RandoEFC

This election is already resolved. It's been well established for months now that Boris Johnson could go up to Buckingham Palace and piss on the queen's shoes without losing votes. It's done. We're too far down the Trumpian path now. Buckle up because we've got at least 5 years to come of what should be perceived as scandalous behaviour from people running the country, lying to the little people to trick them into voting against their own interests to make the rich richer while the rich media have no incentive to hold them to account. 5 or 10 years ago a rumour like the Russian report and a leak like the US trade documents would have finished a government in this country. Now it looks more like the governing elite and their friends in the media are playing a game to see just how far they can take the piss before someone stands up to them. @SirBalon's boyfriend James O'Brien is always saying this but it's so true. A huge proportion of this country would rather be lied to than admit they're wrong. "We can easily negotiate a Norway style agreement" "It'll be the easiest deal in history" "Let's take back control" "The NHS isn't for sale" All proven lies, beyond any dispute, but your typical Mail-reading Leave voter would still rather hear more of it than accept that they're "loony left" mates were actually right to call Farage a fraud and Johnson a liar. They don't even pretend that Brexit is going to make a single thing better anymore either. At least they used to speculate (lie) about the parts of our lives that might actually get better outside of the EU. Now they dont even have to try because the little people have been taught to lie to themselves so that the politicians don't have to. Read an actual impartial analysis earlier from someone who had actually bothered to read this trade deal document and the health market is just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently the Yanks want us to scrap a load of food standards and other regulations to, for example, remove health warnings from our food so that they can sell more unhealthy stuff to the idiot public. That doesn't mean we'll agree to it, but what do you think is more important to Boris Johnson and his government to be - protecting health standards in our country or the prospect of standing next to Donald Trump in front of the cameras announcing another "great, oven-ready deal" that's actually a disaster for our country but who cares because none of the mainstream media are going to challenge him on it apart from the Guardian lefty loons? Country's gone.

I agree with the majority of this but throughout reading the post I can't help but think how much different it would be if the proportion of pro-Tory and pro-Labour news outlets were flipped over. Labour generally appeal more to people like us who go to the internet to do more reading and have further debate. I personally find more like-minded people online and in my everyday life than not. However, that's still a massive minority of the country. The vast majority barely pay any attention to the details, who has apologised, who hasn't, they get their news from BBC which gives them the bare bones of what's going on without the detail or speculation about what it could mean and what could be the motivations behind what has been said/done, or from the newspaper stands when they go to the shops, around 75% of which is against the Labour Party and Corbyn. I agree they need to take a different tact completely though. Perhaps a more centrist Labour leader will get an easier time from the rags than Corbyn has but I don't know if that's enough.

Corbyn believes that Labour's positive message is enough to keep him above getting personal with Johnson, getting really stuck in to the damage done to schools, police, the NHS, the Russian rumours, the bum boys and watermelon smiles. In another era, maybe it would be a viable strategy, it worked reasonably well against May because she lacked personality, but he's been too soft in this campaign and in trying to remain above the personal insults he has instead effectively handed the country over to the increasingly corrupt Tories who keep realising they can get away with more and more because the public like being lied to and mistreated, for the next 5 years.

I thought I couldn't bear to watch it but it's still hilarious.

The circus is still in town. Apparently Moyes was all set but Moshiri pulled the plug when he realised how much the fans would hate it. The Unsworth rumour was made up (at the time). Howe and Arteta under serious consideration. I've even seen a link today suggested Duncan Ferguson is being lined up as interim manager. Meanwhile, Silva has returned to Finch Farm today to take training. Literally anyone could be in charge on Sunday.

I live with two Chelsea fans, one of them hates Kepa and the other seems to quite like him. Odd because they tend to agree on pretty much everything else.

