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Could more Tory MP defections be in the pipeline? – politicalbetting.com

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  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,132
    tlg86 said:

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    Naughty BBC. They just showed a shot of empty seats in the Liverpool end and implied that it was at 20:36 BST (i.e. the actual kick off). The pictures they were showing from around just after 20:00.

    Which was the scheduled kick off. I've seen naughtier. That's "fields of wheat" territory.
    They said despite a 36 minute delay, there were still lots of empty seats at kick off and showed footage from before 20:36.

    But there's some interesting videos on the net, like this one:

    https://twitter.com/Fordman_R/status/1530685722591735810

    The tricky thing is trying to marry up the numbers inside the ground and what was going on outside the ground. Clearly quite a lot of Liverpool fans made it into the ground well before kick off, but it's hard to say whether the delay to others was because a lot arrived late together, possibly with some with fake tickets, or because it was a shit show from the French police.
    There'll be some validity on both sides, I guess, but from what I've gleaned from a variety of sources it does appear the French screwed up badly and that such misbehaviour as there was from Liverpool fans wasn't anything like enough to excuse it.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,480

    Carnyx said:

    Applicant said:

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    'Ok guys, jus' spitballing here, but what if we try tunnels again, only in a different place?'

    'Genius, trebles all round!'





    Great! They work in Norway and the Faroes. Once again the UK is backwards when it comes to infrastructure.
    How many Islands?.... How many tunnels?

    Compared to a few ferries now and again?

    Tunnels are always going to be better than ferries, due to not having to worry about the weather. Which is why the Greenwich foot tunnel was built during the reign of Queen Victoria.

    I don't see any particular reason why the Orkney and Shetland Islands shouldn't follow the Faroes in having tunnels between some of the islands.
    There's a tunnel in Greenwich that's only 30cm long?
    Rotherhithe tunnel was earlier IIRC. Brunel sen and jun innit.
    I've walked through the Greenwich and Woolwich tunnels. Not Rotherhithe, yet.

    https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/walking-through-a-tunnel-under-the-thames-part-1-11764/
    Only done Greenwich!

    IIRC Rotherhithe might be tricky to walk through without being fried by accident. It was converted to a Tube line at some point, though I've been on the train through it. Not sure about current situation with all the changes.
    The air quality is terrible, driving with windows open would make me feel ill, so it would be a terrible place to walk. I have seen the odd pedestrian but that is probably once every 50 trips. Cyclists are also fairly rare but a disaster to traffic flow as the exits are longish and uphill and nowhere to overtake them so one cyclist will add several minutes to a couple of hundred cars.
    With unusual foresight the Clyde Tunnel builders constructed separate pedestrian/cyclist tunnels running parallel to the main ones. Pretty horrible and scary, mind.
    Hopefully the new bridge that's (probably) being built just a little along from the tunnel means I never even have to think about that cycle tunnel again. I think who-ever designed the tunnel really resented it and made it as unsettling and grim as possible.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,266
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Hardly, even Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband and Corbyn in 2017 won Wakefield. It was just the scale of the Tory landslide in 2019 that meant Labour lost it in the first place
    Wakefield South is the best Tory ward in Wakefield but in 2010 it was moved into the Hemsworth constituency. That's why it was surprising the Conservatives managed to win the seat in 2019.
    Point of order. It was moved in 1997.
    Two wards of Kirklees, Denby Dale and Kirkburton were moved out. And two Ossett wards and Wakey West moved in in 2010.
    That the boundaries change quite radically making comparisons not greatly valid is a very fair point.
    They'll change again next time too. Even more radically.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 53,130
    edited May 2022
    Applicant said:

    A French journalist travelling in a vehicle marked as "humanitarian aid" was killed in the Donbas region today after the vehicle came under fire by Russian forces. Working to confirm what area this was in.

    https://twitter.com/kylejglen/status/1531247187396550657?

    GRAPHIC IMAGES

    Looks like a UK truck too.

    Definitely a UK numberplate for a vehicle that the public-facing DVLA database seems to match the lorry in the picture. But it's SORN...
    Funnily enough, in my many visits to Ukraine I came across several British-registered cars, maybe a dozen in total, about half of which were right hand drive, and none of which appeared to be driven by someone British. My assumption was that it was some sort of scam. Also there were a few German and loads of Lithuanian-registered cars there, which again I’m sure is not loads of Lithuanians on holiday.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    it gets worse. This feels like the Cologne New Year's Eve debacle. Initial confusion, pitiful attempt to shift blame, then the truth emerges.

    Spanish media all over it, as well


    "And after the final in Paris, hell came: "They were armies of robbers hunting the fans""

    "Pure survival instinct led fans to seek the sum of people, self-defense: "The fans got together with each other to form shields and defend themselves better, Real Madrid and Liverpool fans even. Then I found out that many girls had been stripped naked and robbed .""

    https://www.20minutos.es/deportes/noticia/5007262/0/cronica-atracos-pesadilla-aficionados-real-madrid-liverpool-final-champions-league/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_campaign=mobile_web
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,132
    edited May 2022
    dixiedean said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Would have to be a total destruction to point to a landslide.
    Nevertheless. It's the more important of the two by-elections.
    There is a residual belief that Boris has a magical hotline to the Brexit north. Reinforced by Hartlepool.
    However. That coincided with Peak Boris, as astutely spotted on here. It's a view which is oft repeated, but supported by no polling evidence whatsoever. (Midlands is different).
    Good point. I confess it's my belief Johnson's appeal will be more robust up North - inc in those 2019 "rw" gains - but you're right that I can't point to polling to back this up. It is not ...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QK8RxCAwo
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    Naughty BBC. They just showed a shot of empty seats in the Liverpool end and implied that it was at 20:36 BST (i.e. the actual kick off). The pictures they were showing from around just after 20:00.

    Which was the scheduled kick off. I've seen naughtier. That's "fields of wheat" territory.
    They said despite a 36 minute delay, there were still lots of empty seats at kick off and showed footage from before 20:36.

    But there's some interesting videos on the net, like this one:

    https://twitter.com/Fordman_R/status/1530685722591735810

    The tricky thing is trying to marry up the numbers inside the ground and what was going on outside the ground. Clearly quite a lot of Liverpool fans made it into the ground well before kick off, but it's hard to say whether the delay to others was because a lot arrived late together, possibly with some with fake tickets, or because it was a shit show from the French police.
    There'll be some validity on both sides, I guess, but from what I've gleaned from a variety of sources it does appear the French screwed up badly and that such misbehaviour as there was from Liverpool fans wasn't anything like enough to excuse it.
    Having watched a stupid number of videos, its clear there was a failure in terms of filtering who are allowed to get near the stadium.

    Then there is a repeated scene you see, a ticket fails to scan (be it because it is fake or because the scanner just fails), they then sometimes open the side gate, you then see a large group of locals charge the turnstile. That causes the police to react, they come barrelling up to the gate, sometimes lob the tear gas, the locals run off, Liverpool fans stand there arguing, the stewards slam it shut and clearly aren't going to reopen it, with genuine Liverpool fans left locked out.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,170
    dixiedean said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Hardly, even Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband and Corbyn in 2017 won Wakefield. It was just the scale of the Tory landslide in 2019 that meant Labour lost it in the first place
    Wakefield South is the best Tory ward in Wakefield but in 2010 it was moved into the Hemsworth constituency. That's why it was surprising the Conservatives managed to win the seat in 2019.
    Point of order. It was moved in 1997.
    Two wards of Kirklees, Denby Dale and Kirkburton were moved out. And two Ossett wards and Wakey West moved in in 2010.
    That the boundaries change quite radically making comparisons not greatly valid is a very fair point.
    They'll change again next time too. Even more radically.
    So much so that the largest successor constituency to Wakefield when the boundaries change is Ossett and Denby Dale, with only a minority of voters, those from the city itself, staying in the Wakefield constituency and being joined by a brand new, non-overlapping, bunch of outlying areas.

    The new Wakefield constituency retains only around 47% of its current electorate.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    Leon said:

    it gets worse. This feels like the Cologne New Year's Eve debacle. Initial confusion, pitiful attempt to shift blame, then the truth emerges.

