Talking of politicians rushing to give their views....has this guy even been charged yet?
"I have it on good authority that the murder suspect was a hard-left activist. He attended various marches and hated anyone with an opposing view. He had expressed his hatred of me on more than one occasion. He was an intolerant individual obsessed with Soviet communism
Nigel Farage makes a statement about Ann Widdecome's assassination; " it's all about me, me, me!"
Always the victim.
Speaking of MPs' security, the decision not to guard Prince Harry should also be up for review.
Why? He, and his family, managed to arrive and visit his father without anyone knowing until afterwards. The only time and reason people know where he is is when he or his wife broadcast it to the world in pursuit of their privacy agenda.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Talking of politicians rushing to give their views....has this guy even been charged yet?
"I have it on good authority that the murder suspect was a hard-left activist. He attended various marches and hated anyone with an opposing view. He had expressed his hatred of me on more than one occasion. He was an intolerant individual obsessed with Soviet communism"
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
Skip the group stage, and go straight into knockout, and that's easily do-able. Just 64 matches including a bronze one.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
Despite everything FIFA and Trump have done the World Cup has produced some great games and on-field drama. Sadly including the Singapore-like collapse of England in the Semi-final.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Or in the future each will be continent wide, excluding Africa and Oceana.
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
The Death of Putin will greatly aid that process.
Is your relative not worried of the risk they will be whisked away to the Ukraine front?
My usual comment is that life is not black and white. For example one family friend went to the front and when the authorities found out their family were given 24 hours to pack and then dumped on the Russian border. But it’s the economics that matters and the relative amounts the EU can throw at them before the economic gravity kicks in. See UK and its neighbours.
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
The Death of Putin will greatly aid that process.
Is your relative not worried of the risk they will be whisked away to the Ukraine front?
Hmmm.
I thought Russia would calm down when they carried Putin feet first out of the Kremlin, but now I am not so sure. There are some really nasty bastards behind him jockeying for position.
(Interchange Russia for America, Putin for Trump and the Kremlin for the Whitehouse if you wish.)
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
That, if I may say so, is a very Russian view. Certainly in Estonia, the disengagement with Russia is not seen as a temporary thing. Maybe one day trade and business might recover, but few expect it to be anything like what it was before, and a vocal minority dont want any re-engagement any way.
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
That, if I may say so, is a very Russian view. Certainly in Estonia, the disengagement with Russia is not seen as a temporary thing. Maybe one day trade and business might recover, but few expect it to be anything like what it was before, and a vocal minority dont want any re-engagement any way.
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
It seems likely to me that the consequence of this disastrous war will be further disintegration of Russia with more republics breaking away and the eastern republics turning to China for support, investment and development. Russia is irredeemably diminished. There is simply no way back to what it was before.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Or in the future each will be continent wide, excluding Africa and Oceana.
Yes I think they’ll need to have wider groups of countries hosting. To be fair, the tournament itself still worked with US/Canada/Mexico, although there was a crazy amount of travelling for the fans between venues.
Some great stories about fans on road trips though, would have been a fun (if very expensive) adventure to go out there for the whole thing.
You can probably get three or four European groupings each of 3-4 nations, N America, Central/South America, then a RotW grouping of Asia, Australia, S. Africa. A logistical nightmare for the fans, especially those who need visas, but do-able as a competition.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Or China.
Ah yes, they could do it.
China does have the stadia, but they’re almost all multi-use with running tracks, terrible for spectators!
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
That, if I may say so, is a very Russian view. Certainly in Estonia, the disengagement with Russia is not seen as a temporary thing. Maybe one day trade and business might recover, but few expect it to be anything like what it was before, and a vocal minority dont want any re-engagement any way.
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
Probably as they are Russians. Implants in the same way as a lot of the Baltics. And the Balkans. Putin plays on this in the same way the Shiites and Sunnis play on it. And Israelis with Palestinians.
Unless you have ethnic cleansing you have to deal with the reality of different loyalties
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
That, if I may say so, is a very Russian view. Certainly in Estonia, the disengagement with Russia is not seen as a temporary thing. Maybe one day trade and business might recover, but few expect it to be anything like what it was before, and a vocal minority dont want any re-engagement any way.
