ICTChris

Yeah, decent salaries, high profile and repeated blows to the head are not a good combo. The guy who put his phone in the microwave to charge it is the best for me.

I understand that this song was written in this manner and it's a banger.

Starting to think this Galloway guy is a real jerk.

Interesting use of 'return'. When did the SNP stop governing from the mainstream?

It seems like there's a big push for Forbes to join with Swinney and prevent a contest, possibily by returing as finance secretary and/or deputy First Minister. it must be atractive to do that as it would give her a significant brief, allow her to have influence in government etc. However, if she does agree to it, i don't think she will ever be First Minister. Essentially she will now be tied to the successes or failures of the Swinney government and, however people want to spin it, Swinney is the continuinty-continuity candidate. Say she falls in with Swinney and things continue getting wore for the SNP - they lose seats in the UK General Election, there are more scandals, poll figures stay low. She's tarred with that failure so if it happens and the Swinney goes she won't be the clean break she is now (you can debate whether she is a clean break now of course). If she falls in with Swinney and he turns things around and there is electoral success, well why would he leave? Also, what is likely to happen is others in the SNP will become the new shining stars of the future, leaving Forbes as yesterday's woman. If Forbes wants to be First Minister she has to run now, against Swinney. This is looking at things purely from the perspective of how to win. Forbes may have significant policy differences to Swinney, she might want to approach constitutional questions in a different way, she might think she has a better chance of winning SNP majorities and even independence than John Swinney. I just think from a purely tactical sense she can't stand aside now if she wants to be leader. ETA - Sounds like she will be stepping aside.

What?

Was going to post this on the rugby league thread, but deserves a bigger audience NRL players are a different breed.

I assume that it's David Sutherland who is paying Ferguson's wages, Ferguson is living in a house owned by Sutherland. Sutherland or entities controlled by him own the largest part of the club as well. Savage, Sutherland and McGillvary are all in their 70s now and I'm not sure how much they want to be involved in the club. I've posted it on here before but the ongoing issues we have are due to the fact that while we were in the Premiership the club was generally stable. We might make a loss one year but it was relatively sustainable and coverable. The truth is that the guys who were running the club didn't develop any alternative revenue streams, didn't try and make the club more robust, didn't invest in the infrastructure of the club and didn't plan for what would happen if/when we got relegated. Most clubs like us will get relegated at some point. The generalised chaos that we've had since 2017 is due to this. We are a strange kind of club - in some ways we spend money hand over fist, in others we are utterly skinflint to the point of harming ourselves. We don't have a long term plan for where we want to be, we don't have a plan off the field other than get this land deal over the line and cash the cheque. In a lot of ways I don't really blame Gardiner and Morrison for the situation, they inherited it. Both are incompetent and have probably made it worse due to their incompentence but they didn't create it.

Maybe I'm just getting older but I really can't stand all this stuff in boxing. Every fight seems to be built up to some stupid grudge match and there's all the shit before in the build up. It seems to be a lot worse than it used to be, although maybe that's just me. Possibly social media makes it worse? I haven't followed it all too closely but Garcia is clearly not healthy mentally and that can be something that PEDs contribute to.

I can't stand the "unelected First/Prime Minister" meme that seems to be trotted out more now. We have a Parliamentary system. Every party who has been in government in any part of the UK has changed leader at some point and not had an immediate general election - SNP when moving from Salmond to Sturgeon to Yousaf and now to Swinney or Forbes; Tories from Thatcher to Major and then Cameron to May to Johnson to Truss to Sunak; Labour going from Blair to Brown and even from Harold Wilson to Jim Callaghan if you want to go old school.

Yes, owning a samuri sword is up there with being a mobile DJ as being a sure fire sign of being OFTW.

So if we shit fest a 0-0 and Airdrie sclaf one in off someone’s arse, Ferguson gets half a million quid? I highly doubt this is true. The board member or backer who is apparently paying Ferguson’s wages isn’t that rich.

Any P&Bers here?

Forbes could go to other parties and try and work with them to abstain. When Salmond first formed a government, the Greens voted with him but the Tories and Lib Dems abstained, allowing him to form an administration. I think that Scottish politics is a different place now and that there is little apetite in either the SNP or the Tories to co-operate. In addition, the SNP government is currently in a very rocky place and the opposition might look at this and think, what's to be gained by us propping them up? If the Tories fancy playing some 4D chess, they could abstain for Forbes knowing that that will cause merry hell within the SNP.

Thought I'd create a thread for the new trend of mass casualty attacks in the UK. In Hainult, London earlier this week a man wielding a samuri sword attacked and killed a 14 year old and severely injured several police officers. A few weeks ago in Wales a pupil attacked several people in a school and today a 17 year old has been arrested on suspicion of murder after an attack at a school in Sheffield. Two teachers and a child were minorly injured with a piece of broken glass in the latest attack. Is it just random chance that these attacks have happened in the last few weeks? What the hell is going on in this country?

If any candidate is going to bring in a radical theocracy based on their personal beliefs, I want it to be John Hughes.

These figures include season tickets and free entry for school kids though.

Ban ULEZ Send all the illegals back where they came from. I don't understand NATO and Gaza This is the true centre ground of British politics.

All this talk of Morton paying big bucks takes me back. The Chris Templeton fee that went up and up every time it was mentioned, I'm sure about a year after he signed people would claim he was about the European record transfer fee.

Article by SNP MSP Ivan McKee about the dangers of a ‘coronation’, he backs Kate Forbes at the end. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/kate-forbes-reaches-parts-electorate-32706117

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/glasgow-willy-wonka-experience-los-angeles-event-rcna149468?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1OWwCatQR7MzItG5O5xE46-RyGQ4rgDAnO8Y0OogqmaMePTRHQ8_JJh50_aem_AZx_Xa587T-tmWZunMxpkMEJRGNry4A6mEWPFCaBxSJWkveeRi7J761lJO7gp5kO4eeoL19YPdunBje48T4gYTYB The Wonka Experience hits LA

I though the APC was set up by Lord MacKay and his supporters?

Saw this article about this subject https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/20/how-many-american-children-have-cut-contact-with-their-parents?