Skip to content

EFL to allow crowds into games with immediate effect

15791011

Comments

  • Saw a clip of it @brownie.

    Didn't see any gestures in the short clip, but loads of idiots throwing stuff, swearing and generally being like football hooligans.
    Most of them no sense of masks or distance either.

    And for their utter lack of any cause, that last bit is pretty unforgivable.

  • I will be very surprised and disappointed if they don’t denounce it and, for the sake of balance, I haven’t heard or seen the former shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott condemning the attack on police officers in Hackney where she’s a local MP. In fairness, another local MP did say it was disgusting.

  • @Brownie said:
    Anyone seen the pictures of "counter-protestors" calling themselves either "statue defenders" or "football lads" pulling actual Nazi salutes in London today while chanting their support of Winston Churchill? I look forward to seeing Boris and Priti denouncing this behaviour (clue: they won't).

    I believe both Priti Patel and Sadiq Khan have condemned the disorder.

  • I've seen plenty of photos and it's debateable if they're nazi salutes (although when you know people are accusing you of being nazi sympathisers, you've got to be either incredibly thick, or a racist if you then do anything remotely similar, in an aggressive way on camera) , what's not debateable is the racist chanting, violence against the police (more than all BLM protests combined despite a fraction of the numbers), getting so drunk you piss next to a policeman's grave when you claim to be in London to protect memorials, and then no one even pulling him up for doing it. The groups of right wing "football lads" going to Hyde Park to look trouble, the photoshopping of knives into photos to spread rumours that a man had his throat cut by a BLM protestor.

    We have a significant problem in this country, and saying nothing isn't enough anymore.

    The reaction to yesterday compared to last week has left me fairly disgusted

  • Reporter from that left wing rag The Times was manhandled by a protester. Interviewed this morning on left-wing lame stream media BBC News, he said he could not work out why so called champions of democracy were urinating against the fence of Parliament (to be fair I suspect that bell end doing it next to the memorial had no idea what anything with writing on it said) and accuse the police of being part of some fair left conspiracy...I mean obviously we have a radical socialist government in power at the moment! :smile: Drunken Racist Bell-ends with no real grasp of history being manipulated by slightly smarter racists with O-Levels.

  • One of the great curses of being on the left of the left is how often the things we try to warn everyone about come to pass. While the right wing press was making up a storm about Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism we were all trying to point out that there are actual f'ing nazis in this country and maybe the threat wasn't going to come from some bloke who has spent his life campaigning against racism, but from actual f'ing nazis - the people who murdered a sitting MP for the first time in almost 3 decades. The fact that that same right wing press whipped these mouth-breathers up into the frenzy we saw this weekend seems to be entirely lost on a lot of people.

  • @drcongo said:
    One of the great curses of being on the left of the left is how often the things we try to warn everyone about come to pass. While the right wing press was making up a storm about Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism we were all trying to point out that there are actual f'ing nazis in this country and maybe the threat wasn't going to come from some bloke who has spent his life campaigning against racism, but from actual f'ing nazis - the people who murdered a sitting MP for the first time in almost 3 decades. The fact that that same right wing press whipped these mouth-breathers up into the frenzy we saw this weekend seems to be entirely lost on a lot of people.

    Nuanced examination of fact is at an all time low in this country, it was soundbites and headlines, it's now ukippy memes of borderline things that might annoy you without any context and three word slogans. If people would even read articles, if not books, we might do better. The drip of anti immigration messages from papers now ludicrously asking why the country is split, and the B word , it's dubious partners, online campaigns and it's bodged, accusational attempt at execution have allowed a lot to happen which should be heavily opposed.
    Anti-Semitism amongst the far left may well have been given more coverage for political effect but wasn't entirely made up, or dealt with well enough to be able to boast.
    The embarrassment of a man currently degrading all football fans having pissed "near" a memorial said in court today he'd prepared for "protecting memorials" , of which he couldn't name any, by going on an all night bender and drinking 16 pints.