    Spanish media all over it, as well


    "And after the final in Paris, hell came: "They were armies of robbers hunting the fans""

    "Pure survival instinct led fans to seek the sum of people, self-defense: "The fans got together with each other to form shields and defend themselves better, Real Madrid and Liverpool fans even. Then I found out that many girls had been stripped naked and robbed .""

    https://www.20minutos.es/deportes/noticia/5007262/0/cronica-atracos-pesadilla-aficionados-real-madrid-liverpool-final-champions-league/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_campaign=mobile_web

    I've certainly seen 2-3 videos where 20 locals have picked off a fan after the game and just piling in on them.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,459
    As I said, crowd control goes well/badly at a sporting event. BFD.

    It's not going to bring down any governments and no one will remember it in three days. No matter Twitter.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    edited May 2022
    Apparently the Europa League final was incredibly badly organised, too:

    https://www.rangers.co.uk/Article/seville-supporter-update-3005/1WSXjhLZzBStxvwuwXVb6M
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    tlg86 said:

    Thread from journo Rob Draper:

    https://twitter.com/draper_rob/status/1530830463270518785

    My only thought reading this is, it's remarkable so many Liverpool fans made it in at all.

    The bit about going to turnstile N - at the Real end - is very odd. Where were the Real fans entering the ground? Very strange.

    The reason the Real fans weren't attacked and treated quite as badly as the Scousers is because - apparently - they got off at a different Metro station, which is not the midst of the toilet that is St Denis the burb

    And yet even so we are now seeing many reports of Madrid fans being assaulted, robbed, girls stripped naked and molested, etc

    There are now hundreds of videos confirming the truth. The large bulk of blame falls on the scum who live in St Denis et al, the idiotic, frightened, violent French police, and all of it wrapped up in a tremendous failure of crowd organisation



  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,995

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    Naughty BBC. They just showed a shot of empty seats in the Liverpool end and implied that it was at 20:36 BST (i.e. the actual kick off). The pictures they were showing from around just after 20:00.

    Which was the scheduled kick off. I've seen naughtier. That's "fields of wheat" territory.
    They said despite a 36 minute delay, there were still lots of empty seats at kick off and showed footage from before 20:36.

    But there's some interesting videos on the net, like this one:

    https://twitter.com/Fordman_R/status/1530685722591735810

    The tricky thing is trying to marry up the numbers inside the ground and what was going on outside the ground. Clearly quite a lot of Liverpool fans made it into the ground well before kick off, but it's hard to say whether the delay to others was because a lot arrived late together, possibly with some with fake tickets, or because it was a shit show from the French police.
    There'll be some validity on both sides, I guess, but from what I've gleaned from a variety of sources it does appear the French screwed up badly and that such misbehaviour as there was from Liverpool fans wasn't anything like enough to excuse it.
    Having watched a stupid number of videos, its clear there was a failure in terms of filtering who are allowed to get near the stadium.

    Then there is a repeated scene you see, a ticket fails to scan (be it because it is fake or because the scanner just fails), they then sometimes open the side gate, you then see a large group of locals charge the turnstile. That causes the police to react, they come barrelling up to the gate, sometimes lob the tear gas, the locals run off, Liverpool fans stand there arguing, the stewards slam it shut and clearly aren't going to reopen it, with genuine Liverpool fans left locked out.
    I suspect quite a few fans with fakes managed to get in. And then you get to a point where the authorities are looking at the number of fans in the ground and the numbers outside and think "we've got a problem here".
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,415
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cicero said:

    The response to this is "restore Imperial measurements". In otherwords, impose further costs on the UK economy for no economic gain whatsoever. Basically no one under the age of 60 has been taught the rules of the Imperial system, it is the kind of nostalgia that allows people in the their fifties to talk about the Second World War as though they had anything to do with it. This is a government that thinks going back to the 70s or even the 50s is the solution to their political ills.

    Britian has got to escape this absurdity. The nostalgia trap will see us relegated to the lowest economic leagues. The fact that Johnson is doing it to try to save his own worthless political life is simply contemptible.

    Allowing imperial measurements doesn't impose any costs at all because nobody is obliged to use them if they don't want to.

    What's absurd is not giving up on imposing metric conformity but the hysterical reactions of people who engage in this kind of national psychoanalysis. What you're doing is not all that far removed from Maria Zakharova condemning Ukraine for wanting to claim borscht for itself.
    What is absurd is banging on about it as though it is an important subject for government to intervene on, but that is what populist apologists for Johnson are doing.
    TBOBS - "Tangible Benefits of Brexit" - are so thin on the ground, though, that one has to take what one can get. In this case the visceral thrill of being able to buy a pound of King Edwards.
    Ah, but it's the IBOBS that count. The Intangible Benefits of Brexit

    Being a free man in a free country. Walking tall, like an American citizen in 1779, inhaling the pure forest air of independence.

    We now own our mistakes. Boris Johnson might well be one of them. So we hurl him out of office. We cannot do that to Ursula of the Lying, the Unilateral Imposer of Article 16, but we don't have to worry any more, she has no power over us. We are free

    In time, Intangible Benefits like Freedom and Independence tend to turn into Tangible Benefits. But it can take a while (Ireland took at least sixty years), so: brace
    Count to whom - the true believers ?

    What about the rest of us ?
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,442

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    Reading Jeremy Wright’s statement in full, I can’t help but think it’s a mistake for the PM to think it’ll all be OK if he survives a confidence vote https://twitter.com/isobeljourno/status/1531253232252616706
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 16,834

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Is there a case that labour would not want too big a win, as if it is big, it might precipitate the ejection of the fat oaf? Although its probably too late now for any other leader anyway.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,411
    Looks like the French police and local thuggery of St Denis are the parties to blame for the nonsense before the CL final.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
    Yes I know that, but how can you get that font so wrong, its a bit weird. Normally when people fake stuff the font can be slightly off because the company is using a proprietary font e.g. when people try to fake Apple stuff that is often a giveaway because the Apple font isn't easily available. But that isn't even vaguely close.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Leon said:

    tlg86 said:

    Thread from journo Rob Draper:

    https://twitter.com/draper_rob/status/1530830463270518785

    My only thought reading this is, it's remarkable so many Liverpool fans made it in at all.

    The bit about going to turnstile N - at the Real end - is very odd. Where were the Real fans entering the ground? Very strange.

    The reason the Real fans weren't attacked and treated quite as badly as the Scousers is because - apparently - they got off at a different Metro station, which is not the midst of the toilet that is St Denis the burb

    And yet even so we are now seeing many reports of Madrid fans being assaulted, robbed, girls stripped naked and molested, etc

    There are now hundreds of videos confirming the truth. The large bulk of blame falls on the scum who live in St Denis et al, the idiotic, frightened, violent French police, and all of it wrapped up in a tremendous failure of crowd organisation



    There is, of course, the politics of this. St Denis is a byword in France for how the authorities have lost control of the suburbs to BAME youths. Given Parliamentary elections are coming up, the last thing Macron wants is Le Pen having such a prime example of how the French State has lost control in mainly immigrant areas. far easier to blame the Brits.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    tlg86 said:

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    Naughty BBC. They just showed a shot of empty seats in the Liverpool end and implied that it was at 20:36 BST (i.e. the actual kick off). The pictures they were showing from around just after 20:00.

    Which was the scheduled kick off. I've seen naughtier. That's "fields of wheat" territory.
    They said despite a 36 minute delay, there were still lots of empty seats at kick off and showed footage from before 20:36.

    But there's some interesting videos on the net, like this one:

    https://twitter.com/Fordman_R/status/1530685722591735810

    The tricky thing is trying to marry up the numbers inside the ground and what was going on outside the ground. Clearly quite a lot of Liverpool fans made it into the ground well before kick off, but it's hard to say whether the delay to others was because a lot arrived late together, possibly with some with fake tickets, or because it was a shit show from the French police.
    There'll be some validity on both sides, I guess, but from what I've gleaned from a variety of sources it does appear the French screwed up badly and that such misbehaviour as there was from Liverpool fans wasn't anything like enough to excuse it.
    Having watched a stupid number of videos, its clear there was a failure in terms of filtering who are allowed to get near the stadium.

    Then there is a repeated scene you see, a ticket fails to scan (be it because it is fake or because the scanner just fails), they then sometimes open the side gate, you then see a large group of locals charge the turnstile. That causes the police to react, they come barrelling up to the gate, sometimes lob the tear gas, the locals run off, Liverpool fans stand there arguing, the stewards slam it shut and clearly aren't going to reopen it, with genuine Liverpool fans left locked out.
    I suspect quite a few fans with fakes managed to get in. And then you get to a point where the authorities are looking at the number of fans in the ground and the numbers outside and think "we've got a problem here".
    The reaction may well have been influenced by the Euro finals where they are seeing people jump the fences, a gate was at one point opened, and there is a panicked response to all stewards, first sign of any issue, close the gate until further notice. Better to have people locked out, than too many in.