Corbyn: Has some members in his party and other occasions that he should have dealt with better with regards to anti-semitism. The media: Corbyn is a danger to the country, a racist and not fit to be prime-minister. The Labour Party are inherently anti-semitic. Corbyn: Releases an entire separate manifesto on dealing with anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination against people's beliefs in the Labour Party, and on social media across the nation. Johnson: Uses the terms "bum boys", "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" and likens Muslim women to "letter boxes" in articles he wrote personally. The media: Boris is known to be a bit controversial and split opinions at times. Member of the public with two brain cells to rub together: Will you apologise for using those terms in your articles when you were a journalist? Johnson: Well if you look hard enough at the things that anyone says then I'm sure you'll find things that could be interpreted as offensive (so no). The media: CoRbYn'S £500 kAzIlLiOn TaX rAiD oN yOuR wAlLeT! The British public: Still vote Conservative.

As much as I hope the post-Brexit struggles open some people's eyes I'm still mostly resigned to the fact that the majority won't admit that they voted to make their own lives and the lives of people around them worse. In this age of personality politics and blind partisan support "you're either with us or you're against us" people would rather keep lying to themselves than admit they were wrong even if it continues to make their lives worse. "At least we've got our country back". Good luck paying for food, housing and your kids' futures with that sense of 'sovereignty' that the Daily Mail told you to feel. Why can't they move all the 17.4 million (Copyright) to one end of the country, and leave the rest of us in the rest of the country, still part of the EU, hard border between these two new states, and just see how each half is getting on in a few years' time? I'd love to see it.

So today is the first time a friend of mine told me he's moving abroad in 2021 because Brexit and the Tories in general have left him so disillusioned with this country. #TakeBackControl

Yeah I reckon Poch would definitely prefer to commit to a massive rebuild project at Everton instead of walking into Bayern, Madrid or Man Utd. Nailed on.

I don't see much benefit from Nuno's point of view. Howe is definitely a possibility if he wants it. Certainly 100 times more exciting an appointment than Moyes or Hughes even if I still think Howe has his flaws.

I don't think he's likely to enter negotiations for a number of reasons but I like to think if he did, that Marcel Brands would be more palatable than Mike Ashley.

Think it's been long enough that I don't really associate him with Liverpool that much anymore. And beggars can't be choosers.

0% joking, that's the worst part.

Three more weeks. Feels like absolutely nothing is happening during this campaign. Discussion of the manifestos seems superfluous as we're in that place now where the majority of people have known since the start of the campaign where their vote is going. The only thing that's changed really is Farage stepping down all of those candidates which has cushioned the Tory lead in the polls. The only ways the polls change much now will be if the Lib Dems and Labour do something but I can't see it happening. With the current status quo, I expect the Lib Dem vote share will continue to shrink very slowly as people shuffle back to Labour. If there is a major youth turnout as well, then Labour will get a better vote share than the polls currently suggest. It's all about the constituencies though, obviously. The only other thing I can think of that would hamstring the Tories is if something came out about that Russian report. People don't seem to care about the renaming of their Twitter account or Johnson bumbling unimpressively his way through Question Time on Friday night. If you're on board with him and the Tories now after his career it's going to take something big to change your mind I think. So yeah, a big feeling of wishing the actual election was tomorrow so we can just get it over with to be honest. Fingers crossed there's something to upset the current apple cart in the time that's left.

If Silva does get sacked my preference for his replacement from those who have been mentioned go like this: 1. Benitez or Arteta. 2. Any other unknown quantity that I can convince myself might be good. 3. Moyes until the end of the season. 4. Unsworth until the end of the season. 5. Literally any other person, dead or alive. 6. Mark Hughes.

I didn't see Sturgeon or Swinson but apparently Sturgeon was impressive and Swinson was pretty poor.

Corbyn did alright, he stood up to the difficult questions reasonably well but I don't know if his performance on its own will swing that many people. Johnson, on the other hand, was an absolute car crash. A quick twitter search will show you the Tory propaganda bots in full swing, rattled by the "lefty audience" because I'm sure members of the actual public are more likely to be biased in their questioning of the party leaders than the Mail and Sun reporters who are paid by billionaire donors to the Conservative party. A delightful 30 minutes of television. Congratulations to Sheffield for doing a better job in half an hour of scrutinising the prime minister than the media have done in the last 100 days or however long it has been. Probably the moment of the election campaign so far in terms of it actually affecting people's voting intentions, just because of how poorly Johnson stood up under that pressure. Major opportunity for the other parties to seize on the anti-Tory momentum this could generate. Hopefully they make a big deal about Johnson not being there for the other debates that are left. All the more reason to be part of the Sheffield United fan club along with @Dr. Gonzo.

