CornwallFox

I'm not dismissing that at all and I think it's absolutely fair to raise that. What I think is that realistically there'll be more than one driver for those changes and it's absolutely part of the equation, where the conversation lies is how much is due to that, what other factors were there etc. I'm more than willing to accept it's all due to that if there's an honest debate about it and that turns out to be the case. I just don't like looking at one change in isolation and saying it's solely down to that without the broader view because, let's face it, life isn't that black and white.

Absolutely fair, I'm not going to argue against demonstrable facts.

I'm a very big believer that it's the right setting out to lie to get power at all costs. Right now there's a big belief in the country that Labour lied in their manifesto. Full fact keep a rally of manifesto promises Vs delivery. It can be found at https://fullfact.org/government-tracker/ Currently it shows they've made pretty good progress in a year at keeping to their commitments (shown below). By comparison, in a full parliament the Tories only ever completed around 50% of their manifesto and failed almost all of the big items. They also promised no NI rise which they backtracked on, notably - we'll see soon whether Labour can stick to their very narrow band of promises on not increasing income tax, ni or vat for workers.

Realistically what happened last year was it was a broadly good budget, I'm prepared to accept there's debate to be had over the NI rise for employers, but then right wing rags took 2 or 3 policies in isolation to complain about, completely ignoring all the others. Anybody can pick out 2 or 3 things to complain about out of about 50 contained within the budget.

Agree pretty much with the bold bit. I didn't like Wenger's idea when I saw the diagram somebody else alluded to. Gives advantage to the attacker, will lead to defending deeper, just think it's balanced as it is, I'd just like to see video referring of offsides disused. Leave it to the linesman, make the rule intentionally slightly ambiguous (needs to be clearly offside withb the general rule as now) so that tiny measurements are irrelevant and accept a few mistakes.

When I started watching in the 80s (and I know you're older than me as we have actually met a few years ago, so I defer if the rules went in one direction then back in the other) you were offside if you were in an offside position even if the ball went nowhere near you. I recall arsenal's outside trap under George Graham very effectively creating offsides where players could be on the other side if the pitch to the ball. It was only when the idea of active/non-active players came in, not sure when that was, feels like a fair bit later, that it made a difference if you were near the ball.

The inheritance tax issue was done here a week ago and a poster with more knowledge on the issue than any other I've seen on here explained exactly why it's a non issue. 75% of farms sold last year were sold to investors rather than farmers. People looking to stick their money somewhere good for tax, with no intention of farming anything. The vast majority of farms aren't valued at the thresholds (simplistic numbers of £1m covers machinery and equipment, £3m for land). The average farm has a total value of something like £2.6m. there are then financial instruments that can be used to ensure real farmers won't pay inheritance tax even above those levels. In terms of the land value though, the only reason farmland is valued as highly as it is, is that non farmer investors are buying it to avoid inheritance tax. Farming itself doesn't provide great returns due to low purchase pricing by supermarkets. So the land value for farming isn't really very high, or shouldn't be, as it doesn't return a profit. So by cutting out the investors, land values should fall, taking even more farms out of the tax. The movement against this is led by investors posing as farmers, kicking up trouble in the farming community, which isn't one that is full of accountants and tax experts. They've been told it's bad for them when in reality it's bad for investors trying to avoid tax.

At this point the papers are just out to cause trouble. We'll all have to watch the budget to find out what's in it.

Fairly obviously nonsense I would say.

One of the more right wing posters linked to the treasury saying working people were people earning up to something like £48k, so just under higher tax rate. Presumably getting at the fact that might allow the government to raise the higher rate and claim they haven't touched working people. Tbh there's so much nonsense being put out about the coming budget it's very hard to predict. I'm expecting some surprises on the positive side as well as potential tax rises as they will be keeping it all very heavily under wraps. Rags like the telegraph really need calling out for attempting to scare everybody about what's coming leading to people cashing in pensions early, making investment decisions they otherwise wouldn't etc, all based on nonsense.

Any other recommendations from there if I'm going to place an order?

Well the idea she's done nothing but bad is clearly nonsense isn't it? A little bit of balance wouldn't go amiss. Notice how I'm prepared to accept there's an argument to be had regarding the NI increase on employers. Those of you that like to use laughing emoji and flippant comments very rarely seem to invoke any sense of complexity, nuance or balance. You carry on.

Where did you find this tipple?

Have absolutely no idea what's happened in the last thirty years. Back then blokes listened to guitar music and left the boybands to the girls. Now it's all one horrific mass of crap music and here we've got a forum full of blokes arguing about the best boy band. It's sending me a bit Lee Anderson.

You're easily blinded by your chosen media aren't you? You hate her because she had posters of Gordon Brown? Her first budget was pretty good. There's room for argument about the effect of NI changes, that I'll grant you, but it's hard to ascribe a single cause to continuing economic stagnation. The farmer issue was a non issue blown up by wealthy landowners that aren't farmers. She laid the ground to pump £100bn into capital projects which was much needed and should provide an economic boost in time.

Much as they do with any socialist government around the world, I suspect he'll feel the full force of the American machine in an attempt to destroy him and his kind of politics.

I thought he put a decent shift in TBF

Tbh I think the players have put a shift in last two games. Blackburn we created more than I can recall all season but utterly fell apart. Tonight I can't argue with the effort, we are struggling with having any skill, but would've been a decent result, albeit a very workmanlike performance. I think people need to accept we have terrible players. Maybe half a team of decent championship players at most, and that's pushing it.

It's absolutely nothing like that. Though I was thinking myself his suggestion was as dumb as that one. Nobody is calling for people to personally house asylum seekers are they? Nobody. Such a nonsense right wing talking point.

Daka's first touch. How is this lad a professional footballer.

Can't believe I'm saying this but I think I'd put Daka on for carranza. Daka is the worst footballer I've ever seen in a city shirt but carranza isn't looking too hot himself.

I don't think you're being quite honest about what it is we're suggesting but probably easier to move on.

Oh I see. Yes I just do a hobby for money. A hobby I would never do for fun 😅

Can you post this more often?

Jesus Christ this game is boring