    Obviously the issue here was fans were jammed up because the filtering system wasn't robust and also being attacked by local mobs and the police just seemed to be stationed mostly inside the stadium, only occasionally coming out to do a bit of random beating up people.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,526
    edited May 2022
    Leon said:

    tlg86 said:

    Thread from journo Rob Draper:

    https://twitter.com/draper_rob/status/1530830463270518785

    My only thought reading this is, it's remarkable so many Liverpool fans made it in at all.

    The bit about going to turnstile N - at the Real end - is very odd. Where were the Real fans entering the ground? Very strange.

    The reason the Real fans weren't attacked and treated quite as badly as the Scousers is because - apparently - they got off at a different Metro station, which is not the midst of the toilet that is St Denis the burb

    And yet even so we are now seeing many reports of Madrid fans being assaulted, robbed, girls stripped naked and molested, etc

    There are now hundreds of videos confirming the truth. The large bulk of blame falls on the scum who live in St Denis et al, the idiotic, frightened, violent French police, and all of it wrapped up in a tremendous failure of crowd organisation
    I didn't realise the French interior minister had explicitly blamed "British fans" for all the problems. He's being roundly mocked on Spanish twitter for it.

    https://twitter.com/GDarmanin/status/1530666495290011648
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,005
    The centre of Paris can be beautiful. You go out a very short distance and it rapidly descends into an awful environment that you don't see at all in London now.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    NEW: Full transcript of lobby exchange with No10 earlier, where spokesman refused at least 7 times to deny new Carrie Johnson 'flat party' claims
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/no10-refuse-7-times-deny-27101674
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 16,405
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cicero said:

    The response to this is "restore Imperial measurements". In otherwords, impose further costs on the UK economy for no economic gain whatsoever. Basically no one under the age of 60 has been taught the rules of the Imperial system, it is the kind of nostalgia that allows people in the their fifties to talk about the Second World War as though they had anything to do with it. This is a government that thinks going back to the 70s or even the 50s is the solution to their political ills.

    Britian has got to escape this absurdity. The nostalgia trap will see us relegated to the lowest economic leagues. The fact that Johnson is doing it to try to save his own worthless political life is simply contemptible.

    Allowing imperial measurements doesn't impose any costs at all because nobody is obliged to use them if they don't want to.

    What's absurd is not giving up on imposing metric conformity but the hysterical reactions of people who engage in this kind of national psychoanalysis. What you're doing is not all that far removed from Maria Zakharova condemning Ukraine for wanting to claim borscht for itself.
    What is absurd is banging on about it as though it is an important subject for government to intervene on, but that is what populist apologists for Johnson are doing.
    TBOBS - "Tangible Benefits of Brexit" - are so thin on the ground, though, that one has to take what one can get. In this case the visceral thrill of being able to buy a pound of King Edwards.
    Ah, but it's the IBOBS that count. The Intangible Benefits of Brexit

    Being a free man in a free country. Walking tall, like an American citizen in 1779, inhaling the pure forest air of independence.

    We now own our mistakes. Boris Johnson might well be one of them. So we hurl him out of office. We cannot do that to Ursula of the Lying, the Unilateral Imposer of Article 16, but we don't have to worry any more, she has no power over us. We are free

    In time, Intangible Benefits like Freedom and Independence tend to turn into Tangible Benefits. But it can take a while (Ireland took at least sixty years), so: brace
    Count to whom - the true believers ?

    What about the rest of us ?
    Serves us right for not believing. Disbelief shows that we are unworthy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like the French police and local thuggery of St Denis are the parties to blame for the nonsense before the CL final.

    Liverpool Echo journalist


    Paul Philbin
    @paulphilbin
    ·
    5h
    Reality of the whole experience from Paris starting to sink in for me.
    Some awful stories from speaking to people I know and also fans in the airport.
    A proper low point. Devastated.
    Relieved to be home and back in work today.
    Paul Philbin
    @paulphilbin
    ·
    5h
    Saturday should have been a day we all look back on with joy and one of the best days following Liverpool.
    It was the worst.
    The scenes in A&E after the match will live with me forever.
    It was a huge relief receiving Whatsapp messages...




  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    Elliot Coburn confirms his letter of no confidence has been handed in. In an email to constituents, he said that nothing in Met or Gray report convinced him to retract his letter which he handed in 'some time ago'
    https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531269706350571522
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899

    Leon said:

    tlg86 said:

    Thread from journo Rob Draper:

    https://twitter.com/draper_rob/status/1530830463270518785

    My only thought reading this is, it's remarkable so many Liverpool fans made it in at all.

    The bit about going to turnstile N - at the Real end - is very odd. Where were the Real fans entering the ground? Very strange.

    The reason the Real fans weren't attacked and treated quite as badly as the Scousers is because - apparently - they got off at a different Metro station, which is not the midst of the toilet that is St Denis the burb

    And yet even so we are now seeing many reports of Madrid fans being assaulted, robbed, girls stripped naked and molested, etc

    There are now hundreds of videos confirming the truth. The large bulk of blame falls on the scum who live in St Denis et al, the idiotic, frightened, violent French police, and all of it wrapped up in a tremendous failure of crowd organisation
    I didn't realise the French interior minister had explicitly blamed "British fans" for all the problems. He's being roundly mocked on Spanish twitter for it.

    https://twitter.com/GDarmanin/status/1530666495290011648
    To be fair, he is also being mocked on French Twitter. And in the French press. This blame-the-Brits strategy will not hold
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    AlistairM said:

    The centre of Paris can be beautiful. You go out a very short distance and it rapidly descends into an awful environment that you don't see at all in London now.

    I don't know about that, there are some pretty rough parts of London that aren't million miles from the touristy areas. Isn't the difference in Paris though that they have these huge suburbs that are just absolute pits where the authorities really have lost control. In London, there are serious issues with gangs and knife crime, but the density of it is smaller and distributed. You don't have the whole of all the locals around the M25 being dangerous no-go zones, although places like Croydon is pretty bloody rough.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    tlg86 said:

    Thread from journo Rob Draper:

    https://twitter.com/draper_rob/status/1530830463270518785

    My only thought reading this is, it's remarkable so many Liverpool fans made it in at all.

    The bit about going to turnstile N - at the Real end - is very odd. Where were the Real fans entering the ground? Very strange.

    The reason the Real fans weren't attacked and treated quite as badly as the Scousers is because - apparently - they got off at a different Metro station, which is not the midst of the toilet that is St Denis the burb

    And yet even so we are now seeing many reports of Madrid fans being assaulted, robbed, girls stripped naked and molested, etc

    There are now hundreds of videos confirming the truth. The large bulk of blame falls on the scum who live in St Denis et al, the idiotic, frightened, violent French police, and all of it wrapped up in a tremendous failure of crowd organisation
    I didn't realise the French interior minister had explicitly blamed "British fans" for all the problems. He's being roundly mocked on Spanish twitter for it.

    https://twitter.com/GDarmanin/status/1530666495290011648
    To be fair, he is also being mocked on French Twitter. And in the French press. This blame-the-Brits strategy will not hold
    The fact there was absolute minimal reaction in turns of violence from Liverpool fans certainly helps the perception they weren't at fault. If after the French police had started throwing the tear gas it had descended into bottle throwing etc, I think it would have been easier to pin it on the Liverpool fans.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
    Yes I know that, but how can you get that font so wrong, its a bit weird. Normally when people fake stuff the font can be slightly off because the company is using a proprietary font e.g. when people try to fake Apple stuff that is often a giveaway because the Apple font isn't easily available. But that isn't even vaguely close.
    it is a running away from a bear deal - you aren't trying to fool a ticket inspector with an original to hand for comparison, you are trying to fool a scouser into parting with his cash.

    And I think you overstate the difference in fonts anyway. so backward is liverpool in typography, probably only about 87% of them could tell you whether frutiger was serif or san.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    IshmaelZ said:

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
    Yes I know that, but how can you get that font so wrong, its a bit weird. Normally when people fake stuff the font can be slightly off because the company is using a proprietary font e.g. when people try to fake Apple stuff that is often a giveaway because the Apple font isn't easily available. But that isn't even vaguely close.
    it is a running away from a bear deal - you aren't trying to fool a ticket inspector with an original to hand for comparison, you are trying to fool a scouser into parting with his cash.

