Chelsea are 7th & have 4 matches left:
2 against teams seeking European places
2 against teams fighting relegation
The 5 teams below them all have 5 games to play & all within 3 points of Chelsea
At this point its not clear they'll qualify for any European competition let alone champions league
There is no hope left.
Whatever Israel was or may have been - and one can argue about that - its long gone.
Its over.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
20m UK homes pay £180 license fee (70% BBC income) & 70m people abroad use VPNs to avoid paying.
Solution?
1. Scrap licence fee
2. Make global streaming service at £60 flat rate
3. UK people with arial get 4 channel & regions BBC free as usual
4. 70m+ UK & abroad sign up to BBC IPlayer at low rate
Remarkable how many brexiters & even some remainers dont get we no longer live in a 2016 world.
In 2015 UK economy was 1/6 of USA & 1/4 of China.
Now its 1/8 & 1/5 respectively
EU Single Market is now 17billion with 31 members & 450m people
UK starting to look alot smaller than even 10 years ago.
Im tired of discussing whether Trump is mad or just plain stupid. Its kind of irelevant.
Whats important is that atleast 30% of Americans think this person is remotely worth listening to.
Thats the the real problem.
Here to serve, Sir.
Here to serve.
Never goining to happen.
Not becuase people like City or hate Arsenal.
Its simpler than that:
The city suff is dull, old and about financial regulations.
A team dropping points in a title race is televisual emotional & human tragedy.
Oh no not this again.
As EU has made clear many times:
The date of any members joining EURO is left UP TO EACH MEMBER STATE.
This is both good politics and technically logical.
Fight the SM/rejoin battle now.
The Euro will not be joined till we are back in.
One battle at a time.
Would this out me as an Über-centerist If I said I dont think Starmer should resign now, but hes on probation and needs both to raise his game and/or think about a smooth succession transition before 2029 if poll numbers dont increase...?
As I said, I agree with you on this.
Or rather to be more precise Mandelson having had a number of scandals was just too risky for me. While its true stuff has come out in last year showing Mandelson in an even worse light there was enough out there before to have made Starmers haste seem unseemly.
I dont think that many people said he was a good appointment "because he's a villian". Think the basic argument goes: You need a shady, dodgy character to deal with Trump during these times.
As it happened Mandelson was too shady - and in any case Trump 2.0 was so far gone it didnt help anyway...!
Mate if I posted links to how many thought it was a smart move at the time Id fill up your notifications column!
I chose NA as they are pretty mainstream fmr Newsnight journos who now are banging out stuff about what an obvious mistake it was. No disrespect to them many have changed tune on this.
Dmitry old chap, literally much of the UK Polit-media world was pounding this point at the time.
Look we basically agree re Mandelson but lets not rewrite history here.
Mandelson was in charge of Trade Commission for 4 years, he knew Trump world socially & had a direct line to the centre of Labour.
Youre making me sound like I thought Mandelson was the right appointment - I dont!
But lets not pretend it wasnt widely precieved at time as some sort of mastersroke.
You havent been on YouTube recently then....!
I think, even being charitable to Starmer re Mandelson, Starmer was trying to be too clever.
But at time thinking was we needed someone Trump could see as on his side. Again I despise the guy & have said so here but lets not pretend that many in media (see ao NewsAgents Jon Sopel) didnt welcome it.
Like Dimitry alot but "We don't appoint corrupt gangsters to embassies in Moscow or religious fanatics to Tehran" is classic reductionist silliness.
Diplomats often chosen specific local issues in mind (was in FCO 2001-2004). I wouldnt have appointed Mandelson but I totally got the logic at time.
Had a conversation with friends last week about this.
We agreed that people (particularly young men) will make it a goal, point of principle & sport to sabotage robots doing basic tasks (replacing postmen, delivery guys, security guards, window cleaners etc).
It will then be classed as terrorism.
Word to the wise, they'll be lots of money made over the next 2 years by earnest men delivering lectures entitled something like:
"The top 10 vulnerable strategic chokeholds of the West".
Yep.
And as ive said many times even when "successful" Mandelson "golden touch" was largely a myth.
He was a failure with Labour under Kinnock, and then claimed all the credit when a fresh faced Blair got in when even Tory voters were fed up with the the Tories & John Major.
I think Leeds will beat Burnley at home & be safe - and if they Beat Chelsea in FA Cup semi final they'll more or less throw the Spurs game as its only 4 days before the Cup final.
(Yes, to distract from worrying about Arsenals fixtures, ive gone full in on plotting relegation routes for Spurs)
West Ham really needed to win ths one.
They could win 5-6 more points but I dont think that'll be enough now.
Spurs will get atleast 2 wins I think.
Pity.
The analogy holds.
FWIW
Spurs should have kept Postocoglu and Spurs are now lower than when they sacked Frank...
"Tiny Rowland"
You could be right on this - which will be grim.
The thing is right now I just think that most voters kind of get what cant be said on mainstream TV:
That Mandelson is a snake that made sense if you wanted to finesse Trump. Fact is Trump 2.0 turned out far worse so it was ultimately a dumb move.
In retrospect a damaging & dumb decision but I dont think the pieces have settled down on this yet.
To my view this doesn't feel like an office ending episode.
I view this sort of question through my football fan lens.
You shouldnt sack a manger because he's having a rough time, unless you've already got someone lined up who will definitely be better.
Right now theres no one.
Maybe next year it'll be clearer.
Its impossible to make, doubly so now.
I dislike Mandelsohn but could see the logic at the time.
To be strictly fair to Starmer he didn't know that **finessing** Trump would prove to be worthless anyway.
Thats another point that cant be made publicly before Trump leaves the stage.
In the crucial last 2 week run-in to premier league:
Arsenal have 3 league matches at the 3 weekends.
All 3 against teams who are either already relegated or newly safe from relegation.
Man City play 4 league games, 3 against teams looking to European qualification PLUS a likely FA Cup final....
Im happy for everyone to call me naive.
But I just cant imagine that it was so important for Olly Robbins - a civil servant - to somehow maneouvre Mandelsohn into the Ambassador job. Civil servants do screw up but not like this.
It was a political appointment by a Labour PM of a Labour politician.