  • Odd times anyway, Whilst you could argue (I'm not going to) that Churchill was or wasn't Racist and or a great leader, With Trump and Johnson you're in the same areas but you'd have more of a job arguing they were even semi competent leaders.
    Meanwhile Racism and Coronavirus are on the rise and people, no doubt of all political persuasions, are queuing to get into Primark.

  • The worst thing about all this is they keep saying 'football fans' had come into London to protect monuments...lumping us all in with Tommy Robinson, the EDL and Britain First.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    The worst thing about all this is they keep saying 'football fans' had come into London to protect monuments...lumping us all in with Tommy Robinson, the EDL and Britain First.

    Is that the worst thing? It's unfair, unhelpful and will lead to families staying clear and influential people kicking football for time to come but it's probably not as bad as the fact people with a very nasty agenda can summon the stupid for racist violence and beating up police.

  • Simply democracy doesn't work right now.

    We're at a point in time where the availability of information (or misinformation), the ease of disseminating it to huge numbers of people with zero checks on credibility has happened so much quicker than the education of the population on how to use it, or in many cases, having basic critical thinking skills in the first place.

    What's the point in having a vote if you're voting for something you don't understand, with consequences that are often the exact opposite of the reason for that vote being made? Might as well be a random vote.

    If you subscribe to the conclusions on papers around psychological manipulation /warfare and their effectiveness, we might as well not bother with elections and just give it to whoever has a combination of bigger propaganda budget, and less morals when it comes to straight up lying to appeal to the masses.

    It's no surprise that on the recent votes where social media has been a focus for the first time, education level has been one of the factors with the strongest indication of voting direction.

    No idea of a realistic solution mind...

  • @StrongestTeam Just to clarify, I'm not saying there's zero anti-semitism on the left, but that the orchestrated campaign against Jeremy Corbyn was provably complete and utter bollocks, and sadly some people still believe it. The man who made the Panorama programme about it had twice been rebuked by the BBC for making stuff up about muslims (though they let him carry on making "factual" programming) and every single person who appeared in the programme as a whistleblower was actually the people burying anti-semitism reports inside Labour HQ specifically to make Corbyn look bad. The leaked Labour report into all this is the most scandalous, shocking bit of political shithousing since Profumo, and now we're saddled with a Labour leader who agrees with everything the tories tell him to, and who refuses to call racists "racists". There is no longer any such thing as the opposition.

  • @StrongestTeam said:

    @Wendoverman said:
    The worst thing about all this is they keep saying 'football fans' had come into London to protect monuments...lumping us all in with Tommy Robinson, the EDL and Britain First.

    Is that the worst thing? It's unfair, unhelpful and will lead to families staying clear and influential people kicking football for time to come but it's probably not as bad as the fact people with a very nasty agenda can summon the stupid for racist violence and beating up police.

    Of course it's not worst than institutional racism, murders in police custody, looting, rioting or racists marching through our streets, but you knew I didn't really mean to suggest that didn't you @StrongestTeam ?

  • @Wendoverman said:

    @StrongestTeam said:

    @Wendoverman said:
    The worst thing about all this is they keep saying 'football fans' had come into London to protect monuments...lumping us all in with Tommy Robinson, the EDL and Britain First.

    Is that the worst thing? It's unfair, unhelpful and will lead to families staying clear and influential people kicking football for time to come but it's probably not as bad as the fact people with a very nasty agenda can summon the stupid for racist violence and beating up police.

    Of course it's not worst than institutional racism, murders in police custody, looting, rioting or racists marching through our streets, but you knew I didn't really mean to suggest that didn't you @StrongestTeam ?

    Just being picky, not accusational, apologies.

  • @StrongestTeam said:

    @Wendoverman said:

    @StrongestTeam said:

    @Wendoverman said:
    The worst thing about all this is they keep saying 'football fans' had come into London to protect monuments...lumping us all in with Tommy Robinson, the EDL and Britain First.