    And I think you overstate the difference in fonts anyway. so backward is liverpool in typography, probably only about 87% of them could tell you whether frutiger was serif or san.
    They probably don't even know the difference between a font and a typeface, eh?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
    Yes I know that, but how can you get that font so wrong, its a bit weird. Normally when people fake stuff the font can be slightly off because the company is using a proprietary font e.g. when people try to fake Apple stuff that is often a giveaway because the Apple font isn't easily available. But that isn't even vaguely close.
    it is a running away from a bear deal - you aren't trying to fool a ticket inspector with an original to hand for comparison, you are trying to fool a scouser into parting with his cash.

    And I think you overstate the difference in fonts anyway. so backward is liverpool in typography, probably only about 87% of them could tell you whether frutiger was serif or san.
    Maybe standards of tickets forgeries are slipping....when I have been offered them in the past from touts, the ones presented looked reasonable, the giveaway is often things like the paper, if you have a genuine one, it just feels different, or the perforateion being different.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,995

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    When I go to away games in Europe with Arsenal, I have to take my passport to the ground as they write our names on the tickets.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    edited May 2022

    AlistairM said:

    The centre of Paris can be beautiful. You go out a very short distance and it rapidly descends into an awful environment that you don't see at all in London now.

    I don't know about that, there are some pretty rough parts of London that aren't million miles from the touristy areas. Isn't the difference in Paris though that they have these huge suburbs that are just absolute pits where the authorities really have lost control. In London, there are serious issues with gangs and knife crime, but the density of it is smaller and distributed. You don't have the whole of all the locals around the M25 being dangerous no-go zones, although places like Croydon is pretty bloody rough.
    Yes, it's the total lawlessness of the bainlieus that is frightening. They look so French at first, the tricolore, the boulangerie, the nice little brasserie - hang around an hour and you see the reality

    I imagine Roger asks his butler to pull the curtains when he goes through these districts on the TGV, as apparently did Queen Victoria when passing through Sheffield or the Potteries on the Royal Train
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    I'm surprised there are still paper tickets. Isn't everything supposed to be electronic these days?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,512
    edited May 2022

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    I haven't a clue and have no inside info, but I posted here before that I thought Wakefield might be close and Tiverton a big swing and a win for the LDs. My reasoning being that in Tiverton it was easier to switch to a protest vote for the LDs than for Tories to vote for Labour in Wakefield for a party they don't support who might form the next Govt. Also the LDs are masters of the by election campaign.

    However I am not feeling confident because of the above info and also @MarqueeMark who although will have a natural bias has been consistently accurate about his neck of the woods and he hasn't seen a mass exodus to the LDs.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150
    edited May 2022
    Applicant said:

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    I'm surprised there are still paper tickets. Isn't everything supposed to be electronic these days?
    It does seem crazy in this day and age. We discussed the other day. It definitely has gone a lot more electronic, but I was looking at getting UFC tickets from a reseller and there is a mixture of physical and e-tickets. And even the e-tickets, a lot of people just print off the confirmation, rather than have it on their phone.

    With modern pcs, forging tickets to a passable standard is piece of piss (which is why I was surprised how bad the fake one the French are showing....perhaps they knocked it up themselves ;-) ).
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 118,367
    edited May 2022

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    My tickets were genuine and did scan. At first they didn’t even bother scanning them and decided they were fake.

    We were at the head of the queue circa 5.30pm.
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,639
    Wonder if this has got legs.

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 51,575

    Sky reporting Jeremy Wright concludes Boris should resign

    Keep it coming folks

    He has lost middle England. Literally - you can't get much more in the heart of England geographically.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 120,871
    The Archbishop of Canterbury has Covid and therefore cannot preside over Friday's Jubilee service, so presumably the Bishop of London will take his place

    https://twitter.com/JustinWelby/status/1531256035650023425?s=20&t=BTqJBsT_SHJeFr3T5JCmNQ
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Applicant said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/1531253219057446914?s=20&t=X32JiBPQw8X6o3TEhuwbAQ

    That is quite a weird fake. The colours being slightly off is an old school sign of being a fake, because people don't have access to industrial printing machines or even if they do aren't been super careful about inks etc. But totally different font is just plain weird, you can photoshop that across really easily.

    You don't need to fool the authorities, though. You need to fool the punters.
    Yes I know that, but how can you get that font so wrong, its a bit weird. Normally when people fake stuff the font can be slightly off because the company is using a proprietary font e.g. when people try to fake Apple stuff that is often a giveaway because the Apple font isn't easily available. But that isn't even vaguely close.
    it is a running away from a bear deal - you aren't trying to fool a ticket inspector with an original to hand for comparison, you are trying to fool a scouser into parting with his cash.

    And I think you overstate the difference in fonts anyway. so backward is liverpool in typography, probably only about 87% of them could tell you whether frutiger was serif or san.
    They probably don't even know the difference between a font and a typeface, eh?
    Oh look, a tedious point.

    I know the difference because I have actually set documents in proper, metal, movable type. If you're just clicking in dropdown menus, what is the point of the distinction?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 70,497
    HYUFD said:

    The Archbishop of Canterbury has Covid and therefore cannot preside over Friday's Jubilee service, so presumably the Bishop of London will take his place

    https://twitter.com/JustinWelby/status/1531256035650023425?s=20&t=BTqJBsT_SHJeFr3T5JCmNQ

    Not the Archbishop of York?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997
    kjh said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    I haven't a clue and have no inside info, but I posted here before that I thought Wakefield might be close and Tiverton a big swing and a win for the LDs. My reasoning being that in Tiverton it was easier to switch to a protest vote for the LDs than for Tories to vote for Labour in Wakefield for a party they don't support who might form the next Govt. Also the LDs are masters of the by election campaign.

    However I am not feeling confident because of the above info and also @MarqueeMark who although will have a natural bias has been consistently accurate about his neck of the woods and he hasn't seen a mass exodus to the LDs.
    I suspect it might be wise to wait for a few days after the Jubilee whatsit. In a way that's a bit like Christmas; people will think about whatever it is afterwards.
    Having said that, Mr Herdson coming second to the Labour chap ......
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited May 2022
    Just occasionally I stumble upon a genuinely thought provoking post/comment on Reddit.

    Does anyone on PB have an answer to this;

    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/v0gfm3/which_segment_of_the_uk_economy_baffles_you_by/

    “I’ve moved here from the US so the idea of only having a fixed rate for only 2 or 5 years was really baffling to me. Now that it is time to remortgage, I see why it's set up this way. Every couple of years the banks get a nice little thousand quid fee, the mortgage broker gets a little kickback from the bank (or you!), and you get a big fuckin headache for no real reason. Oh, and if you want to do something crazy like sell your house during that fixed term? Fuck you, you better pay the bank for the privilege of paying them back early.

    Compare this to the American system where most people will get a 30 year fixed mortgage. You could live in your home for your whole adult life and never have to deal with a broker again if you didn't want to. In theory yes the rates will be slightly higher than say a 2 year fixed, but that's not always the case in practice (my buddy in Maryland just got a 30 yr fixed with a lower rate than the banks here are doing 5 yr fixed for), and when you add on the remortgaging fees the benefit starts to evaporate quickly. Plus, if you want to sell your house or reduce your debt by paying ahead, there are no early repayment charges.

    I suppose in an era of declining rates there was some benefit to the consumer, as if you wanted to refinance in the US the fees for refinancing are much higher than the fees to remortgage. But when rates are flat or going up, it's just bad for the consumer in every single way.

    I cannot understand why on earth remortgaging continues to exist as a thing - why some challenger bank hasn't come in here with the American model and put all these terribly structured anti-consumer mortgages to shame.”

    He’s got a point, hasn’t he?

    Is our mortgage market shit compared to the US - and if so, why can’t we do things the American way?

    What does PB think?
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,738

    Perhaps more significant than the French performance with the footie game, is the German performance with regard to Ukraine. From the New Stateman:

    "The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come in for hefty criticism for Berlin’s reluctance to make good on its promise of a zeitenwende (change in the times). The governing coalition and the centre-right opposition, the CDU/CSU, did agree on 29 May to increase military spending by €100bn. However, Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, reported that Ukraine has only received two shipments of weapons from Germany since March, and Scholz has refused to supply German tanks and armoured personnel carriers to Kyiv."

    It won't be lost on people like the Poles that within living history their country was partitioned by the Germans and Russians.

    You have to wonder about the future of the EU. The Balts, Nordics and Poles are faced with an existential threat, but meanwhile the French and Germans play 19th century "spheres of influence" politics without the flair, panache or cynical effectiveness of Talleyrand and Metternich.