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
It seems likely to me that the consequence of this disastrous war will be further disintegration of Russia with more republics breaking away and the eastern republics turning to China for support, investment and development. Russia is irredeemably diminished. There is simply no way back to what it was before.
They’ve literally bet their entire country on this war, and it’s not working out in their favour. Ukranian weapons now have the range and ability to hit pretty much any target in the Western half of the country, and are doing so on a daily basis, with almost no effective air defences.
Their best-case scenario is to get out of Ukraine, send Putin and Lavrov to The Hague, elect people willing to engage with the rest of the world in good faith, and hope that sanctions can be lifted.
Most other scenarios involve a breakoff of the Eastern regions to China, and a massive DMZ on the Western border as in Korea.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
At his valedictory PMQs, [Starmer] claimed that “every prime minister knows when they take up the torch that the day will come when they have to pass it on”. That’s an elegant gloss on the brutal truth: the torch has been wrenched from his grasp after a mere two years at Number 10 by the Labour MPs who hypocritically applauded him out of the chamber. He will depart tomorrow making the case that he is leaving Britain in better shape than he found it. He’s the first UK prime minister to receive France’s Legion d’honneur, a more prestigious leaving gift than the carriage clock presented by his tactless cabinet.
Ask around Labour people and there’s a common explanation for his fall. “At a time when politics is more difficult than ever, Keir is someone who is fundamentally no good at politics,” says someone who was one of his senior aides. “He doesn’t excel at communication or policy development or strategy.” . There was an assumption, both naive and conceited, that simply not being the Tories would be enough in itself. One senior Labour figure who talked quite often to Sir Keir once told me: “I can never really work out why he wants to be prime minister other than for the Wikipedia entry.”
The absence of political craft bears responsibility for his government’s most egregious blunders. He was also poor at nurturing relationships with colleagues to the point where Ed Miliband, who he thought to be his best friend in cabinet, became the first minister to tell him he had to quit. All this led to what one Labour committee chair calls a “double power failure” as he lost the respect of both voters and colleagues.
Andy Burnham is a much more political animal. As recent weeks have demonstrated, he has the audacity to seize an opportunity and he can tell a story. “I know what to do,” he declared in his speech accepting the leadership on Friday. “I have a plan.” That had better be true because a story is ultimately meaningless tosh unless it is accompanied by a plan. The sorry tale of Sir Keir’s foreshortened premiership is a cautionary one for the man who succeeds him. Promising popular change is much easier than delivering it. Fail and Mr Burnham will also find himself “passing on the torch” more quickly than he can imagine today.
In terms of Sir Keir, the answer to the "why" question is pretty simple. In 2020, there was a vacancy, somebody had to do it and no top-tier Somebodies were available.
At his valedictory PMQs, [Starmer] claimed that “every prime minister knows when they take up the torch that the day will come when they have to pass it on”. That’s an elegant gloss on the brutal truth: the torch has been wrenched from his grasp after a mere two years at Number 10 by the Labour MPs who hypocritically applauded him out of the chamber. He will depart tomorrow making the case that he is leaving Britain in better shape than he found it. He’s the first UK prime minister to receive France’s Legion d’honneur, a more prestigious leaving gift than the carriage clock presented by his tactless cabinet.
Ask around Labour people and there’s a common explanation for his fall. “At a time when politics is more difficult than ever, Keir is someone who is fundamentally no good at politics,” says someone who was one of his senior aides. “He doesn’t excel at communication or policy development or strategy.” . There was an assumption, both naive and conceited, that simply not being the Tories would be enough in itself. One senior Labour figure who talked quite often to Sir Keir once told me: “I can never really work out why he wants to be prime minister other than for the Wikipedia entry.”
The absence of political craft bears responsibility for his government’s most egregious blunders. He was also poor at nurturing relationships with colleagues to the point where Ed Miliband, who he thought to be his best friend in cabinet, became the first minister to tell him he had to quit. All this led to what one Labour committee chair calls a “double power failure” as he lost the respect of both voters and colleagues.
