RandoEFC

I'm very much tired of this, but the facts are that the Prime Minister broke laws he made, lied about it (including to Parliament) and then when he was caught out, claimed that he didn't know he'd broken the laws he'd made and spoken at length about on live television on an almost daily basis. Either he's genuinely an absolute moron and didn't realise that he was breaking those rules or he's just a liar. The current line of defence is "now is not the time because of Ukraine" but either of those two conclusions about a Prime Minister are not desirable during times requiring serious political leadership. With these facts in mind, whether Boris Johnson is allowed to lead the Conservatives into the next election will tell us a lot about where their party stands now, and whether a Prime Minister that has committed the offences I've described, which really are all unprecedented and cardinal sins in the UK's parliamentary democracy, will tell us a lot about the standards of this country. This term between elections has really shown how much you're playing politics on easy mode if you lead the Tory party, and this phenomenon is on steroids with Johnson. I'm not one of those people who still bums Corbyn and has to go "told you so, should have voted for Corbyn" every time Johnson has one of his calamities, but he's the most recent example of a non-Tory candidate for Prime Minister and he took more criticism for what he *might* do in Number 10 than Boris Johnson has for his dreadful and indecisive premiership. We're almost numb to it now but that's because the media are so sympathetic to him. The late lockdowns, unclear messaging, PPE mess that his government presided over for a year and a half. All you have to do to get out of a political crisis like this is one thing and in his case it was the vaccine program which should be credited to that woman actually did the procurement (I forget her name) and the NHS but somehow was used to paint Johnson's pandemic management as a success. But, you know... "it was a tough time... he did his best... at least commie Corbyn wasn't the Prime Minister!" Same with everything that has come to pass since. The cost of living crisis, party gate revelations, the Owen Patterson sleaze scandal. All forgotten because we sent weapons that we can easily spare to Ukraine and "Boris" got over there for a photo opportunity this weekend which apparently is tangible proof that he's a great leader. Like I said, politics on easy mode. One reason for positivity is that even if he rides out the rest of this scandal, permanent net damage has been done to his approval ratings and his party's in a way that they didn't suffer through the pandemic/vaccine era. A lot can happen in the election campaign but he doesn't start it with a good baseline. Whatever the media and Tory MPs say, the public don't think that Ukraine leadership makes up for PartyGate like the vaccine did for the poor decision making in the pandemic. Also, it's Boris Johnson and he will get himself into another couple of scandals between now and the next election. As for Sunak, his ambitions for becoming Prime Minister are probably shot now. These tax irregularities and this fine have accelerated his undoing but it started with the cost of living crisis which his conventional austere policies have no answer for. This does two things. 1) he will potentially resign as Chancellor before the next election and not stand for re-election in his constituency and 2) it saves Johnson's backside for the moment because it gets rid of one of the candidates that Tory MPs may back as an alternative in order to remove him from the big seat. The Tories are kind of fucked in the medium to long run though. Johnson's brand has been permanently damaged and Sunak was probably the only one with the public standing to boost their chances going into the next election. The alternatives now are very much lacking, partially because Johnson purged so much talent from the party before Brexit.

Supposedly Ukraine are preparing for Russia to basically focus on Donbas only now but with greater force. Putin is a cunt.

I don't think many people have a kind word to say about Blair apart from those who were very much in his inner circle like Alistair Campbell. You could see that from the reaction to his knighthood.

Last bit on the Johnson thing. You don't see him doing walkabouts like that in the UK. His standing with the British public is such that it's safer for him to walk around war-torn Kyiv than his own country.

Just a publicity stunt really. There's nothing you need to discuss in person you can't do on the phone. It's a worthwhile one at least for the message it sends out. And who knows, maybe he even did it for that reason as well as his own photo opportunity.

I tried to watch this documentary last night but to be honest it's really fucking boring. I also don't find him a very likeable person from the old footage of before he was exposed so I don't get why he was such a national treasure. I understand the philanthropy and stuff but he just seems like a weird guy in a way that would already have made me uncomfortable if I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. The amount of footage there is of him hanging out with the royals as well is sadly very much a red flag for me. There is a lot of rotten goings on beneath the surface of the British establishment and upper classes that Savile attached himself to, and you don't even have to dig too far to find it.

With all due respect to those countries, nobody cares about Hungary and Serbia in the grand scheme of things. There's a very real possibility of Le Pen winning the French election though as she increasingly appears to be squeezing support from Zemmour. That would be quite a shift in European politics.

Just FYI this shout has connotations linked to Hillsborough because shithouses that hate Liverpool and have no standards use it as if to say "when are you lot going to stop moaning about that" which is obviously inappropriate. Obviously you were doing nothing of the sort and it gets thrown their way in other contexts too but that's why you'll get a cranky response.

