holystove

7 hours ago, rubecula said:

can you explain why?

I'd reply but I get the feeling you don't read my posts .

9 hours ago, Romey 1878 said:

Did I? I feel like I voted leave because I want out of the EU, none of this out but in rubbish. Fully out and that’s that, I didn’t need any other option on the ballot other than leave or remain. You vote for one or the other and all that leave or remain entails. All these muppets moaning now saying “we didn’t know what we were voting for” need to be quiet. We voted either to remain or to leave. 

I want out because I don’t want ever closer union with the EU, and a vote to remain would’ve given the remit for that to take place. We’d have eventually been forced or obliged to change our currency to the Euro, which is something I’m dead against. 

I just want Brexit, Holystove. To leave the EU. So I suppose I prefer a “hard” Brexit? But I just see that as Brexit and exactly what I voted for. 

The anti-establishment thing I got from a post you made in which you said you hoped Brexit inspired other member states to 'Leave' as well.  Maybe I read too much into that.

If you don't want ever closer union between countries then indeed Leave was the way to go (if that outweighs the negatives).  Adopting the Euro can never be a legal obligation for the UK, but it might indeed have been politically pressured or it could have become economically necessary to do so at some point in the future.   

Ironically, I think the quickest way the UK will adopt the Euro is if it goes through with the clean Brexit you describe, because "rejoin" will probably mean Euro (if UK meets the criteria to use the Euro).

I'm not judging or necessarily trying to change anyone's mind, I was just interested.

1 hour ago, Romey 1878 said:

Bailey didn’t vote as far as I can remember?

I’d vote leave again, no question. 

I remember you said you voted Leave because you were anti-establishment. Do you still believe Leave is the anti-elitist side?

What kind of Brexit would you prefer if given the choice?

2 hours ago, Bailey said:

I saw that last night... absolutely unreal!

It's really amazing how he can steer a conversation to make these people say exactly what he wants.  I'm sure if they look back at the video they won't believe it themselves.

2 hours ago, Bailey said:

I believe there is a massive gulf between what people voted for and what they believe they can get from the EU and what the EU will actually agree to. 

The MPs resigning and voting against the chequers plan are essentially voting to try and get an amendment the EU wont agree to, whereas the chequers plan May drew up had more chance of success with the EU but stealthuly conceded many of the things the vote was about. 

So what is the solution?  Where do we go from here?

After yesterday's votes in the House of Commons a soft brexit is further away than ever.  I don't see how the Irish border can be fudged any longer.  This could come down to a choice between "no deal" or "no brexit".

There is a massive responsibility for the UK politicians and UK media to clearly explain what no-deal means.   Polling shows that many believe no-deal means everything will stay as it is, while in reality it is the grinding to a halt of the entire UK (not just economically), the economic destruction of Ireland and an economic hit to the continental EU.  All because .... ?

37 minutes ago, tonkaroost said:

There's a lot of outrage at the Trump-Putin summit on both sides, and rightly so. Hopefully this sparks something over here. 

Trump made himself and the USA look like pushovers and fools (and we are for voting that clown in). 

Putin has never been happier. 

So this is where Americans finally draw the line.

On 14/07/2018 at 23:29, Bailey said:

I expect them to make changes like you say, a no deal to be threated, the EU to say go on then and for the Govt to either decide to stay in or ask for more time to negotiate. 

You are right there will be changes to the new UK proposal, as it crosses several EU red lines.  May wants to stay in the Single Market, but only for goods, not capital, services and labour.  She doesn't want oversight by the European Court of Justice even though she does want to partly stay in the Single Market.  She proposes to collect customs duties for the EU, which is unacceptable as this would mean the EU27 outsourcing customs procedures to a non-EU member.  She wants the security and judicial cooperation to stay the same (so with all the UK opt-outs), which is impossible because a non-member can't have the same advantages.   I could go on and on.

I think it will end up with a "soft brexit" but this proposal, even though it's much softer than previous proposals, to me definitely falls in the category of "hard".  

I agree the UK will probably just end up asking for more time to negotiate, but I don't think they will threaten a no-deal scenario as the EU will just call their bluff knowing no-deal will cripple the UK.

Well deserved for Belgium.  I'm biased, but I think they were the best team this WC, sadly not the smartest.

Beating Brazil, England twice, .. not bad.

52 minutes ago, EFC-Paul said:

Belgium are and should be in control any side with Jones Delph and Dier together you'd have to be fairly poor not to be  

Seems we're just giving a few of the lads minutes tbh 

There is no doubt in my mind both teams play to win this game, unlike the last game in group stage.

Meunier is running circles around Rose.  Badly missed against France.

In light of todays' article in the S*n where Trump blasts May for going "soft" on brexit, you should really read this article:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/12/trump-backed-brexit-then-he-used-it-as-leverage-219001

wow Pickford just saved England

where did first-half-England go?  Croatia are flying right now.