Andy Burnham is a much more political animal. As recent weeks have demonstrated, he has the audacity to seize an opportunity and he can tell a story. “I know what to do,” he declared in his speech accepting the leadership on Friday. “I have a plan.” That had better be true because a story is ultimately meaningless tosh unless it is accompanied by a plan. The sorry tale of Sir Keir’s foreshortened premiership is a cautionary one for the man who succeeds him. Promising popular change is much easier than delivering it. Fail and Mr Burnham will also find himself “passing on the torch” more quickly than he can imagine today.
In terms of Sir Keir, the answer to the "why" question, the answer is pretty simple. In 2020, there was a vacancy, somebody had to do it and no top-tier Somebodies were available.
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
That, if I may say so, is a very Russian view. Certainly in Estonia, the disengagement with Russia is not seen as a temporary thing. Maybe one day trade and business might recover, but few expect it to be anything like what it was before, and a vocal minority dont want any re-engagement any way.
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
Probably as they are Russians. Implants in the same way as a lot of the Baltics. And the Balkans. Putin plays on this in the same way the Shiites and Sunnis play on it. And Israelis with Palestinians.
Unless you have ethnic cleansing you have to deal with the reality of different loyalties
Most Russians in the Baltic came in the 1950s, 1960s or even 1970s. Many are finally assimilating, but those that don't wish to will suffer the same fate as the British colonials in Kenya or other places. The Russians murdered and or exiled a large percentage of the local population when they invaded in 1940 and 1944 and the fact that the current Russian state, unlike the German one, refuses to acknowledge the crimes committed is a major cause of the bitterness against Moscow.
The failure of Russia to offer any olive branch, but merely doubles down on propaganda and threats is a major cause of the diplomatic collapse and isolation of the Putin regime. Its a failure as a policy, and for as long as it continues, Russian power diminishes. Quite a contrast to post war, and post wall Germany.
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
The Death of Putin will greatly aid that process.
Is your relative not worried of the risk they will be whisked away to the Ukraine front?
My usual comment is that life is not black and white. For example one family friend went to the front and when the authorities found out their family were given 24 hours to pack and then dumped on the Russian border. But it’s the economics that matters and the relative amounts the EU can throw at them before the economic gravity kicks in. See UK and its neighbours.
That requires Russia to have a meaningful economy.
Some good news for a Sunday morning. I believe that loafers with no socks are known as nonce trotters, in this case literally true.
This is the best news to wake up to.
Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in US on British extradition request. They face 59 charges of rape, trafficking for sexual exploitation, assault and offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
I went slightly down the rabbit hole, and it says (Wiki):
Fourteen all-seater stadiums with a capacity of 40,000, with a minimum of seven being pre-existing. The opening match and final must take place in an 80,000-seat stadium, while the semi-finals must take place in a 60,000-seat stadium. Hosts must also have at least 72 suitable training site options for team base camps, four suitable venue-specific training site options per stadium, in addition to two suitable referee base camp training site options, all with suitable accommodation.
Surely that would be a little wider - covering some of the top tier European leagues (De, Nl, Es, UK - not sure about Fr, IT and Eastern Europeans due to "all seater") leagues and Japan. Nor am I sure about South American, or SE Asian.
Are they allowed to repurpose stadia from other sports? The demanding thing looks to be the training sites perhaps.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
I went slightly down the rabbit hole, and it says (Wiki):
Fourteen all-seater stadiums with a capacity of 40,000, with a minimum of seven being pre-existing. The opening match and final must take place in an 80,000-seat stadium, while the semi-finals must take place in a 60,000-seat stadium. Hosts must also have at least 72 suitable training site options for team base camps, four suitable venue-specific training site options per stadium, in addition to two suitable referee base camp training site options, all with suitable accommodation.
Surely that would be a little wider - covering some of the top tier European leagues (De, Nl, Es, UK - not sure about Fr, IT and Eastern Europeans due to "all seater") leagues and Japan. Nor am I sure about South American, or SE Asian.