    I think the Germans are reverting to 18th-century type: Frederick the Great was supposed to have said that he feared Russia more than God.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 80,150

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    My tickets were genuine and did scan. At first they didn’t even bother scanning them and decided they were fake.

    We were at the head of the queue circa 5.30pm.
    Its like they have never held a major event at that stadium before...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997
    ping said:

    Just occasionally I stumble upon a genuinely thought provoking post/comment on Reddit.

    Does anyone on PB have an answer to this;

    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/v0gfm3/which_segment_of_the_uk_economy_baffles_you_by/

    “I’ve moved here from the US so the idea of only having a fixed rate for only 2 or 5 years was really baffling to me. Now that it is time to remortgage, I see why it's set up this way. Every couple of years the banks get a nice little thousand quid fee, the mortgage broker gets a little kickback from the bank (or you!), and you get a big fuckin headache for no real reason. Oh, and if you want to do something crazy like sell your house during that fixed term? Fuck you, you better pay the bank for the privilege of paying them back early.

    Compare this to the American system where most people will get a 30 year fixed mortgage. You could live in your home for your whole adult life and never have to deal with a broker again if you didn't want to. In theory yes the rates will be slightly higher than say a 2 year fixed, but that's not always the case in practice (my buddy in Maryland just got a 30 yr fixed with a lower rate than the banks here are doing 5 yr fixed for), and when you add on the remortgaging fees the benefit starts to evaporate quickly. Plus, if you want to sell your house or reduce your debt by paying ahead, there are no early repayment charges.

    I suppose in an era of declining rates there was some benefit to the consumer, as if you wanted to refinance in the US the fees for refinancing are much higher than the fees to remortgage. But when rates are flat or going up, it's just bad for the consumer in every single way.

    I cannot understand why on earth remortgaging continues to exist as a thing - why some challenger bank hasn't come in here with the American model and put all these terribly structured anti-consumer mortgages to shame.”

    He’s got a point, hasn’t he?

    Is our mortgage market shit compared to the US - and if so, why can’t we do things the American way?

    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,651
    Scott_xP said:

    Elliot Coburn confirms his letter of no confidence has been handed in. In an email to constituents, he said that nothing in Met or Gray report convinced him to retract his letter which he handed in 'some time ago'
    https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531269706350571522

    MP for Carshalton & Wallington. 600 maj over LibDems.

    If Boris is defenestrated a smart move for the new PM would be to appoint him as the UK Special Representative to Ukraine. Would help to heal wounds, reassure Ukraine (they LOVE Boris), and give BJ something he would probably enjoy doing, with all the opportunities it would afford him to chide the French, Germans etc. Maybe give him a budget too so he could help "Build Back Ukraine". You read it here first...
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,995

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    My tickets were genuine and did scan. At first they didn’t even bother scanning them and decided they were fake.

    We were at the head of the queue circa 5.30pm.
    You got to the ground 3.5 hours before kick off? Good move. Is Henry talking about you? :wink:

    https://twitter.com/henrywinter/status/1531238270587256833

    Henry Winter
    @henrywinter
    100+ corporate clients caught up in the bottlenecks outside Stade de France caused by poor planning, dangerous policing and Uefa's failure to react. Uefa will have to listen to their anger because, in Uefa's world, money talks loudly. #UCLfinal
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821



    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.

    But not fixed rate, surely?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997



    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.

    But not fixed rate, surely?
    On reflection, no. But rates didn't change a lot in those days.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 5,860
    As a Labour supporter it would be better for Johnson to remain as PM till the next GE however in terms of the bigger picture how much more damage will he do to the country by then . He continues to debase the role of PM and needs to be removed even if that means the Tories replace him with someone who stands a better chance at the next GE.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,411
    edited May 2022



    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.

    But not fixed rate, surely?
    On reflection, no. But rates didn't change a lot in those days.
    Rates haven't changed much for the last decade and a half either. Everyone enjoys the British model till rates start rising..
    @Ping point is that the US model means you don't need to bother with the faff of remortgaging every 5 years.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    French Interior Minister doubling down and accusing the Brits, still

    Ratio suggests it's not working

    https://twitter.com/GDarmanin/status/1531247119872532485?s=20&t=OveCrhNswAN0_09a6xdnjw

    "Contrairement aux allégations et fausses rumeurs, sur les 29 interpellations aux abords immédiats du stade de France, la moitié étaient des Britanniques dont 9 pour intrusion."



    As one French replier says, he would rather have a diplomatic incident with the UK than with the residents of Saint Denis
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 16,405
    kjh said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    I haven't a clue and have no inside info, but I posted here before that I thought Wakefield might be close and Tiverton a big swing and a win for the LDs. My reasoning being that in Tiverton it was easier to switch to a protest vote for the LDs than for Tories to vote for Labour in Wakefield for a party they don't support who might form the next Govt. Also the LDs are masters of the by election campaign.

    However I am not feeling confident because of the above info and also @MarqueeMark who although will have a natural bias has been consistently accurate about his neck of the woods and he hasn't seen a mass exodus to the LDs.
    The other thing is that Labour by-election swings tend to be less spectacular than the Yellow Peril manage, even when things are going well for them. The national weakness of the Lib Dems in a General Election (50 - 75 constituency campaigns tops?) means they have more places where they can win from apparently nowhere.
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,639
    kjh said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    I haven't a clue and have no inside info, but I posted here before that I thought Wakefield might be close and Tiverton a big swing and a win for the LDs. My reasoning being that in Tiverton it was easier to switch to a protest vote for the LDs than for Tories to vote for Labour in Wakefield for a party they don't support who might form the next Govt. Also the LDs are masters of the by election campaign.

    However I am not feeling confident because of the above info and also @MarqueeMark who although will have a natural bias has been consistently accurate about his neck of the woods and he hasn't seen a mass exodus to the LDs.
    In the mid-90s I spent a lot of time in Wakey, my then-girlfriend lived there. Since then I've very rarely been back, but on the odd occasion I have, it's clear the city centre is a shadow of its former self. Lots of empty shops, big chains gone. Lots of Polish supermarkets, vape shops, that kind of thing. Feels very down at heel. Whereas Leeds feels young and vibrant and cutting-edge. Definitely in Leeds' shadow but doesn't like it.

    Not surprised it went Leave and Tory.

    I suspect it'll go back to Labour. Disgust with Johnson. Lack of tangible Brexit benefits, the grudging, slow realisation it might have been oversold. CoL. No Corbyn.

    Just my take from the far NE bit of the Wakey Council area, about 12 miles from the city, I could be spectacularly wrong. Will be concerning if the Cons hold it.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821



    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.

    But not fixed rate, surely?
    On reflection, no. But rates didn't change a lot in those days.
    They did in the 1970s and 1980s, peaking at around 17%.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    And then there were two. Former counter-terrorism chief Sir Mark Rowley makes final two for race to be next Met commissioner. He’ll be up against Assistant Met Commissioner Nick Ephgrave https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/met-commmissioner-job-process-mark-rowley-nick-ephgrave-candidates-sadiq-khan-b1003148.html
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    Great article Nick @NickPalmer

    Top piece
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997



    When we bought our first house, 59 years ago that was the way it worked. And when we moved, 5 years later, it was the same.

    But not fixed rate, surely?
    On reflection, no. But rates didn't change a lot in those days.
    They did in the 1970s and 1980s, peaking at around 17%.
    Indeed, started going wrong in the mid 70's.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    nico679 said:

    As a Labour supporter it would be better for Johnson to remain as PM till the next GE however in terms of the bigger picture how much more damage will he do to the country by then . He continues to debase the role of PM and needs to be removed even if that means the Tories replace him with someone who stands a better chance at the next GE.

    Totally agree. That's my torn position.

    The country is going to suffer considerable damage with him remaining in post for 2 more years.

    On the other hand, the longer he remains the greater their losses.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,415
    Not good if true, as it might guarantee Ukraine remains outgunned.

    https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1531276109106532352
    Does this mean no MLRS at all? Or no advance munitions for the MLRS that reach up to 190 miles? I think it's the former, as was outlined in this
    @paulmcleary and @laraseligman story: https://politico.com/news/2022/05/27/u-s-sending-rocket-systems-ukraine-00035698… But guess we'll have to wait and see...


    https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1531267316117389315
    US will not send #Ukraine rocket systems that can reach #Russia,
    @POTUS tells reporters as he returns to the WhiteHouse this morning on #MemorialDay.