I'm not fact checking Phil's numbers for him but if it makes £200k worth of difference to you and your family then I dont think any of us could pretend that wouldn't make a significant difference to your priorities, that's all I'm saying.

Honestly if it makes that much difference to you on a personal level then it's a good enough reason to look beyond the scandal and potential corruption on the other side. I'm young and free of those sort of worries so I'm still in a position to bleat about what's best for the country as a whole. Labour won't win a majority though, so Corbyn's wackiest policies are extremely unlikely ever to see the light of day. They just need to get him enough seats to stop Johnson having one. Not that another hung parliament is at all good for the country either but it's better than a Johnson majority with a five year rule ahead of him in my opinion.

I didn't mean it as an insult. I just think the skulduggery of Johnson and his lot goes way beyond what you've mentioned in that post and I'm worried that most people aren't even aware of the Russia report and the depth of the Acuri scandal because of the media coverage and as a result of this, we're in a position where nothing actually matters. The lies you've mentioned are what I'd call par for the course even though it's totally wrong.

Both missing the point in my opinion. Politicians have always been full of exaggeration and overly ambitious promises, while most of the time just falling short of being caught bang to rights in an outright lie. Right now we have the party who have actually governed the country for the last 9 years altering their official Twitter account to masquerade as a neutral fact-checking service and then having the cheek to deny that this was misleading. Michael Gove claimed that the only person doing any misleading was Jeremy Corbyn, who produced evidence that UK and US trade officials had met, and that every single word of the meeting had been redacted (read: covered up) by the government. Downing Street also sits on (read: covers up) the report on Russian interference which we have been told by Dominic Grieve contains shocking and extreme revelations that would certainly affect the election while the media refuse to even give it lip service because protecting their billionaire owners and editors is more important than carrying out their actual job of informing the public. It's astonishing how much people allow themselves to believe that there is still some element of doubt over what's going on here. This isn't my opinion, it's a fact, the worst part is that nobody can explicitly prove it. 10 years ago we laughed nervously at North Korea. For the last 5 years we've observed Donald Trump with a mixture of mild amusement and discomfort. You can see where I'm going with this. We aren't through the looking glass just yet, but we're far enough that it's almost certainly too late to turn back. We're way past the point where you can equate the behaviour of Johnson and his friends to "typical lying politicians". This is a different ball game. It really is hopeless. I can't help myself from trying to convince others but the voice inside my head keeps whispering, and I know it's right, that if they don't believe it the only way is to let them wait and see.

I give up more and more with each passing day. The sheer stupidity of the British public has been evidenced once again throughout this election campaign. Forget about left-wing, right-wing, austerity, leave, remain, it doesn't even matter. The fact is that this Conservative party simply isn't fit for government. How the disinformation spread by their party this week through the FactCheck Twitter thing, the buying of the URL labourmanifesto.co.uk and paying for it to be the top Google result for "Labour Manifesto" and the constant lying in interviews by the likes of Gove and Cleverley, refusing to cede an inch on whether they may have just gone a bit too far with some of the things they've said and done, is just embarrassing. It's truly astonishing the extent to which they own the media as well. When anyone calls them out on it they get slaughtered for being "biased" and "lefty media" when anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that the lefty media bias is completely and utterly dwarfed by their counterparts. You can't get through to people when right-wing billionaires monopolise the exposure people get to political coverage. The only solution is try not to get too upset, hold on tight, and try not to gloat too much when this country is enthralled to and impoverished by the Eton production line. People will eventually stop enjoying the fact that they're being lied to just because it upsets people who disagree with them a little bit more.