Are they allowed to repurpose stadia from other sports? The demanding thing looks to be the training sites perhaps.
Things to do, so no more from me.
Not quite the same thing but some/all of the US stadiums are multi sport I believe.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
Skip the group stage, and go straight into knockout, and that's easily do-able. Just 64 matches including a bronze one.
one game and you lose - too much jeopardy for the broadcasters
Some good news for a Sunday morning. I believe that loafers with no socks are known as nonce trotters, in this case literally true.
This is the best news to wake up to.
Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in US on British extradition request. They face 59 charges of rape, trafficking for sexual exploitation, assault and offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
They’re not going to find Qatar or Russia building 20 stadia though, so it’ll be the old-fashioned Western capitalist money-grabbing, rather than the Rolex watches and brown envelopes sort.
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
I went slightly down the rabbit hole, and it says (Wiki):
Fourteen all-seater stadiums with a capacity of 40,000, with a minimum of seven being pre-existing. The opening match and final must take place in an 80,000-seat stadium, while the semi-finals must take place in a 60,000-seat stadium. Hosts must also have at least 72 suitable training site options for team base camps, four suitable venue-specific training site options per stadium, in addition to two suitable referee base camp training site options, all with suitable accommodation.
Surely that would be a little wider - covering some of the top tier European leagues (De, Nl, Es, UK - not sure about Fr, IT and Eastern Europeans due to "all seater") leagues and Japan. Nor am I sure about South American, or SE Asian.
Are they allowed to repurpose stadia from other sports? The demanding thing looks to be the training sites perhaps.
Things to do, so no more from me.
Not quite the same thing but some/all of the US stadiums are multi sport I believe.
I think they’re all primarily NFL stadia in the US.
Help!! I can see comments on Chrome on my phone but not on my Mac - on Chrome or Safari. How do I sort it please?
The "can't see comments'" problem I had the other day wasn't on mac, but maybe it's the same thing. If you can't see comments on the main site, go to vf.politicalbetting.com, which is the site that has the actual comments. I found that if Vanilla wants you to go through some kind of "check you're not a robot" etc flow, this doesn't work directly on the main site (you just see nothing), but once you go to the vf site you can go through the check, and then it remembers that you're not a robot, and comments show up on the main site as usual again. Worth a try, anyway.
I dipped into X this morning. (Why do I continue to do that?). It’s still wall to wall Falklands. Lots of “Argentinian” posters all of a sudden. Who also, oddly, seem to be repeating tropes about Britain being flooded with Muslims between their Malvinas mumblings.
Doesn’t look remotely organic to me. New angle for the troll farms, I think. Russian ones, or MAGA?
"New angle for the troll farms, I think. Russian ones, or MAGA?"
Am in Riga for a family event with my Russian family. The Baltics are in a difficult position in that quite a bit of their economy has always depended on Russia and Russian influence. We spent a day at the beach where the beachside properties were new, well appointed and empty. The Russian owners are no longer there but the properties have not been sold as there is an expectation that the Baltics will turn east again once the EU money dries up.
There is an outlet village on the outskirts that is almost deserted due to the lack of cross border shopping. You can still cross the border as a relation will do in a few months where they will taxi to the border, cross after extended checks (no Euros etc) and then get picked up on the other side. All organised by specialist travel consultants.
In a few years this time will be forgotten and the beachfront owners will return and the Baltics will walk their fine line between East and West
The Death of Putin will greatly aid that process.
Is your relative not worried of the risk they will be whisked away to the Ukraine front?
Hmmm.
I thought Russia would calm down when they carried Putin feet first out of the Kremlin, but now I am not so sure. There are some really nasty bastards behind him jockeying for position.
(Interchange Russia for America, Putin for Trump and the Kremlin for the Whitehouse if you wish.)