    Unless they are supplied from elsewhere in NATO. Which is also possible.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077

    Wonder if this has got legs.

    And so it goes on
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997
    Heathener said:

    nico679 said:

    As a Labour supporter it would be better for Johnson to remain as PM till the next GE however in terms of the bigger picture how much more damage will he do to the country by then . He continues to debase the role of PM and needs to be removed even if that means the Tories replace him with someone who stands a better chance at the next GE.

    Totally agree. That's my torn position.

    The country is going to suffer considerable damage with him remaining in post for 2 more years.

    On the other hand, the longer he remains the greater their losses.
    But he does lose a VoNC, what will he do? He might well try and win his job back after 12 months.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 68,415
    Battles in Donbas have reached the highest intensity, spokesman of Ukraine's Defense Ministry said.

    Russian troops are shelling from artillery along the entire frontline, conducting assault in Sievierodonetsk, towards Bakhmut & Kurakhove.
    https://t.me/UkraineMediaCenterKyiv/1351

    https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1531272236023394306
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    No-one knows for sure how many letters are in. But one thing that is clear is that Sue Gray hasn’t drawn a line in the sand in the way No.10 had hoped and planned. Which raises the question of what can now stop the drift to a leadership contest. https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1531270313463390208
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 61,830
    edited May 2022
    moonshine said:

    Perhaps more significant than the French performance with the footie game, is the German performance with regard to Ukraine. From the New Stateman:

    "The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come in for hefty criticism for Berlin’s reluctance to make good on its promise of a zeitenwende (change in the times). The governing coalition and the centre-right opposition, the CDU/CSU, did agree on 29 May to increase military spending by €100bn. However, Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, reported that Ukraine has only received two shipments of weapons from Germany since March, and Scholz has refused to supply German tanks and armoured personnel carriers to Kyiv."

    It won't be lost on people like the Poles that within living history their country was partitioned by the Germans and Russians.

    You have to wonder about the future of the EU. The Balts, Nordics and Poles are faced with an existential threat, but meanwhile the French and Germans play 19th century "spheres of influence" politics without the flair, panache or cynical effectiveness of Talleyrand and Metternich.

    Eastern Europe will now be feeling the same cynicism towards Germany’s foreign policy as many in Southern Europe felt over the last decade.

    It should be clear by now that Germany and France Inc both hope Russia wins the Battle of Donbass in short order, so this tedious interruption to their mercantilism can be quickly forgotten about. A Mission Accomplished speech by Vlad, the expiry of the financial and energy sanctions and the return of business as usual.

    It’s hard to understand why Zelensky gives a fig about EU membership after this showing. NATO for sure, or at the least a series of streamlined bilateral treaties with the US, UK and near neighbours. But EU membership? Really?
    In the last few minutes the EU have confirmed they are in stalemate over further gas and oil sanctions to Russia

    Ukraine deserve better, much better, and Germany and France together with Hungary should bow their heads in shame

    How can they look Ukrainians in their eyes and say they are on their side
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    edited May 2022

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    My tickets were genuine and did scan. At first they didn’t even bother scanning them and decided they were fake.

    We were at the head of the queue circa 5.30pm.
    TSE thanks for this. I was hoping to hear from our resident eye-witness. @TheScreamingEagles

    Whilst there may have been some errant moments from fans this bears all the hallmarks of a typical French Fuck-Up.

    I've lived in France, speak the language fluently and have even conducted live interviews on their national tv. But, boy, when they fuck things up they really know how to.

    Sorry for La langage fruité :smiley:
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,052
    Applicant said:

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    I'm surprised there are still paper tickets. Isn't everything supposed to be electronic these days?
    The paper tickets are still scanned which is the main advantage for the venue. The biggest hassle with paperless tickets is they are worthless if the the smartphone (or similar) battery dies. One of the most likely times your battery will die and you are not in a place where you can immediately recharge it, is when you are away from home, eg. approaching a stadium in Paris.

    For anything important or expensive, I have always printed out a paper copy of an eticket. It just saves the stress of wondering if the battery is going to hold out.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    Nigelb said:

    Not good if true, as it might guarantee Ukraine remains outgunned.

    https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1531276109106532352
    Does this mean no MLRS at all? Or no advance munitions for the MLRS that reach up to 190 miles? I think it's the former, as was outlined in this
    @paulmcleary and @laraseligman story: https://politico.com/news/2022/05/27/u-s-sending-rocket-systems-ukraine-00035698… But guess we'll have to wait and see...


    https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1531267316117389315
    US will not send #Ukraine rocket systems that can reach #Russia,
    @POTUS tells reporters as he returns to the WhiteHouse this morning on #MemorialDay.


    Unless they are supplied from elsewhere in NATO. Which is also possible.

    According to this, "the U.S. is weighing supplying rockets that can travel roughly between 20 to 45 miles, further than the shells fired by the M777 howitzers sent to Ukraine in May, which can reach about 15 miles."

    https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1531281432831746048
  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    tlg86 said:

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    My tickets were genuine and did scan. At first they didn’t even bother scanning them and decided they were fake.

    We were at the head of the queue circa 5.30pm.
    You got to the ground 3.5 hours before kick off? Good move. Is Henry talking about you? :wink:

    https://twitter.com/henrywinter/status/1531238270587256833

    Henry Winter
    @henrywinter
    100+ corporate clients caught up in the bottlenecks outside Stade de France caused by poor planning, dangerous policing and Uefa's failure to react. Uefa will have to listen to their anger because, in Uefa's world, money talks loudly. #UCLfinal
    Also wives of players

    Thiago Alcantara's wife details 'scary' Champions League final as 'robbers tried to assault us'
    https://mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-champions-league-final-uefa-27098060


  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,651

    moonshine said:

    Perhaps more significant than the French performance with the footie game, is the German performance with regard to Ukraine. From the New Stateman:

    "The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come in for hefty criticism for Berlin’s reluctance to make good on its promise of a zeitenwende (change in the times). The governing coalition and the centre-right opposition, the CDU/CSU, did agree on 29 May to increase military spending by €100bn. However, Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, reported that Ukraine has only received two shipments of weapons from Germany since March, and Scholz has refused to supply German tanks and armoured personnel carriers to Kyiv."

    It won't be lost on people like the Poles that within living history their country was partitioned by the Germans and Russians.

    You have to wonder about the future of the EU. The Balts, Nordics and Poles are faced with an existential threat, but meanwhile the French and Germans play 19th century "spheres of influence" politics without the flair, panache or cynical effectiveness of Talleyrand and Metternich.

    Eastern Europe will now be feeling the same cynicism towards Germany’s foreign policy as many in Southern Europe felt over the last decade.

    It should be clear by now that Germany and France Inc both hope Russia wins the Battle of Donbass in short order, so this tedious interruption to their mercantilism can be quickly forgotten about. A Mission Accomplished speech by Vlad, the expiry of the financial and energy sanctions and the return of business as usual.

    It’s hard to understand why Zelensky gives a fig about EU membership after this showing. NATO for sure, or at the least a series of streamlined bilateral treaties with the US, UK and near neighbours. But EU membership? Really?
    In the last few minutes the EU have confirmed they are in stalemate over further gas and oil sanctions to Russia

    Ukraine deserve better, much better, and Germany and France together with Hungary should bow their heads in shame

    How can they look Ukrainians in their eyes and say they are on their side
    A truly contemptible performance. I regret my Remain vote TBH.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    edited May 2022
    MaxPB said:

    One of our group directors sits on a sponsor's board and got two corporate tickets directly from UEFA, he was messaging into the football slack channel this morning (he also happens to be a huge fan of Real Madrid). Absolutely scathing, him and his daughter were trapped outside, told their tickets were fake, the stewards refused to even scan their tickets, they were worried for their safety, the police tried to evict them from the area, he was worried about having his tickets and phone stolen by "local youths" so he couldn't make the call to get in the stadium if they got evicted from the area. He said they just refused to be moved on by the police and he said he was only able to force the steward to scan his tickets because he just refused to move on and his daughter started filming the argument on her phone.

    Overall he said it was farcical, up there with the scenes at Wembley for the Euro final, violence all around, he was worried for his daughter's safety, gangs of youths robbing people, he blames the stewards and organisation by UEFA. Says the police were less to blame because they were probably just being told by the organisers that there's fans with fake tickets hanging around and to evict anyone from the inner cordon who has been refused entry.

    One of his theories is that the stewards were waiting for bribes to scan tickets and he's sure if he'd quietly given the steward €50 he'd have been in straight away.

