Rayvin

Would definitely take Trafford now if we can get him, on the Pope replacement front. Burnley have conceded what, 9 goals all season?

I agree, Musk hasn't helped them at all. His millions might, but his personal interventions haven't. Although it does seem to be fueling a lot of drama on the other side of the pond with the UK now being used as a warning to Americans of the dangers of not following the dictates of Musk's first term as President. But still though, I think the public could break against Labour and back into all of this shit again if they're not really, really careful.

I like a lot of it but I'm not sure where he's getting this idea that the culture war has ended in the UK. Things have settled because Labour are in power and not actively pushing such things, but they're still responding/reacting to the themes. Think we need to still be vigilant on that. Everything else, I totally agree with him though.

You have a gift

You know, I read some of the start of it, which seemed to be by his standards, a genuine attempt to address the tragedy appropriately. But then he veers off into this shit and reminds everyone why he's such a worthless man, let alone leader.

If you ask me, nation states are an increasingly redundant political consideration in a world that now lives online and without borders as much as it lives offline and with them. As to your first point though, who is complaining about Trump deporting illegal immigrants in those specific terms? I read the other day that for all the fanfare he's making about it, he's doing very little different to what Biden was doing. So I think most of the noise on that is coming from Trump himself trying to stir the pot and get a reaction. If he just came out and said "I'm continuing with the immigration policies of the last administration" then it wouldn't be drawing anywhere near as much attention. But he doesn't do that, he makes it sound like he's the first person to ever have tackled this issue, and turns up the drama which the media then feast on. I'm more concerned about the threats to invade Greenland and to generally weaken Western civilisation by ramping up hostilities between allied countries, eventually leading to a breakdown in international order and a power vacuum that gives opportunistic rogue states the ability to cause considerable harm.

Talking about this stuff with like minded people is, for me at least, important. It reminds me that for all my frustrations and fears about the world, I'm not alone. As someone with an anxious disposition I do often feel better just running things past you guys. Like for instance I posted the other day about Trump and Starmer, and KCG made a counter point and I felt better. Sometimes of course things are as bad as I think they are, and no one has anything reassuring to say, but at least we're all in it together. I do try to avoid being constantly in politics chat these days but I think dabbling is ok for the sake of sanity. If we don't do that, then speaking for myself at least, I feel even more powerless and isolated in the storm. EDIT - I'm gonna add as well that I also appreciate (and I think Renton knows/values this too ) that Gemmill's suggestion here is an attempt at kindness and care because he can see the anxiety in what is being said. Sometimes switching it all off is indeed the right thing.

City look toothless. Brugge just hitting them on the counter every time they catch a misplaced pass. It's nice to see Brugge do well but I think it's better for us in a few different ways if City don't bomb out here.

What was the previous iteration of it like? I don't really have conscious memory of it.

Some form of move back to the EU has to be on the manifesto next time out. I just hope the rise of Farage doesn't scare Labour into shying away from it.

It's following on from a Guardian one last week which was less bleak but still bad: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/one-in-five-britons-aged-18-45-prefer-unelected-leaders-to-democracy-poll-finds But yes, one or two data points isn't the end of the world anyway. It does 'feel' right though.

Yes social media is a huge part of it but it's also how fucking worthless our societal offering to Gen Z is. They have no wealth, no prospects, and a country that feels like it's decaying around them - thanks to things like Brexit, but still. That's exactly the breeding ground the Nazi party relied on to win power in the 1930s. Widespread disillusionment, despair and hopelessness. For my view there's nothing we can do now, the actual answers involve actions which would be too radical. They're going to change the scene to suit themselves and in the image of their heroes. The pendulum has fully swung back their way. We just have to hope we live long enough to see it start returning to our side. The online right has defeated the left in all arenas.

And this goes from bad to worse... https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/gen-z-doubts-about-democracy-laid-bare-in-worrying-survey-vsxx509n3 52% prefer authoritarianism, a third want rule by the army, and 47% believe we need some sort of revolution.

I love this claim that he's only sent him off so that he misses the second leg of the semi final against us, since Oliver is an NUFC fan Arsenal fans starting to challenge Liverpool for the lifetime tinfoil hat award.

I think what at least I'm saying here is that I'm struggling to think who we are gonna bring in that will be as effective in the short term as Murphy is right now, and that as TP says, his partnership/understanding with Isak is a key part of that. Maybe if you stick him in any other team he goes back to being bang average, but with Isak on form he's looking very good indeed.

Yeah truth be told I'm having a hard time imagining that I'd be complaining about that if it was one of our players being sent off...

I think/hope it's this. His passing is superb in the final third, I don't see how he could be purple patching that. He has more confidence now sure, but nothing stops that from continuing while he's getting games.

Good luck to the lad. Tried his best at all times - limited player, sure, but one who really encapsulated the effort and intensity of Howe's team.

Fulham looked decent at shuttling the ball upfield but otherwise fairly toothless against Man Utd. We need to win this one.

Even last year tbh - Spurs are suffering through a Europe induced injury crisis same as we were. Howe had us finishing 7th despite that. Spurs are currently 15th.

I stuck this one to see if you were being uncharitable. You were not It's like watching Sunday League.

The article was open for me when I linked it, guess they've worked out how to freely advertise

Fair, given the FT has also run with this about how much Trump likes Starmer https://www.ft.com/content/ed30f4b2-65db-4b0f-aa75-af345c1de6d0 I'm mostly just amusing myself at this point tbh, I really think we fell into a hell dimension some years back, none of this can possibly be real

Reeves planning to cut sickness benefits in weeks, having identified that they're being used by "people who are too lazy to work" and it's not her/the state's problem. This is presumably a sickness benefit situation that survived 14 years of the Tories because cutting it would be too extreme even for them. Maybe I'm being uncharitable with that though?

Trump administration calling for regime change in the UK now, Starmer the new pet hate figure Apparently discussing the viability of crashing our economy to force it. https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/news-analysis/trump-starmer-regime-change-special-relationship-b2685927.html It's a good thing we're still part of EU or we'd really be in trouble We're fucked