The Artful Dodger

What happened to clyne? There were lots of rumours about him and certain actives but he was a genuinely bery good player. Just sort of faded.

Vaccines are great. Lockdowns are not. That's what should be railed against. 

Disgusting and cynical move. Should be a by election. Shows politicians for what they are 

16 hours ago, Devil said:

Jesus, fair play you don't want him but how far has Mourinho stock fallen that any clubs fans are now saying fuck that.

Incredible fall from grace.

I think he and Benitez are similar in that respect. Both superb tacticians at their peak, but slowly being marginalised by a football that requires a more all encompassing philosophy. Their ethos will get its time again though. 

So apparently the Government want to process asylum seekers in Ghana or Rwanda now. Albania was the initial suggestion but they scotched it.

Taking away the very obvious and dangerous moral issue at play, the stupidity and arrogance of our current rulers is beyond belief. 'Pick a country our moronic voters think is a ahithole and let them deal with it'. Never have I see such a wilful abrogation of responsibility.

Really not sure about Lampard. Think this mythical good season he had in 19/20 is just that, a myth. He finished par for the course imo.

Thus Government risks serious injury and has seriously injured thousands of people over the years. The risk of injury is a mealy mouthed defence.

It's Ancelotti's comments since leaving which have made him seem arrogant. Very surprising for a man with a reputation for being a class act.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60032465

Not the end but a good start. I fear this desperate government are going to try and railroad it through anyway. Combined with the Nationalties Bill, it's a very serious turn in British politics.

12 minutes ago, Waylander said:

The timing of this is certainly political.

Yet when nearly every other British company has lost its monopoly why should the BBC be any different?

I'm sure the good content would be bought by other media outlets.

Some minority groups might lose out yet surely it is up to those minority groups to get together using social media to form self-interest groups. 

That's the way I see it anyway.

Because life shouldn't be one big free market festival, where basically the wealthy decide what gets made.

The BBC is an absolutely vital part of British culture. Does it have problems, yes. It will be sorely missed when it goes, as looks likely now. The Tories are doing this for purely ideological reasons.

The most enjoyable Everton side to watch that I've seen seen was that 13/14 side. Just never built on it. 

The BBC is essentially to be defunded by the Tories. This is terrible news. The BBC gets a lot of stick from both the left and right and it's news content has certainly been poor over recent years. However, the BBC is much more than that, from Radio 4 to BBC three, the BBC gives a voice to so many different people and is, I think, one of the greatest institutions in Britain. 

This is an ideological attack by an increasingly belligerent government. The move to Fox style, trash news is already pretty evident in our culture but this will only expedite it. I'm very worried about the future of this country.

20 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

http://www.rafabenitez.com/web/in/whats-on/thank-you-everyone-who-supported-from/268/

A genuinely decent man. There aren't that many in the world. 

It's got to be Potter but genuinely not sure Everton have the pull to get him now.

Feel sorry for him. 

I think this is as bad as it gets fot England.

Everton football club getting taken the piss out of by Leicester ffs. Don't let this happen.

11 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

The media need to make sure they keep reporting this. All the anti vax men will soon get vacinated then 

They tend to be the kind of people who are never going to get to use it anyway so I doubt it will bother them.

One thing I will grant about this government compared to its predecessors, it its absolute intellectual mediocrity.

Johnson himself is all public school bluff. Then Raab, Patel and Dorries* must be some of the most stupid cabinet ministers ever.

*I know she's the sports minister, so has all the kudos of a milk monitor but still.

25 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Said it countless times, how is he still in a job? I’m just surprised there isn’t massive protests about this. If we were French, London would be burnt to the ground. 

I couldn’t imagine how angry I’d feel had we not continued visiting my Mrs’ Dad in his final months. As a caveat to that, we weren’t even going outside for months on end so we felt safe to see him. 

The problem with us English is that we aren't French. The idea of looking out for each other is pretty alien to English culture. 

1 hour ago, RondónEFC said:

Alright, fine. So how does "we need to tear the whole system down" help anyone? Because it isn't going to happen.

We might have to agree to disagree but Johnson is a compulsive liar who lives hand to mouth in terms of surviving in his position, it's burned into his psyche and he's driven primarily by two things - dodging accountability and staying in power, not because it actually gets him anything, he does it just to see if he can.

I'll hold my hands up and admit I was a teenager who didn't pay much attention when Blair was in power and while the Iraq fiasco played out. But with all of the Prime Ministers I've seen before Boris Johnson, they at least played by the rules in terms of understanding that different people and institutions, from the courts to the average voter, would hold them to account if they did or didn't do certain things. Johnson simply doesn't play by those rules and his government are actively trying to destroy them by justifying any law-breaking or broken manifesto promises by shrugging and saying "we'll be accountable to the electorate" which basically gives them licence to do whatever the fuck they feel like for four years, breaking the contract with the electorate which all previous PMs have at least somewhat tried to uphold.