    Hope @TheScreamingEagles had a better experience than this one.

    A shocking report and a godawful saga.

    As I mentioned on Saturday evening I really hope those on here who instantaneously piled on the Liverpool fans will apologise, including to @TheScreamingEagles

    @Leon @IshmaelZ @tlg86 do the decent thing and retract your appalling anti-Liverpool (racist) remarks please.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,132
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    The centre of Paris can be beautiful. You go out a very short distance and it rapidly descends into an awful environment that you don't see at all in London now.

    I don't know about that, there are some pretty rough parts of London that aren't million miles from the touristy areas. Isn't the difference in Paris though that they have these huge suburbs that are just absolute pits where the authorities really have lost control. In London, there are serious issues with gangs and knife crime, but the density of it is smaller and distributed. You don't have the whole of all the locals around the M25 being dangerous no-go zones, although places like Croydon is pretty bloody rough.
    Yes, it's the total lawlessness of the bainlieus that is frightening. They look so French at first, the tricolore, the boulangerie, the nice little brasserie - hang around an hour and you see the reality

    I imagine Roger asks his butler to pull the curtains when he goes through these districts on the TGV, as apparently did Queen Victoria when passing through Sheffield or the Potteries on the Royal Train
    My Paris doesn't extend to these places so can't comment from direct experience. In London, though, I've done plenty of nosing around the badlands in my time and I've rarely felt threatened. The sense I have is that there's kind of a parallel world and life going on in these places - the one with the drugs and the knives and the salty language - such that if you stay in the respectable plane you don't see it even though it's coexisting in the same time and space. Probably not literally true but that's the feeling I have.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    eristdoof said:

    Applicant said:

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    I'm surprised there are still paper tickets. Isn't everything supposed to be electronic these days?
    The paper tickets are still scanned which is the main advantage for the venue. The biggest hassle with paperless tickets is they are worthless if the the smartphone (or similar) battery dies. One of the most likely times your battery will die and you are not in a place where you can immediately recharge it, is when you are away from home, eg. approaching a stadium in Paris.

    For anything important or expensive, I have always printed out a paper copy of an eticket. It just saves the stress of wondering if the battery is going to hold out.
    We always take paper copies - you really don't want your phone (which can be dropped, or stolen, or as you say run out of charge) to be a single point of failure. Anyway paper tickets are far quicker to find and scan.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,526
    moonshine said:

    Perhaps more significant than the French performance with the footie game, is the German performance with regard to Ukraine. From the New Stateman:

    "The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come in for hefty criticism for Berlin’s reluctance to make good on its promise of a zeitenwende (change in the times). The governing coalition and the centre-right opposition, the CDU/CSU, did agree on 29 May to increase military spending by €100bn. However, Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, reported that Ukraine has only received two shipments of weapons from Germany since March, and Scholz has refused to supply German tanks and armoured personnel carriers to Kyiv."

    It won't be lost on people like the Poles that within living history their country was partitioned by the Germans and Russians.

    You have to wonder about the future of the EU. The Balts, Nordics and Poles are faced with an existential threat, but meanwhile the French and Germans play 19th century "spheres of influence" politics without the flair, panache or cynical effectiveness of Talleyrand and Metternich.

    Eastern Europe will now be feeling the same cynicism towards Germany’s foreign policy as many in Southern Europe felt over the last decade.

    It should be clear by now that Germany and France Inc both hope Russia wins the Battle of Donbass in short order, so this tedious interruption to their mercantilism can be quickly forgotten about. A Mission Accomplished speech by Vlad, the expiry of the financial and energy sanctions and the return of business as usual.

    It’s hard to understand why Zelensky gives a fig about EU membership after this showing. NATO for sure, or at the least a series of streamlined bilateral treaties with the US, UK and near neighbours. But EU membership? Really?
    In his recent interview with Faisal Islam, it was quite noticeable how Micheál Martin reflexively referred to "the leaders of Germany and France" when setting out the EU's position. The EU will have an image problem if it begins to be seen more widely as essentially a vehicle for Franco-German interests.

    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1530078933017837568
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 16,834
    Heathener said:

    Wonder if this has got legs.

    And so it goes on
    So sick of this.
    But.
    This is a gathering in a private residence and should not be investigated - no other gathering in a private house will ever be investigated by the police, so in effect they would be selectively prosecuted.

    What do we hope to gain from this? The country has decided - he's a shit. He won't resign because he doesn't want to. Only two ways seem to exist to get rid.
    A) Tory party get some balls and do it
    B) The country says 'if you won't, we will' at the election.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 9,946
    Cheerio Boris. I reckon the 54 are in, and Rob Becketts teeth tribute act Brady will announce next Monday after Boris has a last flaggy hurrah. He needs to get to Wednesday week to outserve the last labour PM.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,266
    Applicant said:

    Blue checkmark media for the Mirror...

    How do they know this when they stopped checking/scanning thousands of tickets hours before kick off? My ticket would not scan after four tries, they looked at it and they let me through. This is wrong. So wrong.

    https://twitter.com/Kristian_Walsh/status/1531242294774480896?s=20&t=WTnk_yyhfE8BHGyls2zryg

    Didn't TSE say the same thing. He had UEFA comp tickets and they wouldn't scan.

    Does sounds like there was an issue with the actual genuine tickets not scanning. This day and age seems totally unbelievable.

    I'm surprised there are still paper tickets. Isn't everything supposed to be electronic these days?
    Counterintuitively I would trust paper tickets more than I would electronic ones.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,266
    dixiedean said:

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Hardly, even Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband and Corbyn in 2017 won Wakefield. It was just the scale of the Tory landslide in 2019 that meant Labour lost it in the first place
    Wakefield South is the best Tory ward in Wakefield but in 2010 it was moved into the Hemsworth constituency. That's why it was surprising the Conservatives managed to win the seat in 2019.
    Point of order. It was moved in 1997.
    Two wards of Kirklees, Denby Dale and Kirkburton were moved out. And two Ossett wards and Wakey West moved in in 2010.
    That the boundaries change quite radically making comparisons not greatly valid is a very fair point.
    They'll change again next time too. Even more radically.
    Thanks for the correction.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805

    Heathener said:

    Wonder if this has got legs.

    And so it goes on
    So sick of this.
    But.
    This is a gathering in a private residence and should not be investigated - no other gathering in a private house will ever be investigated by the police, so in effect they would be selectively prosecuted.

    What do we hope to gain from this? The country has decided - he's a shit. He won't resign because he doesn't want to. Only two ways seem to exist to get rid.
    A) Tory party get some balls and do it
    B) The country says 'if you won't, we will' at the election.
    Whoever coded vanilla really fucked up, deciding “B )” should be an emoji.

    That is all.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,132
    nico679 said:

    As a Labour supporter it would be better for Johnson to remain as PM till the next GE however in terms of the bigger picture how much more damage will he do to the country by then . He continues to debase the role of PM and needs to be removed even if that means the Tories replace him with someone who stands a better chance at the next GE.

    Slightly against the grain I don't think replacing Johnson will do much to improve the Tories GE chances. So I can happily root for his downfall (apart from my betting is skewed to him surviving).
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 32,997
    Nigelb said:

    Battles in Donbas have reached the highest intensity, spokesman of Ukraine's Defense Ministry said.

    Russian troops are shelling from artillery along the entire frontline, conducting assault in Sievierodonetsk, towards Bakhmut & Kurakhove.
    https://t.me/UkraineMediaCenterKyiv/1351

    https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1531272236023394306

    Are the artillery units actually in Ukraine, or Russia?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    edited May 2022
    They've taken long enough and it will be constituency-driven ... but THANK GOD that there are decent Conservatives. Well done Jeremy Wright.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61636151

    I thought this was rather telling from a BBC linked article:

    "One MP who submitted a letter of no confidence in the last few days told me they had had 7 emails expressing their disappointment in their actions.

    And 479 saying good on you."

  • LeonLeon Posts: 52,899
    Heathener said:

    MaxPB said:

    One of our group directors sits on a sponsor's board and got two corporate tickets directly from UEFA, he was messaging into the football slack channel this morning (he also happens to be a huge fan of Real Madrid). Absolutely scathing, him and his daughter were trapped outside, told their tickets were fake, the stewards refused to even scan their tickets, they were worried for their safety, the police tried to evict them from the area, he was worried about having his tickets and phone stolen by "local youths" so he couldn't make the call to get in the stadium if they got evicted from the area. He said they just refused to be moved on by the police and he said he was only able to force the steward to scan his tickets because he just refused to move on and his daughter started filming the argument on her phone.