I don't see how any of Putin's successors can continue with the policy that destroys the Russian economy. Draw a line under that particular madness with Putin, rather than step up and own the destruction of the Russian federation.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
Skip the group stage, and go straight into knockout, and that's easily do-able. Just 64 matches including a bronze one.
one game and you lose - too much jeopardy for the broadcasters
Perhaps there should be some locally based leagues to reduce the numbers, arranged per continent. You could allocate qualifying places roughly according to the performance of each continent in previous world cups.
Thus you could reduce the hosting costs by only having 32 or even 24 teams in the final event.
Instead of holding these games over a short period you could spread them out over a year or so to avoid over use of players.
That way every country could participate in the world cup...
Many sporting events suffer from "expansion due to perceived popularity" or how often can the Magic Cow still give the best milk?
Horse racing - Cheltenham expanded to four days, Royal Ascot now five days, York Ebor now four days. The courses know the crowds will come and the money will flow.
Wimbledon - no interruptions whatsoever to weather this year yet they still played the middle Sunday which they never used to. The matches are more spread out admittedly but we have a roof over the Centre Court so they can play till 10.30pm or later which of course they never could.
Cricket - ODIs, T20 matches and such like scattered all over the place. Test Matches squeezed in tomake the cricketing summer look busy. Whatever happened to the Gillette Cup and the Sunday League?
It's business - if you have a successful product, you want more of it because it brings in the cash.
Many sporting events suffer from "expansion due to perceived popularity" or how often can the Magic Cow still give the best milk?
Horse racing - Cheltenham expanded to four days, Royal Ascot now five days, York Ebor now four days. The courses know the crowds will come and the money will flow.
Wimbledon - no interruptions whatsoever to weather this year yet they still played the middle Sunday which they never used to. The matches are more spread out admittedly but we have a roof over the Centre Court so they can play till 10.30pm or later which of course they never could.
Cricket - ODIs, T20 matches and such like scattered all over the place. Test Matches squeezed in tomake the cricketing summer look busy. Whatever happened to the Gillette Cup and the Sunday League?
It's business - if you have a successful product, you want more of it because it brings in the cash.
How much football can we add until all the players are injured?
At least you don't have the same horses running each day of the meeting.
I was wondering about a Pete Hegseth Manly Mans' Man world cup held entirely in Rugby League Stadia as part of the Burnham "Tilt to the North", with the final held in a howling gale in a hailstorm in a freezing fog on rock solid mud in Odsal Bowl, if the Leaguers would let the football wusses on site.
There are 14 RL stadia, but none of them are large enough, unfortunately - except I think Old Trafford..
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
That's a lot of matches I must have missed, there.
104 matches in the tournament, and greedy FIFA want to go to 64 teams in future.
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Which concentrates power on FIFA and the largest, richest counties... so a feature, not a bug. The despicable money grubbing really turns the stomach though.
What can actually be done about it though?
Is there a way of escaping FIFA?
FIFA runs a massive deficit for three years, only returning to net profit in WC year. UEFA should wait 2-3 years and threaten a boycott.
I dipped into X this morning. (Why do I continue to do that?). It’s still wall to wall Falklands. Lots of “Argentinian” posters all of a sudden. Who also, oddly, seem to be repeating tropes about Britain being flooded with Muslims between their Malvinas mumblings.
Doesn’t look remotely organic to me. New angle for the troll farms, I think. Russian ones, or MAGA?
Don't rule out people doing it for profit. Twitter revenue shares with accounts that generate high levels of engagement, so there's encouragement for people to troll for profit.
Well there y'go PB. WC26. 32 teams entered. England came third. England beat 29 other teams, or beat the team that beat them. It's an exceptional outcome, the best since 1966.
48 teams entered, England beat 45.
(Never trust a statistician.)
That was pointed out after I posted it and a correction was then sent out.
Comments
They’re going to find it difficult to get hosts, even with multiple countries sharing, because most places don’t have enough decent stadia.
Someone elsewhere has pointed to signatory 1505 here, though:
https://openletter.earth/sign-the-open-letter-baf85a5c?limit=0
Who knew Your Party (or, Your Party splitters?) were headed for infamy?
It’s pretty much only the UK and US who could host it without building anything.
Is there a way of escaping FIFA?
