Rayvin

It's also this anti-expert thing coming home to roost. The government is truly representative of the people who voted for it in the sense that as a grouping they are united by rejection of people who actually know what they're talking about. As if all of these complex scientific concepts can just be dealt with through 'common sense'. COVID has exposed the utter insanity of that position immediately.

That Times article is creating a bit of a storm on our side of the political fence. And it is Indeed interesting coming from the Times. What I find particularly interesting about it is that there's very little in it that we didn't technically know more or less as it was happening. People on here had a more serious and well informed grasp of the risks posed by COVID than the government. And we weren't alone. Millions of people could see it for what it was. How are we supposed to trust a government that failed where so many ordinary people succeeded? They actually, genuinely, are incompetent. In the extreme.

I never check this thread but tbh I can quite believe what Renton is saying. If you need any support self publishing anything CT, just give me a shout.

You know what, that's actually a relief to hear. I thought the deep state might have finally taken him

I still wonder sometimes where Parky went. He's been gone for years now hasn't he?

This is fucking well said tbf.

I'm sorry like but that's utter fucking tripe from Glendenning. Working for a business owned by Saudis and therefore being paid by them is entirely comparable to supporting a club owned by them. No one who gets paid by the Saudis is in any "moral" position to say shit to us. Fucking losers man. No one who votes for any government that sells weapons to the Saudis is in any moral position to say shit to us either, so there goes half the country. I vaguely suspect new Labour might have done it too in which case that's the other half of the country also.

Just read this myself. Has made me feel bad a bit, but mostly because of the resignation of the author to the fact that the game is up and the sport is fucked. And yes, it is. But if it's going to happen it may as well be us - and if it's going to be us, I may as well enjoy it.

He just wants us to fail.

How is Rafa getting on in China anyway?

If it is, you can guarantee that Sunderland will find the guy.

They'll get bought eventually but it's never going to be like this. I'm still unsure if this is going to really happen, but it is probably the last gig in town in terms of sovereign wealth funds buying up football clubs. They'll get bought out by some low rent Ashley figure and I doubt they'll even really be able to enjoy it after all the attention this creates. If it goes through, the press will be all over it - especially given the dearth of anything else to write about - and then we're going to be back to the complaints about the "magedia" and how unfair everything is. Maybe the Reubens are the front men for the mysterious cabal of tyneside businessmen. It'll be interesting to see a re-run of the old classics.

He was outed as a "mag" when I was over there. I think he's one of ours tbh. Not sure what he's doing though.

Nice, that's filled me with a bit of optimism indeed.

It'll be interesting to see what strategy they could take on that front. They'll have massive goodwill amongst the fans anyway, simply by virtue of having saved us from Ashley - they wouldn't need to pull out all the stops with Keegan and Rafa coming back (would those two even work together?) One or the other maybe. Not sure Shearer would leave what he's doing either, but who knows.

RTG is trying to convince itself that if this happens, the rivalry doesnt exist anymore. It changes everything, we're not the same club, so all the shoeings they get from us going forward won't count and history stopped The fear is palpable.

That's fair enough, would indeed make sense.

And they are definitely substantially involved? Why do they need the Reubens?

Do we actually know that this is a Man City moment? I don't think we're that lucky. I mean I'm fine with us just losing Ashley, that's enough for me, but if the signs are there that it's more than that, it's going to be pretty special.

I find myself rather indifferent to the Saudi money issue. I suspect all of our political leaders would behave the same if given the chance anyway. Happy to just see the back of Ashley. I'd just about take Satan at this point.

Is this actually happening? Where's @247? He shoots it down every time it comes up.

Absolutely right. Although I'm worried for Starmer on that front too.

I did leave the party in January 2019 as a protest over Brexit - I sent a long, pointless email that no one ever replied to, explaining my reasons. Then I rejoined when they came up with a Brexit plan that made sense to me. Happy?

Consider me defeated, I guess.

It's going to achieve nothing whatsoever. I just can't do it anymore though.