    Overall he said it was farcical, up there with the scenes at Wembley for the Euro final, violence all around, he was worried for his daughter's safety, gangs of youths robbing people, he blames the stewards and organisation by UEFA. Says the police were less to blame because they were probably just being told by the organisers that there's fans with fake tickets hanging around and to evict anyone from the inner cordon who has been refused entry.

    One of his theories is that the stewards were waiting for bribes to scan tickets and he's sure if he'd quietly given the steward €50 he'd have been in straight away.

    Hope @TheScreamingEagles had a better experience than this one.

    A shocking report and a godawful saga.

    As I mentioned on Saturday evening I really hope those on here who instantaneously piled on the Liverpool fans will apologise, including to @TheScreamingEagles

    @Leon @IshmaelZ @tlg86 do the decent thing and retract your appalling anti-Liverpool (racist) remarks please.
    You daft apeth - as my mum would say - I've spent the last three hours providing evidence and largely exonerating Liverpool fans (tho there were still a few idiots) and putting the blame squarely on: local BAME Parisian thugs, appalling UEFA/Parisian crowd control, and pepper-spray-happy and incompetent French coppers

    You can apologise to me at your leisure
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 53,130
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 17,337
    ping said:

    Just occasionally I stumble upon a genuinely thought provoking post/comment on Reddit.

    Does anyone on PB have an answer to this;

    https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/v0gfm3/which_segment_of_the_uk_economy_baffles_you_by/

    “I’ve moved here from the US so the idea of only having a fixed rate for only 2 or 5 years was really baffling to me. Now that it is time to remortgage, I see why it's set up this way. Every couple of years the banks get a nice little thousand quid fee, the mortgage broker gets a little kickback from the bank (or you!), and you get a big fuckin headache for no real reason. Oh, and if you want to do something crazy like sell your house during that fixed term? Fuck you, you better pay the bank for the privilege of paying them back early.

    Compare this to the American system where most people will get a 30 year fixed mortgage. You could live in your home for your whole adult life and never have to deal with a broker again if you didn't want to. In theory yes the rates will be slightly higher than say a 2 year fixed, but that's not always the case in practice (my buddy in Maryland just got a 30 yr fixed with a lower rate than the banks here are doing 5 yr fixed for), and when you add on the remortgaging fees the benefit starts to evaporate quickly. Plus, if you want to sell your house or reduce your debt by paying ahead, there are no early repayment charges.

    I suppose in an era of declining rates there was some benefit to the consumer, as if you wanted to refinance in the US the fees for refinancing are much higher than the fees to remortgage. But when rates are flat or going up, it's just bad for the consumer in every single way.

    I cannot understand why on earth remortgaging continues to exist as a thing - why some challenger bank hasn't come in here with the American model and put all these terribly structured anti-consumer mortgages to shame.”

    He’s got a point, hasn’t he?

    Is our mortgage market shit compared to the US - and if so, why can’t we do things the American way?

    What does PB think?

    From what little I know of the American mortgage system I think it's because the way the mortgage providers raise finance to lend out is different. This means that with a long fix in the UK the bank has more need to cover itself for an early repayment, hence the charges, and therefore in part the reluctance of consumers to take out long fixes.

    There are sometimes 15-year fixes available in the British market, at least when I've looked. Consumers simply don't want them.

    I'd be looking for a long fix for my next mortgage. I've no interest or skill in gambling on the future direction of interest rates, and the certainty of known repayment amounts would be preferable. You can normally overpay by a certain amount each month without charge too, even if there are charges for repaying larger amounts early.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,337
    NEW from @IpsosUK: Majority of Britons now think Johnson's govt doing a bad job running the country & Sue Gray reaction THREAD.

    1/ First, 54% now say Johnson govt doing badly running the country. Clear negative trend from last year. https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1531270915274711042/photo/1
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 70,497

    moonshine said:

    Perhaps more significant than the French performance with the footie game, is the German performance with regard to Ukraine. From the New Stateman:

    "The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has come in for hefty criticism for Berlin’s reluctance to make good on its promise of a zeitenwende (change in the times). The governing coalition and the centre-right opposition, the CDU/CSU, did agree on 29 May to increase military spending by €100bn. However, Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, reported that Ukraine has only received two shipments of weapons from Germany since March, and Scholz has refused to supply German tanks and armoured personnel carriers to Kyiv."

    It won't be lost on people like the Poles that within living history their country was partitioned by the Germans and Russians.

    You have to wonder about the future of the EU. The Balts, Nordics and Poles are faced with an existential threat, but meanwhile the French and Germans play 19th century "spheres of influence" politics without the flair, panache or cynical effectiveness of Talleyrand and Metternich.

    Eastern Europe will now be feeling the same cynicism towards Germany’s foreign policy as many in Southern Europe felt over the last decade.

    It should be clear by now that Germany and France Inc both hope Russia wins the Battle of Donbass in short order, so this tedious interruption to their mercantilism can be quickly forgotten about. A Mission Accomplished speech by Vlad, the expiry of the financial and energy sanctions and the return of business as usual.

    It’s hard to understand why Zelensky gives a fig about EU membership after this showing. NATO for sure, or at the least a series of streamlined bilateral treaties with the US, UK and near neighbours. But EU membership? Really?
    In the last few minutes the EU have confirmed they are in stalemate over further gas and oil sanctions to Russia

    Ukraine deserve better, much better, and Germany and France together with Hungary should bow their heads in shame

    How can they look Ukrainians in their eyes and say they are on their side
    Because they're shameless twats. Happy to help.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,077
    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    MaxPB said:

    One of our group directors sits on a sponsor's board and got two corporate tickets directly from UEFA, he was messaging into the football slack channel this morning (he also happens to be a huge fan of Real Madrid). Absolutely scathing, him and his daughter were trapped outside, told their tickets were fake, the stewards refused to even scan their tickets, they were worried for their safety, the police tried to evict them from the area, he was worried about having his tickets and phone stolen by "local youths" so he couldn't make the call to get in the stadium if they got evicted from the area. He said they just refused to be moved on by the police and he said he was only able to force the steward to scan his tickets because he just refused to move on and his daughter started filming the argument on her phone.

    Overall he said it was farcical, up there with the scenes at Wembley for the Euro final, violence all around, he was worried for his daughter's safety, gangs of youths robbing people, he blames the stewards and organisation by UEFA. Says the police were less to blame because they were probably just being told by the organisers that there's fans with fake tickets hanging around and to evict anyone from the inner cordon who has been refused entry.

    One of his theories is that the stewards were waiting for bribes to scan tickets and he's sure if he'd quietly given the steward €50 he'd have been in straight away.

    Hope @TheScreamingEagles had a better experience than this one.

    A shocking report and a godawful saga.

    As I mentioned on Saturday evening I really hope those on here who instantaneously piled on the Liverpool fans will apologise, including to @TheScreamingEagles

    @Leon @IshmaelZ @tlg86 do the decent thing and retract your appalling anti-Liverpool (racist) remarks please.
    You daft apeth - as my mum would say - I've spent the last three hours providing evidence and largely exonerating Liverpool fans (tho there were still a few idiots) and putting the blame squarely on: local BAME Parisian thugs, appalling UEFA/Parisian crowd control, and pepper-spray-happy and incompetent French coppers

    You can apologise to me at your leisure
    Leon your comments on Saturday night against Liverpool and Liverpool fans, whom you blamed relentlessly without evidence, were appalling.

    That you have conducted a complete volte-face is characteristic. But I'm afraid only an apology will do for your dreadful comments Saturday night.

    It's the sign of a gentleman or gentlewoman to have the good grace to apologise, as I have over my invasion fuck-up.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 9,946
    Heathener said:

    They've taken long enough and it will be constituency-driven ... but THANK GOD that there are decent Conservatives. Well done Jeremy Wright.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61636151

    I thought this was rather telling from a BBC linked article:

    "One MP who submitted a letter of no confidence in the last few days told me they had had 7 emails expressing their disappointment in their actions.

    And 479 saying good on you."

    Suggests the polling bounce post defenestration could be very dramatic.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,491

    If rumours are believed above and Tories getting destroyed in Wakefield, then we must not dismiss a Labour landslide

    Horse, dismiss a Labour landslide. It ain't going to happen. Labour most seats however is not beyond the realms. That will do.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    This thread has lost a VONC.
This discussion has been closed.