DJ Barry Hammond

When he’s not managing, he’s quite likeable is old Neil!

Well @worth_the_wait - I do hold some hope in Starmer for a few reasons; • He seems like the first adult Prime Minister we’ve had for a long time. I’d say May was probably the last one previous to that but that she was hamstrung by her party and trying to balance conflicting wings of her party rather than being decisive. • Starmer doesn’t appear to have that ‘conflict’ issue within his party - and a strong majority will help further with that. Note: Owen Jones can’t stand the guy - which has to be a good sign! • If you look at various aspects of what Starmers done - it’s all meticulously planned out. He’s set up his front bench, his campaign was clearly ready to go as soon as Rishi said ‘go’. Even the leaflets and various campaign material were planned and templated with colour coding for the different policy areas. • He’s not tried to promise everything - which fits with the reality of the situation the country faces. • Yet there are still interesting policy aspects being proposed. Getting the railways back into public hands seems sensible and if the government is going to spend loads on ensuring energy security going forward (it feels like it has to either way), owning it under GB Energy seems sensible (private companies are always designed to take profit out so it’s no surprise that these privately owned monopolised industries have proved poor value for money). • Farage will be in the background to keep him honest. The only real downside I can find is he’s an avid Gooner. But he’s clearly a decent, intelligent person that I can believe will ultimately have good intentions at heart in whatever decision he makes - so I far from dread what Starmer might have instore. I’d also say this is where the Conservatives strategy of foretelling doom and gloom under Labour could backfire further still. It’s clearly a message that’s cut through - but that just means all Labour need to do is ‘not be shit’ to look like a reasonably capable government in 5 years time. Edit: obviously this assumes he gets in… but unless Nigel pulls a huge rabbit out of a hat, I don’t see how Labour doesn’t.

Something positive that can be said for Starmer at least is that I think he could be good for football. I’m sure a few may have noticed his deliberate choice to clock up as many football grounds as he could in the campaign trail - a lot of them non-league. I’m certain if Labour are elected they will look to get a football governance bill in pretty sharpish… and that it’s something Starmer will pay particular attention to.

I’m not so convinced 3 at the back works as well with our quality in wide positions. You want that extra man in midfield, with fullbacks able to back them up on the flanks.

We used to like doing our business quietly - if this is a sign of how we’re going forward, great stuff.

I’m not so sure this is an accurate reflection of the circumstances back then. Labour were massively tarnished by the Iraq War and of course the Blair / Brown switch was quite a change in terms of leader dynamics. On the other side you had Cameron who had managed to regroup the Conservatives into a somewhat sane and younger looking party - drifting more centrally in the process in an effort to capture Mondeo man! Of course you also had the financial crash which had a big impact on the election and future policy direction. But it should be remembered that Brown did have an earlier window where had he called an election he conceivably would have won… assuming he didn’t call a random member of the public a “bigoted women.” And that say’s a lot for Labour’s record in office across the period given this country tends to lean to the right politically. Edit: I should add - that election result was a hung Parliament following a 5.1% swing from Labour to the Conservatives.

Thanks 😉 I do try - I guess in a world of sensationalist views being balanced appears refreshing rather than boring 😂

I get that - and Reform will no doubt get a decent share of the vote. But I do sense that the Reform voters tend to be the vocal type that will publish everything about their lives on social media - but there are still a lot of people that will keep themselves to themself and will vote in different ways.

I get your issue - I think a lot of people are probably in the same position. Now a declaration: I won’t be voting tomorrow, I didn’t want to change my registered address and vote in an area I don’t see myself being in for long. But some suggestions on how you might choose who to vote for: Vote informed locally: You might want to base your vote on who is to represent you locally. There will no doubt be a few candidates, so if you want to narrow it down to who stands a chance you could check out the site below which will show you polling data for your area (I’ve put two links, the first one was running slooooow!); https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/newseatlookup.html https://ig.ft.com/uk-general-election/2024/projection/?constituency=E14001172 Then just check them out on social media a little, get an idea of their character and go on gut feel - usually our first instincts are good judges of character and ultimately that’s what you want in an elected representative. Vote based on the national picture: The other option would be to look at the national picture and vote based on either the party or political leader you think should be leading the country. Whilst in this case your vote would be an indirect approval because ultimately your vote is always for your local representative - this is still a perfectly valid way of choosing how to vote given it will be the parties and their leaders that will have the large say on things that happen nationally. Again, in this instance I wouldn’t suggest you go too hard into research - the whole point of having a months worth of campaigning is for the parties to pitch to you. So maybe think of something that impressed you, caught your interest, whatever and go with what your guts telling you - because there’s really no right or wrong answer, it’s about your choice and what you feel comfortable with. As with above, you may want to check your seats polling position to check which of the parties have more of a chance of winning with the idea of placing a potentially decisive vote. This could include choosing to vote ‘tactically’ - by voting for the rival of a person / party you decide you definitely don’t want to hold power. Note on Election Deposit One final thing - each candidate that runs for election has to pay a £500 deposit. If they receive more than 5% of the valid votes cast they get that back - but if not, not only does that candidate suffer the embarrassment of loosing (badly), they’re also £500 down on their efforts. So if you were drawn to an outsider / independent candidate that has little chance of winning overall - don’t feel voting for them is a wasted vote; because it might just be the difference in them getting their £500 back. Hope that helps 😉

