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Reply | France Riots
at 12:53 19 Oct 2026
It may be true that Putin has something on Trump, but I doubt it. I think the reasons for Trumps behaviour are both more obvious and even worse than that:
- Trump prefers dictatorships to democracies, which he calls weak. The only countries he's praised are dictatorships.
- Trump believes in regional powers. He thinks he should dictate affairs in "his" corner of the world e.g. in Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, Cuba etc. Likewise he thinks that Putin has the right to dictate policy in "his" corner including Ukraine.
- Trump sees international relations as relations between strong men leaders. He said that North Korea wouldn't do anything stupid because he individually "gets on well with Kim Jong Un". He wants the same with Putin and Xi.
- Trump has no interest in Europe and sees no point in fighting to protect it or spending money to support it.
- Being friendly with Putin opens doors to valuable business deals for him and his clan, particularly in oil and mining.
Lots of MAGA followers in the US think all of these things too and don't see any of it as wrong. I think all of this is worse than Putin simply having something on Trump. |
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Reply | France Riots
at 18:49 18 Oct 2026
The amount of profit is set by the regulator e.g. in water the return on investment is now a weighted average of 4.03% out to 2030. Everyone can form their own opinion on whether that is excessive or not, but that is well below the return that an average company would look for on new investment.
Of course the total profits look big because the investments are massive. New investment in water infrastructure is about £20 billion pa in the UK, so at 4% that adds up to a lot of profit. |
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Reply | France Riots
at 17:51 18 Oct 2026
I agree with you on Thatcher's Right To Buy (and Osborne's Help To Buy) - but not on the privatisation of businesses. From what I see, privatisation was a success overall. Nobody would ever dream of saying that the likes of BT, BA or BP should be owned by the government today. They operate much better in the private sector and it's a fact of life that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector.
Where privatisation has been difficult is where they still act like government departments, because the companies are local monopolies and don't have any competition to keep them on their toes. Water companies are a prime example. In those cases it's the regulator's job to keep them on their toes and the water regulator has fallen down on the job. OFWAT has the power to agree the performance targets, the level of investment, returns, dividends etc. and punish the companies when they don't deliver. OFWAT hasn't used those powers well and successive governments haven't regulated the regulator.
But there's no reason why they can't do the job well. The CAA regulates the airport owners, which is much like regulating the water companies, because they are local monopolies too. But you never hear cries that the airports need to be re-nationalised. That's because they're regulated better.
There will always be some problems, but people forget what the problems were like when all of this was run by the government. Importantly, they also ignore all the additional debt and taxes that would be required if the government had to fund the investment needed by these businesses. Since privatisation there has been massive investment in all of these businesses that just couldn't happen in the public sector. That's led to massive improvements in operational efficiencies and that ultimately means better services for customers. |
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Reply | France Riots
at 14:06 18 Oct 2026
I think the key things are:
- Demographics. We used to have a large number of young and healthy workers supporting a small number of elderly and sick. That's been slowly reversing as the baby boomers, like me, have grown old.
- Climate change leading to expensive energy. Climate change is real but the policy response of our governments, of both types, has put us at a severe disadvantage to other countries by making energy too expensive. Energy is fundamental to economic growth and our taxes on petrol, gas electricity etc. are massive.
- Poor productivity growth, mostly caused by a lack of investment over many years, but particularly since the financial crash 2008. This is widely agreed on by left and right.
- The "housing ladder" and national obsession with home owning. Successive governments have had policies deliberately designed to push up the value of houses, with disastrous results. It's a stupid policy that was always going to end badly. If people saved up to invest in businesses e.g. via pensions or a "national share" instead of houses, we would all be better off. Germany doesn't have an obsession with home owning and is better off because of that.
- "Made in China". I hate Trump but one thing he has right is the damage that China has done by seeking to own the world's manufacturing, leaving millions of people in the west on the scrap heap. The west should have put concerted pressure on China to change policies - and still needs to.
- Values. Young people used to be taught the value of work. Now they are taught about entitlements. Tbf, this is partly because the stupid policies referenced above have robbed them of jobs and opportunities, leading to inter-generational conflict (as in France). [Post edited 18 Oct 14:14]
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Reply | Mubama
at 12:11 18 Oct 2026
It's a big problem. The news is that Larin's injury is actually a hamstring, nothing to do with the collision. So his injury will have been caused either by him injuring himself by unconsciously adjusting for his back injury, or more likely just general over use, which is the usual cause of hamstring injuries. Either way, that wouldn't have happened last year because he'd have been able to get some rest.
We definitely need to sign another centre forward in January. The really stupid thing is this was obvious in the summer. We should never have ended up relying on the unproven Mubama. Now we'll drop points and then probably have to over pay in January. |
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Reply | France Riots
at 12:03 18 Oct 2026
It's true that we had massive debts after WWII, but you can't really compare the country at that time to now. Everything is so different e.g.:
- The "NHS" means something completely different now to the 1950s version. In the 50s healthcare was about 3.5% of GDP. Now it's 11.5%. If we only spent 3.5% of GDP on healthcare we'd solve our financial problems overnight!
