Rayvin

Right there with you on that. Utterly shameful what this country has allowed itself to become.

Which would be a relevant comparison if Bruce had taken us to a major final only to lose on penalties.

Rashford came on as a sub at least once in the group stages, but I basically think you're right about that particular strategic play unless he had them working on penalties all tournament in training.

Allardyce was the guy in charge before Southgate, you reckon we would have won with him? Or any of the last 4 or 5 England managers?

Agree with this.

Very true. I would maintain that they're a minority overall but clearly they're far more visible than the rest of us.

Once in a lifetime though isn't it

Yeah you don't need all the school level academic stuff, the minimum might be a foundation course to build up to whatever it is that you want to do. I would open up dialogue with a university about it (assuming it's a degree you want of course!) and they'll be able to tell you what hoops might need to be jumped through.

Maybe I'm just not seeing it then, I mean I don't pay that much attention to the upper levels of the PL these days I guess. I wouldn't have said this team has any 'world class' players though, myself. I think they're more a professional and competent unit, than they are a team of superior individuals.

I mean the money is only as high as that because the PL is nuts though. Do any of the England team walk into any other top tier club team elsewhere in Europe? Seriously any of them?

Was just looking around reddit on the football subs and I have to say like, the rest of Europe is -not- taking this well. People fucking hate us Apparently Denmark were the fairytale team of the tournament which doesn't help us, but clearly many people in Europe are just fucking sick of us now. In general. Which I might add, I'm finding fairly amusing... It's just football ffs. And it's not as if the England team don't deserve this.

Aye I'm kinda with you tbh - Newcastle succeeding would mean more to me than this - but I remember watching the semi final of Euro 96 as a kid and being devastated about it, and that part of me is now pretty excited

Have to say, I'm a bit bemused by the reaction of the non-English to this Germany are practically my second team in international football for no reason other than I've enjoyed their football over the years. I don't think any other team winning or succeeding at international football would bother me in the slightest though. Why is England being successful such a pain for people? Anyway, I love that Southgate has achieved all of this without having a golden generation or really any out and out worldclass players. Just an incredibly professional team - maybe it doesn't have the drama and stories of the golden generation, but its achieved far more, while being considerably more likable. One thing I am definitely going to permit myself to do in the run up to Sunday is believe that England can win. The temptation is always to cover your losses on this stuff and assume the worst but I'm going to try as best I can to stick to believing in it because we'll quite possibly never be in this position again for as long as I live.

It's not just Renton tbf - almost all the highest voted comments on the Daily Mail's match report are from people wishing that Denmark had won because they didn't take the knee and England did. Gammon rage now transcends even football success. I can see Renton's point a bit tbh, and I know a few people who are saying similar things but at the end of the day I think the majority have this one right. Life is short and shit enough without reining yourself in during moments of pure joy. This won't unify the country - don't think anything can - but it does at least represent a temporary ceasefire that everyone can get behind with some positivity, and that its lasting another 4 days is better than if it didn't.

Yeah but just cos everyone else is doing something, doesn't mean it's right. I'm not going to go vegan but I think there's a compromise to be made somewhere in the middle both for my own sake and that of the planet. Making adjustments elsewhere too - pretty much lived off coke zero for quite some time but have recently changed to just water and coffee. It killed me at first, but I think it's been worth it - my overall fluid intake has risen and I'm sure I'm much healthier for it. Crazy that I was still hooked on carbonated drinks in my mid 30s but we all have our vices and I'm pleased to be seeing the back of that one. As for the meat... I don't want bowel cancer tbh, and I can't find any particular fault with the research other than what Gemmill cited.

I've reduced my intake to one red meat meal a week, but is that still too much? It's almost always beef. I think based on the weight of evidence that you're probably right, but I really like eating meat...

There's been no part of that discussion that wound me up tbf. I think it's probably worth distinguishing between the general banter you lot seem to being having at the moment, and the occasional productive chat. That said, if my involvement is aggravating others then I'll step back from it. I mean I think we're done now anyway.