A suggestion he’s signed the thing!

I think he’s a much better player than United fans give him credit for - maybe not in technical ability, but in terms of coming up big in key moments.

He plays on the right, noob!

What an absolute legend!

Seconded! Edit: oh, wait, @Mark has already done it! 🫣

Wow - I really had no idea I had joined so early on in FoxesTalk history (12th July 2004). I was just bored and wanted to talk about Leicester 😂

There will be an interesting paradox post election between Reform and the Conservatives I think. In Farage, regardless of what you think of him, I’d say Reform have the best political leader in the UK in terms of name recognition and vote pull - I’d say he’s even better than Boris at this stage. However, Reform doesn’t have the base or party apparatus required to compete nationally - and I doubt that it would be possible for them to build that in 5 years time. Now obviously the Conservative party does have the party infrastructure - what they lack is cohesive and attractive leadership - and given the stain the last 14 years will leave on the party (not withstanding the low base they may have to come from) they could do a lot worse than persuading Farage to become leader. Plus, the two parties are splitting each other’s votes, so they really do need to figure out a joining or joint strategy. And yet - I just can’t see the Conservative party allowing that - or indeed Farage accepting that offer the other way. Farage can hardly carry on the anti-establishment moniker if he joins the Conservatives can he? So that’s one side of the coin, but the other difficulty both Reform and the Conservatives may have going forward is that they’ve set Labour up with such a low base to govern from that I’d say it’s going to be pretty easy for Labour to show their first term as a success. Inflation has now come down, so interest rates should fall and with that the economy should start looking better. That position of an improving economy and falling rates should then allow some wriggle room in terms of spending on public services to ensure travel in a positive direction - and that spending is likely to create a short term churn effect in terms of the economy. There’s also Global political aspects that look to be in Labour’s favour. The rise of Le Penn in France creating a much harder stance on immigration there might in turn make it harder to travel through France in order to get to the UK and help reduce boat crossings without Labour doing a single thing. Trump getting elected in the US would conceivably see an end to the war in Ukraine - and probably see an upturn in the global economy too. And with both of those having the potential to look like rather insane governments from onlookers on these shores compared to boring old Keir - how does he not win the difficult second term? If that was the case - and assuming a normal 5 year second parliamentary term this would put Farage close to 70 before he gets another election chance - so if he truly harbours ambitions of becoming this countries PM, the time to strike is the election after this one. But as I suggest - I don’t see the conditions working for him that time around.

So how does not being a member of the trust produce a different message?

Errrr… what? And who else is on this list for comparison?

Even if the rules change - we will likely still need to make net financial gains on transfers season to season for the foreseeable future.

These ticket price rises aren’t just happening with us are they? Pretty sure I’ve seen murmurs of discontent at similar prices from other fans - including some in the Championship. I sense - and kind of hope - football comes to regret this incessant cash grab. Fans need to be firm and vote with their wallet.

I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise to us given Enzo doesn’t like normal fullbacks.

I agree. Keepers don’t tend to move much and when they do it doesn’t tend to involve huge transfer fees . Personally I’d be surprised if Mads leaves for a big fee - in fact I’d say there’s more chance for that with Jakub.

For that to happen, we’d have to play him first… Is that really what you’re hoping?

As one PSR period closes another one begins - and I would suggest we probably need to run close to break even in order to comply this time around. That suggests we will likely need to sell another prized asset at some point across the next 12 months. So who do we think will be the next significant Fox to join the ‘they used to play for us’ thread?

Didn’t Cooper sign him on loan for Forest in the Championship?