    Is that the worst thing? It's unfair, unhelpful and will lead to families staying clear and influential people kicking football for time to come but it's probably not as bad as the fact people with a very nasty agenda can summon the stupid for racist violence and beating up police.

    Of course it's not worst than institutional racism, murders in police custody, looting, rioting or racists marching through our streets, but you knew I didn't really mean to suggest that didn't you @StrongestTeam ?

    Just being picky, not accusational, apologies.

    No problems...not the bestest use of them words on my part either

  • I only partially agree with you @drcongo but will spare the gasroom a Labour leadership debate conversation which belongs in a pub. I miss them.

    @Username is on to something, which is why the tech companies have spent a lot of time on PR trying to avoid regulation. We don't control the content was always their mantra but even that isn't really true.

  • edited June 2020

    Can I ask an honest question @drcongo. In the hypothetical situation where there was a choice between
    a) having a labour leader who wants to do all at you want but as a result is significantly less electable and hence allows the tory party room to move significantly to the right and still be elected and get to inflict those right wing policies

    or
    b) having a labour leader who will only deliver half of what you want but is much more likely to be elected , pull the Tories back to the centre and actually deliver half of your desire

    which would you choose.

    I know you will deny the applicability of the premise to the real world (despite i think overwhelming evidence) but lets get beyond that. I am interested in the principle.

  • I don't deny the premise at all @DevC, I think it's a very good, and important question. This might be a bit of a piece by piece answer though...

    a) having a labour leader who wants to do all at you want but as a result is significantly less electable and hence allows the tory party room to move significantly to the right and still be elected and get to inflict those right wing policies

    So this makes an assumption that is significantly, and historically wrong. The more left wing the leader of the Labour Party is, the more it stops the tories from moving to the right. This is known as the Overton Window - roughly: the range of policies that can be tabled across the spectrum that the public will feel is acceptable. You need a strong left putting forward strong social policies in order to keep the Overton Window from shifting too far to the right - if it does shift too far to the right you have fascism because the further right it goes, the more the right will clamp down on the freedoms of anyone who disagrees with them. If you want to watch this happening live, put CNN on. It's also worth noting for anyone who naturally leans to the right, that this also works the other way around, a strong right stops a left wing government from slipping to what you might consider too far. Communism maybe.

    In either case, anyone out and out suggesting a policy to either side of the Overton Window will be largely dismissed as niche cranks by the majority of the British public - cf. The Communist Party of Britain to the left of the window, the BNP and UKIP to the right.

    b) having a labour leader who will only deliver half of what you want but is much more likely to be elected , pull the Tories back to the centre and actually deliver half of your desire

    And of course, all of the above makes this option unworkable too. Karen Starmer is putting up absolutely zero opposition to the tories because he thinks that will win over tory voters. It might win a few over, but by then of course the Overton Window is playing so far out on the right wing that it's having to skip around the linesman because there is no left wing any more. If he wins, he's not actually going to have any socialist policies, because he's far too busy backing whatever the tories say and calling for inquiries at some unspecified point in the future.

    So, which would I vote for out of your A and B. Obviously A - because the effect that has is to either drag the Overton Window back from the brink of authoritarianism, or to elect someone with some morals and ethics.

    Footnote: Do I think Johnson is in danger of dragging us into being a fascist state? No, I think he's an incompetent chancer being operated like a shit puppet by Dominic Cummings. I do however think there's a chance that dragging us into a fascist authoritarian state is Cummings' actual goal.

  • I think you will find Keir is trying to win back some its traditional voters eg The Red Wall. Those who despaired at Corbyn and his crackpot middleclass momentum party.

  • Boris Johnson won a landslide election victory with Corbyn as leader of the opposition. Not to mention Brexit

    On what planet did he prevent a slide to the right?

  • The counter arguments include not only what individual good you could do in government but what the weird extreme fringy bits of one party can be doing in the shadows that you can't even see let alone control while you are in opposition. That and that your individual character gets such a hammering that public opinion for your policies is harmed if people automatically think what you've said is tainted by the fact you've said it.