- Other spending was also drastically less. In the 50s unemployment was effectively zero and no one was claiming the sick for ADHD.
- Taxes went up, but only to 33% of GDP compared to 37% today. Attitudes to taxes were very different though. People accepted them because there was a spirit of national unity and the country needed to be rebuilt. Today there is no spirit of national unity and if you put up taxes on the wealthy they just leave the country because emigration to lower tax countries is so easy today. That's something that hardly existed at all in the 50s. |
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Reply | The Adam Blackmore Interview
at 15:08 16 Oct 2026
Over reactions all round. I'm no fan of Blackmore but he was just doing his job.
Tonda's reaction was a bit thin skinned. Judging by Jo Tessem's comments his body language was very prickly. If he wants a career in football he'll need to get used to far more difficult questions than that. There was nothing wrong with the question from Blackmore. But he's still a very inexperienced manager, so he needs to be cut some slack and given time to learn. Handling media duties isn't easy for anyone, especially if English isn't your first language.
Some of our fans need to grow up. I follow a few Saints accounts on Twitter. If next time it's someone like Alfie House who has to close his account because he's said something to upset the morons, then we're all worse off.
Maybe also though, it's an over reaction by Blackmore too. That kind of sh1t isn't unusual in the sewers on X. In Blackmore's position, he should rise above it. |
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Reply | Abbott
at 10:14 15 Oct 2026
This is another problem caused by not having a centre forward. Tonda said as much after the game - he said part of the reason for selecting Abbott was that Larin was not on the pitch.
Last year in the period where we didn't have a centre forward we played 3 at the back to get some height in for set pieces. We did the same last night, but put one of the CBs at right back. |
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Reply | Boro Just Gone Ahead At Stoke
at 10:33 14 Oct 2026
Wolves 1 Bolton 3
Pretty amazing to me. Was it because Bolton have such a good goalkeeper?!
I thought WHU and Wolves were nailed on for the automatic places. I still think WHU will top the league but Wolves are looking dodgy. Maybe the 2nd automatic place is up for grabs. |
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Reply | Nathan Jones Makes His Excuses For His Disastrous Spell At Southampton
at 18:07 9 Oct 2026
He didn't drag it up. He gave an honest answer to the question, as he always does, rather than the media training version (unfortunately for him). What's more, he's absolutely right. We were a sh1tshow that season, with or without NJ.
It makes no sense to criticise him for being egocentric either. Lots of good managers are. He was the wrong choice at a bad time for Saints but he's proven himself to be a good Championship manager, taking basically League 1 clubs and making them successful in the Championship, which is no small thing.
If we had a sh1t manager that year, it was Ruben Selles who I remember you thought was great. NJ took over at Charlton when they were fighting relegation in League 1 and now, in to his 4th season with them, he has them holding their own against Championship clubs with much bigger budgets. Meanwhile Selles has been sacked from multiple clubs and was last seen managing in the Cypriot league.
The reason we hear from NJ is that he is successful and speaks his mind, so he gets interviewed. No one wants to know what Selles thinks. |
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Reply | Will Saints Utilise Surprise Option As Cyle Larin Returns Early Ahead of Pompey
at 11:15 6 Oct 2026
Let's hope Larin is fit. I suspect he'll play even if he isn't, because there isn't another good option. But if he just can't play, it has to be Mubama that starts. He's not ready for it but he's the best alternative. He was signed to play in that position (which Dobbin wasn't) and he's shown bits and pieces to suggest he's starting to adapt.
Changing style and "looking to play through the channels" is not something we've ever done under Tonda. In his first games, Tonda played without a centre forward and managed to work around it by getting Arma to drop short to link play. It worked for a few games and then got sussed out. We didn't win again until we got Ross Stewart on the pitch.
You said we didn't need to sign a 3rd centre forward AFTER we had already signed Mubama. Knowing he was our second option, you still didn't think we needed a 3rd one. I disagreed with you because relying on a youngster who said himself he had plenty to learn, was a crazy gamble in such an important season. We still might get away with that gamble if he learns quickly, but this would be one hell of a game to have to pitch him into. Fingers crossed. |
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Reply | Will Saints Utilise Surprise Option As Cyle Larin Returns Early Ahead of Pompey
at 10:29 6 Oct 2026
Dobbin at centre forward? Take someone who is out of form, playing with no confidence and play him out of position in one of the most vital positions on the pitch? No thanks. The way we play, we need a proper centre forward.
At Preston, it was Jebbison, Osmajic, Will Keane or Michael Smith who played centre forward. Dobbin played off one of them as a 10 or as a winger, not as a centre forward himself. When he signed for us, Tonda said he would play "anywhere behind the striker" i.e. not as a centre forward. It would be madness to tear up our style of play and our plans for him as a player in this game.
