Eddie Hitler

I wouldn't - at all - be shocked if Boris then tried to U-turn hoping delighted English folk would accept more lockdown just because they won the football. 'We let you all go to the game and party, now back indoors while we see if we've fucked it!'

Not going to claim to be an expert on this league by any means but have been known to watch the games when Sky Sports has them on, usually on international weeks when there isn't a Monday Night Football. Enjoy it, actually, quite 'blood and thunder' and a refreshing lack of all the normal falling about. Refs seem willing to let a bit more go. Quite enjoy Steve Lomas' musings, when he's been on. about which players deserve a chance 'over the water'. One who, by my reckoning, did/does was Jamie McGonigle who I was certain might follow Kearney over to St Mirren at one point. Liked watching him. So I am sure I'll keep an eye, and would be interested to hear what OP has to say on other divisions as well!

Level 6 now after a couple of matches last night. One win and one loss. After the loss, I discovered you can see match stats - wish I hadn't, as I was the worst player in terms of eliminations and KDR for that one Probably hadn't been for the match we won, at least!

We didn't have Colt teams when we regularly qualified for things. Top players will never be sent to play against Dalbeattie Star with a reserve team fgs - the odd decent honest pro who develops late might be and might have a very outside chance of one day being an internationalist but the sort of talent you are bumming about, the kind of player who will shine at a World Cup ffs will never have to play such teams unless the first team draws them in the Scottish Cup. Players who have not made it into the first teams at Rangers or Celtic (or frankly any top flight team) by the time they are 22 or 23 should be released to find their level at another club. The chances that any such player will end up being 'world class' is vanishingly small - and certainly so small that we should not overturn our entire league system to accommodate two lying clubs pretending about the likelihood of it. It's you who is a clown.

Just reading and I can't even 'do' ranked until I reach level 10 on street play (was level 3, I think) so it's not just me being an idiot

I'm so new that I don't even really know how to get a ranked game. It just offered matchmaking and I said 'ok' haha. Definitely felt outmatched but as a total noob to the game that was sort of expected.

Further to the above, 'sticking together' might sound like 'oh, you can do that then it will be easy if you are just sensible' but you do all have to find dodgeballs to throw which will necessitate some splitting up. I could see it being really strategic if you 'git gud'.

Had a go of this last night, couple of matches. Not surprisingly, I was honking at it as were my team-mates it seemed. I did get a few eliminations in the second match, right enough. It seemed like a good tactic was for your team to stick together and hope that the other team was daft enough to split up so that you can gang up on a lone opponent. Fun enough game imho (and it's unlikely I have delved deeply into its nuances and strategies to get much out of it yet) although I am not sure whether it will take over from Rocket League as my 'team play online game to be no better than average at'!

It's no doubt sacrilege to suggest it but, if we want to play a system that doesn't have room for that, do we just pick one to play LB and get on with it? While recognising that both are amongst our best players, are either so good that we have to shoehorn them in no matter what if i) the team is more effective in a formation that means one of them has to be left out, ii) keeping them both in causes some chain reaction of 'square pegs in round holes'? In general, the manager seems too wedded to playing the same formation all the time even when it means asking players to do things they are just not going to do as well (and when there might be better players at the task sitting on the bench in some cases). Not talking about Tierney and Robertson here, really, but a few players the other night in midfield especially seemed well out their comfort zone and not just because of the level they were playing at.

Yup, point 2 is why it's hopeless that the Greens won't criticise her in any meaningful manner about anything meaningful. A second pro-independence (accepting for a minute that the Greens are the closest thing there) party criticising would make it harder for legitimate criticism of ScotGov policy to simply be dismissed as 'it's yoons so just file it in the bin!' (and then far too many accept that unquestioningly) or Sturgeon doing her 'I'll take no lectures.....' routine which never quite accords with her pledges to listen and learn lessons from mistakes etc.

'Adult conversation' for Nicola Sturgeon means 'I'm going to order you to do annoying, contradictory and sometimes useless things and you've to be 'adult' and accept it'. Same as she pledged to make Holyrood all about 'consensus' but really meant 'I'll blunder about and make an arse of quite a lot of things and you've not to query it because 'consensus' means 'fall in behind me no matter what'.

They may have. I did say that I didn't think the polling told us anything about the stance of the leadership as it wasn't a poll of parties' members, but voters. I believe (and still do, because it isn't the Greens' reason for existing like it is the SNP's, for example) that Green leaders are never going to be put under as much pressure by their own voters to deliver independence as other pro-indy parties. Renton has subsequently called into question whether poll told us much about the Green voters, due to sample size, which is fair enough.

Ok, I won't argue. I haven't studied politics-based stats in many years and I am more than rusty.

Yes, I believe it is actually. Aware of margin of error being bigger in these and so on. But despite that I think we can safely say that the numbers of unionists among the Green support is going to be larger proportionally than among, say, the SNP, because even something like a 10-11% margin of error in that poll (for the subsample of I think 82) is still going to put it somewhere between a third and over half against independence when I think it's usually like 8 or 9% of SNP voters say they wouldn't vote Yes. Not trying to have a pop at the Greens at all, more to state that not progressing independence is a bigger risk for some parties than for others (given the apparent composition of their vote).

You may have a point but at the same time, Starmer isn't inspiring anyone, is he? What's he offering that's going to change things for people in these areas (and yes I know the Tories aren't going to do anything much for them either but the point stands. Labour will need to offer groundbreaking stuff and sound convincing with it. I don't find him convincing on anything).