  • I think you're entirely misunderstanding the definition of the Overton Window. It's not about number of votes won, it's about how left, or how right, policies are while still being seen as acceptable to the public. I thought I'd explained it pretty well above but apparently not, here's Wikipedia.

    And in terms of actual vote counts, Corbyn won a larger share of the vote than Blair did in 2005, despite the fact that Blair had Murdoch's backing and Corbyn had Labour HQ actively working to prevent him getting elected.

  • If you're only going to read one of those links, make it the last one.

  • @drcongo Corbyn was not an anti-semite but as his experience has always been that of a back bench mixer and trouble maker, he was, as leader, totally inept in managing the whole shambles from the onset and unable to handle the fall-out as it stumbled on. I'm not convinced by Sir Starmer as any sort of policy leader, but I do think he's a safer pair of hands and presently keeping his head down in the hopes of letting the government damage their own limitations.
    I do agree entirely with your assessment of the jolly, slightly racist, lazy gaffmeister and the contempt machine that is the real PM.
    @eric_plant I think the promises made by these charlatans during the years of the soul-destroying Brexit fiasco led to his jolly old landslide rather than a lurch to the right and I'm hoping as the curtain is pulled aside and reality sinks in, it will put paid to his reign. Though having listened to the reasoning of the Great British public over the last few years ...I'm hoping, rather than expecting

  • Thanks for a constructive answer to my question @drcongo . I think though you inadvertently changed the question so much before answering it that you have answered a very different question to the one I asked.

    The question I asked was essentially a pragmatism versus ideals question. Would you in principle compromise and accept half of what you wanted IF that's what it took to gain power or would you on principle hold out for all of it even if you believed it significantly reduced the chance of gaining that power?

    If your answer is yes, there is a secondary question about whether this applies to the Corbyn /Starmer /Johnson situation but that question is really only worth discussing if your answer to the first question is yes.

  • @drcongo said:
    I think you're entirely misunderstanding the definition of the Overton Window. It's not about number of votes won, it's about how left, or how right, policies are while still being seen as acceptable to the public. I thought I'd explained it pretty well above but apparently not, here's Wikipedia.

    And in terms of actual vote counts, Corbyn won a larger share of the vote than Blair did in 2005, despite the fact that Blair had Murdoch's backing and Corbyn had Labour HQ actively working to prevent him getting elected.

    I understand what the Overton Window is. My point is that with Boris Johnson as leader, onthe back of. Brexit campaign which at the very least relied on the support of the racist far right to get it over the line, we have the most right wing government in my lifetime and probably for many years before that.

    Are you saying that without Corbyn as leader of the opposition that the government would have been even further to the right? Are you serious?

  • @drcongo said:
    One of the great curses of being on the left of the left is how often the things we try to warn everyone about come to pass. While the right wing press was making up a storm about Jeremy Corbyn and anti-semitism we were all trying to point out that there are actual f'ing nazis in this country and maybe the threat wasn't going to come from some bloke who has spent his life campaigning against racism, but from actual f'ing nazis - the people who murdered a sitting MP for the first time in almost 3 decades. The fact that that same right wing press whipped these mouth-breathers up into the frenzy we saw this weekend seems to be entirely lost on a lot of people.

    Couldn't of put it better myself ?

  • edited June 2020

    @eric_plant said:
    Are you saying that without Corbyn as leader of the opposition that the government would have been even further to the right? Are you serious?

    Absolutely. Theresa May was way off to the right of Thatcher. Yes, we've got a hideously right wing government now, but if you understand what the Overton Window is then you can definitely imagine how bad it could have been.

  • And actually, if you want to see what happens without a left wing opposition just put BBC News on now and watch it live. 65k people dead, nazis attacking people in the street and a bunch of empathy-free, tory ghouls giving us daily updates about the economy instead of doing anything about their world beating death toll.

  • Unless you think the tories have gone more socialist since Starmer took over? In which case, I think I'd need to see your workings.

Sign In or Register to comment.