The fact you are even posting this article shows the club made the wrong decision in not signing a 3rd centre forward - a signing that you also said we didn't need. |
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Reply | City Punishment
at 15:34 30 Sep 2026
- You think cheating is "a technicality". Fortunately the vast majority of people disagree with you. City deliberately set out to cheat on a massive scale and so deserve to be punished proportionately.
- The City model is unsustainable because they lose hundreds of millions of pounds on an ongoing basis. So, if the world stops burning oil, the royal family lose interest, or if there is a coup in the UAE, then they go bust in their current form.
- In contrast, Liverpool's is a sustainable model built on fans, which tend to be lifelong. But that sustainability would be threatened if there were lots of cheats like City.
- Doncaster v Yeovil will always attract a lower TV audience than Liverpool v Man U.
- You don't have the right to tell me what I "should" do, but I agree with you on some of the other issues in football. |
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Reply | City Punishment
at 14:58 30 Sep 2026
It's a good question, but there's a difference between your examples. The main difference is that one is a sustainable, fan based business, and the other isn't.
You regard foreign fans as inferior, or plastic. I don't think that's fair, but either way, in business terms their money is as good as the money from local fans. Football is a business and Liverpool make money from the PL, which makes money from selling TV rights around the world. Those TV rights go for big money because the likes of Liverpool and Man U have millions of fans around the world. That's a sustainable model.
If China was allowed to buy 5 clubs like Doncaster Rovers and Yeovil and pour billions in so that they took over the PL, lots of bad things would happen. One is that the TV audiences would go down, so incomes go down. Another is that genuine businesses would stop investing in the PL. There would be no point to it. If China then walked away, the PL would have no business left at all. It's unsustainable.
I get your question, but if I was running the PL, I would also want it to be run on a sustainable basis, so I would want rules like the current ones. This sustainability is also the ethical choice because people's livelihoods are involved and you want an environment where people can invest and plan for the future with some degree of certainty. |
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Reply | City Punishment
at 13:59 30 Sep 2026
Not sure what's difficult to understand here but Man City broke the rules. There's no evidence, or even allegations that Liverpool, Man U or Arsenal did. They are completely different. Perhaps you don't like the rules but that's irrelevant here. What matters is who played according to the rules and who didn't.
Btw, it's highly unlikely that other big clubs would have done the same as City because they have no incentive to. The owners of those clubs are interested in making a profit. They have no interest in pouring hidden money into the clubs at a loss, as City did. The likes of Fenway Sports are successful businesses.
In contrast, City's owners are the Abu Dhabi royal family. They have no interest in making a profit from City. They want to use it to promote Abu Dhabi and the UAE. Their incentives are to make a loss on City in order to best promote the image of the UAE by winning competitions, and probably also enjoy their royal pet project. What else do you spend money on when you have it all? |
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Reply | Andy Burnham's speech
at 22:10 29 Sep 2026
He's misleading people already if you think people won't have to give up their houses to receive social care. That would be phenomenally expensive. Where would the money come from to replace the hundreds of thousands of pounds that it can cost per person?
In 1999 the government (Labour) set up the Sutherland Commission to look at setting up the same thing as this National Care Service. When they looked at it they decided it was too expensive, so the idea was binned. That was in 1999 when the country was much better off and running a much lower deficit. God knows how we're supposed to be able to afford it now - probably by lying about the true costs. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham's speech
at 21:51 29 Sep 2026
Hi cock breath, I'm glad you've been thinking about me.
Not surprised to see you haven't got anything intelligent to say. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham's speech
at 18:46 29 Sep 2026
Yes I'm referring to all those public sector workers. It's not a criticism of individual workers, it's just a statement of fact that the organisations they work for are failing to get any better, despite all the technology available and all the investment that has been thrown at them:
https://taxpayersalliance.com/
According to the ONS (itself a government body) UK public sector productivity increased a pathetic 1% between 1997 and 2025. In contrast, over the same time, total UK productivity increased by 35%. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham's speech
at 17:37 29 Sep 2026
Sorry but you're right, that is simplistic. One of the big problems we have in this country is the inefficiency of the public sector. Private sector productivity keeps improving but public sector productivity goes nowhere. As always in economics, this is due to incentives. The private sector is incentivised to be efficient or they go out of business (like in your example). In the public sector the incentive is to spend every penny of your budget or you won't get as much next year. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham's speech
at 17:31 29 Sep 2026
You are right, we need to get away from welfare state dependency. Some of this is because the economy isn't growing and generating jobs, but too much is down to people making a choice to live on the sick etc. instead of working. Meanwhile, we're told that we need waves of immigration to staff the jobs that keep basic services running, plus illegal immigrants make dangerous journeys, without stopping in safe countries, drawn in by the generosity of our benefits system.
Unfortunately, the only way to stop all that is to make a life on benefits less attractive and make it pay less. If there was a nicer way to solve the problem that would be great, but there isn't. People bleat about inequality, but we actually need to have more inequality between people on benefits and people who choose to work. We don't need Andy Burnham, we need a government that will make this kind of tough decision. |
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