They will merely retract this as soon as suits them. Who's it going to annoy? Not their own voters, who will instead be thrilled with them.

Re the Greens: Don't know about their members one way or the other as far as being 'pro-independence' goes. However, a recent poll did show that their voters as a whole are pretty much split on the issue. That doesn't tell us anything about how pro-independence the leadership is but it probably does mean Patrick Harvie can get away with not exactly being in any hurry at all for Scotland to get independence - because a significant number of his own voters will not punish him for not showing urgency (and may indeed thank him).

I think this is right, tbh. If there is in fact no 'event-based' trigger (as Brexit was) that would be enough to make the SNP 'go', then their manifestos should state that they will seek a referendum (or whatever other means they deem fit to ascertain Scotland wants independence) in the event that there is evidence of sustained support and make no other pledges within it. Otherwise it looks very much like they know they need to appear to keep the issue forefront or lose votes. As you say, if they want to concentrate on 'more powers devolved' for the foreseeable, with the caveat that they move if support is shown to be there, then that is a perfectly honourable and valid position and certainly moreso than going into each election winking at some people that 'it's just round the corner' but building in excuses by using as vague ('Vow-like'?) language as you can get away with.

Correct but it's also the case that you 'fend for yourself and your family and friends ' by not letting c*nts take your protections from you and that, when you otherwise lack power, you manage that by not being divided and ruled by those c*nts so that they can strip them away.

Don't know. However, they claim to have spent mega-sums so far and yet no inflation. Borrowing is currently very cheap for the government and they could do more to protect industries and save jobs if they chose. But they (the Tories) are going to allow industries to tank instead, only ensuring they take in less tax. Moronic from the alleged economic 'safe pair of hands' party. In any case, don't glom onto a bit that suits you after you've had an error pointed out to you. The tax take does not 'pay for everything' is the point. The government borrows/creates money and pumps it into the economy, and some of it comes back to them in the form of tax.

Not quite right. Government borrows/creates money to spend and then claims *some* of it back in tax later (if they'd claimed all of it back, then there wouldn't be a deficit). So long as the government has the power to 'borrow' or create money, then it can continue to spend. Obviously, they risk over-inflating the economy in certain circumstances and I won't pretend I know the thresholds for that occurring. But the 'there's no money left' people are invariably talking a lot of shite. If the political will was there, they could fund stuff for quite a while yet, given there is no sign of inflation rises despite the spending this year. The Tories just don't want people 'having too nice a life'.

1. Sorry, but it stands to reason that the further away the government, and the more people it has to consider, the more likely that some people (especially those it does not have to rely on to get elected) are going to struggle to have their interests heard. 2. Yes, silly me, I didn't realise that saying there would be a need for further powers given down to local level because it would understand local needs even better was 'treating Scotland as a homogenous bloc'. I thought I was acknowledging areas would have different needs and that people closer to them would understand better what they were.

You might be right that the population will start getting angry upon these lines but this will only be grist to the Tories' mill. They seemingly intend to re-make the economy to some degree off the back of this crisis and they would like the losers to think that it's because of the response to the virus rather than Brexit and their determination to thrash through for a low-wage economy. There's also a pretty good chance that any rebound in the economy post-restrictions (which would actually just be down to folk using things as they open up properly again) will be attributed to a mythical 'Brexit bounce' which has 'stimulated the economy'. Given many things will have been 'deid' for months and any sign of life will look like an improvement, some may buy this nonsense. In short, the Tories are using the crisis to tank some things now, so they don't tank later and they want to use this crisis which is 'bad luck' and 'unfortunate' to do it, rather than it being a choice following on from their policy aims post-Brexit. The 'the virus is a hoax' brigade lose the plot here. Nothing needs to be a hoax for the Tories to be their opportunistic selves and turn a real problem into a situation where they get what they want.

Yes, as I say, I wouldn't want untrammelled Scot Tory rule (and preferably they'd never be the main party ever). But the 'no Tories in Scotland!' thing is silly. If a party didn't exist for them on Indy Day, one would pop up to fill the vacuum as that's just how political spectrums work. PR is good news, as you say.

Yes, I believe this is mainly caused by a tendency to feel the need to 'overstate' the case, i.e. 'we need to be the very best to even justify wanting to do this' which is not warranted or necessary. There are a couple of other ways this manifests itself. Screaming 'no more Tories in Scotland ever!'. Now I will be at the front of the queue saying I don't want to be governed by Tories from a parliament 400 miles away. I will also be at the front of the queue saying that an independent Scotland needs to make sure it strikes a far fairer balance between business interests and those of the rest of Scottish society, and doesn't allow the former to rip the pish out of the latter the way the UK Government so often seems to do. But it's not terribly realistic to, in effect, demand that there would be no party for business interests in an independent Scotland; they do have a role in society. I just hope their party wouldn't win untrammelled power in Scotland. Along the same lines are appeals to history. To some degree, these have a role but people allow it often to be their sole justification for why Scotland should be independent. Again, I think it's because folk think precedent is needed to justify it. But actually I think it's not needed - I think Westminster does a shit job of governing the place, and is too far away to have concern for the needs of much of Scotland. To me, these are justifications enough to want a future free of rule from 'too far away', where we can attempt (at least) to have government that understands and responds to Scottish needs (and probably then there has to be more power delegated down to local government as well, who will know local needs even better). So while I think it's important to know your history, it isn't and shouldn't be the only justification for deciding how you want to be governed in future. What's important is what's best for lives now and to come - no justification beyond that should really be needed.