I don't disagree with any of your criticism of New Labour and I have no great love at all for Blair, May, Cameron, etc. Hopefully I've highlighted why I think Johnson is worse but if you look at him and think that seeing him kicked out and even a different Conservative take power, or even see Starmer or a similar Labour politician win the next election, and not think that that's at least a small step in the right direction (which is all you're going to get realistically in a short timespan) then I'm afraid I have to firmly disagree.

It's patently obvious that Johnson is a venal, criminal scumbag and has been for decades. We voted him in anyway. How did we get here? This is not some aberration like the centre left would have you think. We've got here because we accepted that 'spin' is just part of the game. We accepted that style mattered over substance. We absolutely deserve all of this.

I really don't think Blair is some higher category from Johnson though. The man is the definition of conceit and arrogance. They sit nicely in a pod.

New Labour bear the most responsibility for the mess our country is in for their acceptance of right-wing economics (which is the root of this all) and consigning true opposition to the dustbin of history. That's why you have a situation where pretty mild social democratic ideas are now thought of as 'extreme'. Why can't people see what's happened, christ it is frustrating. Pointing at Johnson and going he's just a horrible man is no help to anyone.

8 hours ago, RondónEFC said:

Maybe, the rumbles are getting louder. Think he's on a knife edge with his back benchers at the moment. If it isn't this it will be something else in the near future though, goodness knows what else he's been up to that hasn't been leaked yet. There will be plenty more, and he is stupid enough to lie and try to cling on which will make the next revelations in a week or two even worse.

I think you also have to keep 'the culture of politics' and Boris Johnson's individual misbehaviour separate though. What he does and what he is is completely different from the already low bar of expectation there is of politicians on average. I cringe when I hear people go one further and say "they're all as bad as each other" because they aren't. He is much worse than Blair, Cameron or May, all of whom will have been guilty of polishing the truth for their own ends on an almost daily basis, but it really feels like Johnson just does whatever the fuck he wants, sometimes with no better reason than just to see if he can get away with it.

I don't want to be accused of re-hashing the argument of EU membership and it has become an almost lazy cliche to say you can trace the start of this back to Brexit... but you can trace the start of this back to Brexit. That was where the national debate really lost all of its good faith where one side was having a somewhat evidence-based conversation about the EU and the other side basically kept saying shit that had a sliver of truth to it and pushing the boundary to see what they could get away with pretty-much-but-not-technically-lying about. Johnson's heavy involvement in the Leave campaign is obviously linked to the way his time as PM is going. The kicking and screaming from the Remain side from 2016-2019 and trying to invalidate the referendum result was never really about the EU at all, it was about trying to subvert an electoral result which was not really fought on the terms that had previously been permitted as the minimum standard of good faith debate. And since then, well it worked for them so why change?

Anyway, there are genuinely hundreds of MPs and those who want to be MPs out there from all of the parties who are driven by a genuine sense of public service. These are the ones who rarely make it to cabinet level though, which isn't a coincidence, and in that sense I very much agree the way politics is done has to change.

 Disagree entirely. Johnson is not 'much worse' than Blair or Cameron. Merely a natural consequence. 

Talk about 'understatement', Blair deliberately manipulated and lied to parliament to go to war. There is a direct line from him to where we are today, his contempt for the truth was just as strong as Johnson's but just more eloquently done. Let's not forget all this is at the behest of the master puppeteer Cummings. Again...without Alistair Campbell there is no Cummings.

Also disagree that most politicians are 'driven to serve'. The whole system needs tearing down, if they're not already corrupt when they get elected then they soon will be. 

15 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

If people think this was deliberate, what was the benefit of Liverpool getting the Arsenal game postponed ? They've given up home advantage in the second leg. Out of the three that missed Chelsea through Covid, there's probably only Firmino that will be involved in the semi final.

Of course they will. It's Liverpool. Guardiola has actually been convicted of cheating but you would never know it.

5 minutes ago, Stan said:

Do I? Prove it.

 

You're a miserable repetitive bore. Hence 'can't be arsed'. 

 

You literally can't get your cock out of Liverpool's arse. 

 

Bullshit. Nobody criticises Liverpool football club more than me. I've no time for them. I just dislike gimps who try to disguise their dislike of the city through football.

You literally said Liverpool have as much financial backing as Manchester City. Now either you're a moron, I'm not discounting it, or you just hate Liverpool. Now there is nothing wrong with that, but please stop this 'I'm neutral bollocks.