I thought Russia would calm down when they carried Putin feet first out of the Kremlin, but now I am not so sure. There are some really nasty bastards behind him jockeying for position.
(Interchange Russia for America, Putin for Trump and the Kremlin for the Whitehouse if you wish.)
The economy of the Nordic region is bigger than Russia, and the majority of the banking sector in the Baltic is already Swedish. Baltio-Scandia is emerging as a new reality and for economic, political and military reasons will remain so, even if Russia changes course. Russia has little to offer and the EU direction of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is settled, probably for generations.
The outer Russian Empire is lost, the inner one crumbling.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/19/israel-threatens-to-seize-ancient-water-reservoirs-near-bethlehem
Some great stories about fans on road trips though, would have been a fun (if very expensive) adventure to go out there for the whole thing.
You can probably get three or four European groupings each of 3-4 nations, N America, Central/South America, then a RotW grouping of Asia, Australia, S. Africa. A logistical nightmare for the fans, especially those who need visas, but do-able as a competition.
China does have the stadia, but they’re almost all multi-use with running tracks, terrible for spectators!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China
Unless you have ethnic cleansing you have to deal with the reality of different loyalties
Boris on Trevor Phillips
Ukraine should join NATO
Their best-case scenario is to get out of Ukraine, send Putin and Lavrov to The Hague, elect people willing to engage with the rest of the world in good faith, and hope that sanctions can be lifted.
Most other scenarios involve a breakoff of the Eastern regions to China, and a massive DMZ on the Western border as in Korea.
The failure of Russia to offer any olive branch, but merely doubles down on propaganda and threats is a major cause of the diplomatic collapse and isolation of the Putin regime. Its a failure as a policy, and for as long as it continues, Russian power diminishes. Quite a contrast to post war, and post wall Germany.
This is the best news to wake up to.
Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in US on British extradition request. They face 59 charges of rape, trafficking for sexual exploitation, assault and offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.
https://x.com/lowles_nick/status/2078705819542020441?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Fourteen all-seater stadiums with a capacity of 40,000, with a minimum of seven being pre-existing. The opening match and final must take place in an 80,000-seat stadium, while the semi-finals must take place in a 60,000-seat stadium. Hosts must also have at least 72 suitable training site options for team base camps, four suitable venue-specific training site options per stadium, in addition to two suitable referee base camp training site options, all with suitable accommodation.
Surely that would be a little wider - covering some of the top tier European leagues (De, Nl, Es, UK - not sure about Fr, IT and Eastern Europeans due to "all seater") leagues and Japan. Nor am I sure about South American, or SE Asian.
Are they allowed to repurpose stadia from other sports? The demanding thing looks to be the training sites perhaps.
Things to do, so no more from me.
They should be trying for a defence pact with either the UK or France because then other would join in out of strategic FOMO.
There's a difference?
Thus you could reduce the hosting costs by only having 32 or even 24 teams in the final event.
Instead of holding these games over a short period you could spread them out over a year or so to avoid over use of players.
That way every country could participate in the world cup...
Many sporting events suffer from "expansion due to perceived popularity" or how often can the Magic Cow still give the best milk?
Horse racing - Cheltenham expanded to four days, Royal Ascot now five days, York Ebor now four days. The courses know the crowds will come and the money will flow.
Wimbledon - no interruptions whatsoever to weather this year yet they still played the middle Sunday which they never used to. The matches are more spread out admittedly but we have a roof over the Centre Court so they can play till 10.30pm or later which of course they never could.
Cricket - ODIs, T20 matches and such like scattered all over the place. Test Matches squeezed in tomake the cricketing summer look busy. Whatever happened to the Gillette Cup and the Sunday League?
It's business - if you have a successful product, you want more of it because it brings in the cash.
i just had andrew and tristan tate arrested in miami for wearing these outfits
https://x.com/dieworkwear/status/2078628778054672519?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
At least you don't have the same horses running each day of the meeting.
There are 14 RL stadia, but none of them are large enough, unfortunately - except I think Old Trafford..
NEW THREAD
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.