I mean yeah fair enough, although the article you cited mentions that the SAGE is advocating for waiting until September - ties in with school return, all adults will be double vaccinated by then, etc. I think the decision is between July 19th or September - at least based on what the BBC says anyway.

I'm not arguing per se, I'm just trying to understand the rationale so I can form an opinion

I know. I wasn't arguing otherwise. I was asking what actual benefit is of opening up - not about the number of deaths, not about what we think the disease will do, just the benefit of opening back up again - because that's the "prize" for the gamble. And it'll be weighed in pounds sterling clearly, so I was wondering if there was any actual data on the cost benefit. I'm getting the sense that you just want to open up for life to go back to normal again - which is fine but that's not quite where I am on this. If the cost benefit is solid I'm all for opening up, but that's the line for me I suppose. Given that we don't have any real appraisal of this that I can see, I remain fairly hesitant.

Right but that can't be all of it. If minimising deaths was the only metric for success here then the gamble wouldn't be worth taking. I mean it would be a wholly unnecessary risk when you could achieve at worst the same result by locking down. The metric for success in this gamble, I'd imagine, is GDP versus lives. If a 1% GDP boost only costs 100 lives, maybe we have put a price on life and decided that we can live with that. If its 10,000 then maybe not. Or according to the BBC, how many children missing school is each death worth. Something like that needs to be our measure for success I would think - so what the BBC should be telling us is how many deaths the GDP boost or whatever it is, is worth. That's what it would take for me to be able to make an informed opinion on this - and while they're giving us vague nonsense like that article, it makes me concerned that no one has done the numbers, or they're higher than they think people would want them to be. For what it's worth, I do believe that there is a lives versus GDP trade off line, sad as that might be.

I mean, what do you mean by 'work'? What is success?

This article appears to just present the information on both sides. In fact it's not especially clear on the benefit of opening up other than sending children back to school and keeps referring to it as a big gamble. I'm curious about the logic there a bit though, given kids will be on summer holidays soon anyway - so effectively back at home either way. Why has the BBC not listed any other positives? Presumably there's a huge economic benefit to opening back up as well? In fact I would have thought that was the primary driver, how bizarre that they'd give a solitary example of a benefit. That's got nothing to do with the argument mind you, just fucking weird from the BBC. But to take the article in good faith, the claim is that we should be the guinea pig for the rest of the world by opening back up because the worst case estimates of doing so are that we end up with 1000 hospital admissions every day by the end of summer, and we believe that the NHS can cope with that on the basis that it's no more than what we'd expect during winter as a consequence of the flu. That on its own isn't enough for me, but that's more on the pathetic writing in the article than the actual reality of the argument. When you put the hospital admissions against a context of economic benefit, then the picture may be enough to convince me that we should do this. It's a shame they've not bothered to make that case. Assuming you're armed with the facts on the estimated weekly cost of continuous lockdowns or some manner of economic measure of the harm it's doing, I could potentially see how you got to where you are. Unless your metric is also children being able to go to school again which would be fine I guess but I wouldn't agree that it's all that important at this stage in the academic year.

I really don't think this is what's happening. Starmer doesn't have enough loyalty amongst even most people on here for that to be the truth. I couldn't give a fuck what he thinks we should do and frankly, I don't even know what his position is. Also fwiw, I'm open minded about this in general as long as someone, somewhere has given an evidence based assessment of why opening back up is a good idea. If the government have expert advice that has supported them in developing a position based on available data, then I'm all for it. I'll continue wearing a mask myself because I wouldn't want to risk the lives of even antivaxxers tbh, but that's just a personal choice that I'm ok with. This is the common issue though - it's not polarised by left versus right - it's polarised by informed versus uninformed. And you can freely argue that it cuts both ways - but you'd need to have the evidence. If the evidence is there, I would suggest most on here would be open minded enough to support the point. And I mean serious evidence i.e. not given by someone in government. Although I would accept information given by credible healthcare professionals who work for the government.