It is mad how long it's been between books. He's doing so many other projects as well alongside it. I'm an eternal optimist but even I compromise at being hopeful we get The Winds of Winter before he kicks the bucket but simply can't see him finishing the last book. There are also question marks over whether two books will be enough to finish the rest of the story or whether he'll need another one! It must be hard for him though, the biggest project of his career and a story he's told over the course of decades, and he's had to see someone else tell the end of it for him on television (admittedly due to his own failure to produce the goods) and from what we know, they sort of butchered his idea of it too. It's clear he has a lot more passion at this point for some of his other projects, including this new series. Focusing on the positive, I do think it will be decent.

I thought the ending was more or less the same just the pathway was different...

I'm cautiously optimistic about it without expecting it to quite hit the heights of the Game of Thrones glory years. It's a clean slate. The problems they had in the last couple of seasons of the main series were a result of them backing themselves into a corner by trying to tell the last section of the story in half as much time as they'd given themselves previously.

The "Dishy Rishi" Sunak fan club phase is finally over. There should never have been one given that one of the main reasons he's as wealthy as he is is because he made a fortune as a 'disaster capitalist' off the financial crisis. The way this cost of living crisis is being handled in the UK is an absolute disgrace. It beggars belief that having a cabinet full of the rich and privileged making the political decision to plunge even more people into poverty than they already have in their first decade in power shouldn't bar the Tories from power or any sort of public approval for at least another decade. It absolutely beggars belief how forgiving the public are toward this lot when many of them still hold a grudge against Labour because they happened to be in power when a global financial crisis caused mild inconvenience to the British economy.

Both my parents have Covid right now. They're fine but not ideal timing. My Nana is getting chemotherapy at the moment, which means she needs ferrying regularly to the hospital and my Mum can't do that for the next week or so, and that she's immuno-compromised due to a lack of white blood cells, so we're all avoiding her like the plague at any hint of someone nearby testing positive for Covid. The virus is an awkward bastard.

Are you sure Marcus Ericsson didn't hit you?

Russia already started doing this a couple of days ago. At the time, the conclusion was it was to shore up their numbers in the Donbas region as their advance on Kyiv had stalled anyway. But who knows...

I think this is fair. I won't pretend to be an expert, and I dont think any of us can make an accurate list of true and false things, but somewhere between 0% and 100% of the alleged stuff is true and that's enough to reach the same conclusion as you've stated at the end here.

A few people in this thread wilfully ignoring the years of Putin stealing from the Russian people to make himself one of the richest men in the world, along with his inner circle of oligarchs. Great that Abramovich is using his wealth and influence right now on humanitarian causes and pushing for a peaceful solution. It doesn't mean he didn't have close ties to Putin when he was only starting out on the path that led him to poisoning dissenting voices, imprisoning opposing politicians, helping to fix an election in Belarus and invading Syria and Ukraine. There's a range of middle positions between "all of the things Putin does are automatically Abramovich's fault" and "some of the things Abramovich has been accused of are yet to be proven so he's probably a proper sound lad".

Circular firing squad. In reality, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine have all impacted on the economy. He's more synonymous with the "cost of living crisis" than Brexit so he's obviously going to point at the thing that he's less attached to. I don't think it's some characteristic of him telling the truth on purpose!

Clueless lip service. They hired an education "tsar" to work out what needed doing to make up for the lost time due to Covid. They balked at the idea at investing the number he came back with in our kids and he resigned in protest. Education will get nothing but failure and under-investment from this lot. Their only solution is to try to force teachers into longer hours because their creative problem solving is such that that's all they can come up with. It's also cheap and allows them to score cheap Daily Mail points when the unions push back. You can see the headlines now. TRAITOROUS TEACHERS REFUSE TO DO WHAT'S RIGHT FOR OUR KIDS. And because this country has become a parody of itself in so many ways, a lot of people will gobble it up.

The fuck...

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Seen Pogba was making comments about his future yesterday and how his time at Man Utd hasn't satisfied him. Surely this lad is in "I'll drive him there myself" territory for the majority of Man Utd fans now? He's the absolute epitome of everything that's gone wrong for them since the Ferguson era. Signed for his brand and a cheap hashtag. Does his job for about half the season with half a dozen genuinely world class appearances sprinkled about in there. Missing for the other half, either literally due to injury, or figuratively because he isn't performing, with the latter scenario usually greeted with some sort of cringe Instagram statement "hitting back" at his critics and claiming that he's "fighting harder than I ever have every day for the shirt". I can't think of a bigger poster boy for a football club's issues than Paul Pogba. Martial was bad, not quite in the same league as Pogba though, at least they've managed to get shot of him. Massive fee, massive ego and a fraction of the footballing talent and work rate you'd need to justify either. Wouldn't last five minutes at Man City or Liverpool without a personality transplant. If I was a Man Utd fan, I'd despise the bloke. In fact, I already dislike him a lot just because of the type of modern day footballer he represents. PSG come sniffing around with a decent-sized wedge I'd bite their hands off if I was them.