. Either that or they've just told their people it would be a good idea and they're more concerned about their health and or less bothered about wearing a mask than a large chunk of English people. The lack of clear direction runs through this government's DNA though. Going back to the referendum, Johnson and Gove have always been of that "libertarian" mindset where they believe that people should make their own decisions regardless of what they're told by experts. People that work in transit or have degrees in international trade told us years ago that leaving the European Union would lead to more red tape, not less, and that we'd end up spending £700m on new border infrastructure as a result of leaving without a deal. But Boris trusts you and believes that you should have the right to choose to disagree with them if that's what your feelings tell you to do. Heard all of the scientists and health bodies tell you that masks will stop the spread of coronavirus? Well if you have a different opinion then Michael Gove trusts your instincts to do the right thing. The libertarian view as they like to call it is an ideology like many others which works in theory, if you have perfect information flow and everyone acts in their logical best interests then they'll always make the right decisions for their own good. Unfortunately, neither of those factors are realistic so it doesn't work in practice. It's an unavoidable consequence that sometimes, people just need to be told what to do.

The very simple thing about masks is that it's not really a hardship in any way to wear one and they certainly aren't going to increase your chances of catching or passing on the virus. Even if there's a little bit of doubt over how effective they are, it's not like anyone's really impeding your liberty or freedom by asking you to wear one.

Can't really prove whether it's political or not though.

I'm sure that's exactly what I said and I was the only one who did so if you're talking about this thread . I wouldn't describe myself as mightily against Tories, although I'm mightily against these Tories. If you are referring back to my comments it was more of a caveat than a criticism at the time. But anyway, yeah the free school meals thing I think I can explain. Boris Johnson's administration is a watered down "strong man" government in a somewhat similar mould to Donald Trump's. If there's one thing they hate, it's giving Labour the opportunity to say they've forced the government into a U-turn, especially when Labour are under new leadership and are trying to identify as a functioning opposition again. Even worse when Starmer has proven to be fairly highly-rated in his early forays. It was probably actually a blessing in disguise for them when Rashford took it upon himself to campaign for it and became the spearhead instead of the Labour Party. Indeed, when Labour tried to then claim that they'd forced the government into a U-turn, they were roundly criticised for trying to take the credit from Marcus Rashford. You could argue that the whole face masks thing. It may just be a coincidence but there's an election for Mayor of London that's been delayed to next year. Saddiq Khan wanted to make face masks compulsory on TfL services weeks and weeks back. The government steered clear of admitting face masks should be worn in public for a lot longer than most other countries. In fact, compared to other countries with similar demographics and at a similar stage of the crisis, we're way behind in terms of how many people say they would wear a face mask in public. It might be nothing but you wouldn't put it past some of the figures in this government to try and wait for everyone to forget that Saddiq Khan called it right before they did, before agreeing with him.

Rishi Sunak once again impressing everyone with his latest announcements. Again, you have to account for the fact that he gets to be the "good news" guy and that the plan has to be approved across at least the Prime Minister's team, but it's the way he lays out the facts of his latest package, what he is hoping to achieve, why he's made the decisions he has and even discusses the drawbacks of it. It's bad news but how refreshing is it to see a minister from this cabinet stand up and say "I'm sorry that I can't save every job". Yes, he's still a rich businessperson with 500 homes and he profited from the financial crisis that brought down Gordon Brown's Labour Party and he still voted for all of the pro-austerity policies and is an enabler of this dangerous no-deal Brexit government, but he's still a capable politician with leadership qualities and a genuine ability to reassure the public without lying about the drawbacks of his policies and the troubles we're yet to face, which is about the last thing you can say about Johnson, Hancock, Raab, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Jenrick, Patel or the rest of them. Can you imagine if Johnson had been responsible for this announcement. "It will be an oven-ready, world-beating financial package the likes of which the world has never seen before. Hurble gurble gurble no stone left unturned. Stay Great. Save Britain. Responsible Lives. Sensational Kipper-Leading Job Scheme Hosh Tosh Magosh. No follow-up questions."

The toilet bowl.