2 hours ago, Steve_E said:

A shame we couldn't get the win, but I'm still very proud, and very happy with the way this World Cup has gone: the comeback victory against Japan and the knockout win against Brazil are two games that will be remembered for a very long time and I now have a life-long enemy (Mbappé and the French national team as a whole).

About the game, think there wasn't that much in it. If we had scored first, perhaps we could have won it, but coming from behind we didn't really create that many opportunities to get that goal in the second half. In hindsight, perhaps we should have been a bit more adventurous and should have started with Carrasco at right back in place of Chadli, who got the ball a lot and was lacking in quality in the end (weird to have him take all of the corner kicks instead of De Bruyne as well). Especially as they don't really threaten that much down that flank either with Matuidi playing there. Dembélé was inserted because he's so strong on the ball and rarely loses it and yesterday he just kept dribbling himself into trouble and losing the ball. Don't think Witsel had a bad game, but you know a head of time that he's not going to pass it forward that much and that he can't shoot from distance. Fellaini mostly did his job shadowing Pogba, but should have gotten to the corner kick Umtiti scored from first. And once he had to move down to the left wing, Martinez should have subbed him immediately because obviously playing him there isn'tttt going to help penetrating France's defensive bloc but Bobby let that go on far too long. De Bruyne had a lot of bad passes, we couldn't really involve Lukaku at all, Hazard was up for it I thought but he can't do it all by himself and yesterday he often had to come collect the ball in or near his own half and with France's entire defensive bloc still between him and the goal to get a touch.

Hopefully this squad can still perform in the Euros two years from now, because a lot of the defenders and midfielders and Mertens will be past it for the next World Cup. Thankfully the Hazard, Lukaku, De Bruyne trio and Courtois will still be good to go four years from now and hopefully Tielemans will have progressed (he needs to play though!), but other than them, we might be needing to build a whole new core and there aren't that many talents waiting in the wings anymore it looks like.

France were so defensive, in retrospect he should have started Mertens instead of playing 3 defensive midfielders.  I disagree about taking off Fellaini sooner; when you are 1-0 down with 20 minutes to go, he's the one player you need to park in the oppositions' box.
Varane and Umtiti were very strong so I doubt we could have scored twice; we had one very good chance with Alderweireld which Lloris saved.  

Courtois made three great saves, and Giroud screwed up a couple of chances so no complaints from me.  Too bad the referee was poor though, that free kick might have resulted in a goal.

23 hours ago, Newty82 said:

But how long did it take you to get such a qualification? And how long did people like myself get to become 'informed'? Many people in the UK are like me - work, kids, family life - not a lot of 'downtime'. Pre vote, I sat on many a night for hours reading up on many things regarding the EU....the history, the progress, finances, countries outside the EU...allsorts...and it was a minefield. Based on my fears about which way the EU is heading in the future I voted Leave. It was about weighing up the pros and cons.

Although I voted Leave, I said at the time that it will make little difference as I didn't believe we would fully leave...I didn't believe the system was set up to allow us to fully leave. I think we can all see some truth in that.

Furthermore regards to being informed...you are only taught what you are allowed to know. For example, a young technician working for the Volkswagen Audi Group would be taught all the ins and out about how the nice new technology 'work's to cut emissions. I doubt they were taught that it was a big deceptive cheat to falsify real emissions.

I'll always vote to the best of my ability. I'm not a Left man, nor a Right man. Not a Labour man, nor a Conservitive. I'll switch based on what is going on today. If more people had this approach, rather than sticking to one party, we might make more progress.

It seems to me that the vote is only a powerful thing if it sways towards the the way that the powers want it to sway. The 52% Leave vote being a great example.

You are right that this is an incredible difficult issue and quite irresponsible for the Tories to force you to make a decision on.  I'm definitely not saying being a member of the EU cannot be questioned, but not through a yes or no question, where one side represents the status quo and the other side represents every other political vision (globalist, protectionist, inclusive, racist, capitalist, communist, ...).  This is the reason there is no clear vision for what to do with Brexit, because during the campaign it was everything at once.

EU membership has always been in question in the UK and as a result UK governments have a bunch of opt-outs in many fields of EU policy.  Now you are blowing all of that up to create the exact same thing but by a different name. 

I don't understand why you say the Leave vote is being ignored.  The UK is leaving on March 29th 2019.   It will no longer be an EU member.  The small margin by which Leave won means there is no mandate for the hardest of Brexit, so it is only right that the UK government seeks to retain most benefits of EU membership, while trying to minimize what they think are downsides.  The EU27 are (rightly) playing hardball so a lot of those "downsides" will still be there after March 2019, but that is just political and economic reality.

Hazard, Courtois, Kompany and Witsel were good enough but the others not so much. 

Martinez: mistake to take out Fellaini, waited to long to bring on Batshuayi, should have ordered players not to beat England.

Good luck against Croatia.

Ummm. Referee?

I will never understand why they don't use the good uefa refs when uefa teams play.

Debruyne playing his worst game of 2018.  

even steven so far.  two great saves, one by lloris and courtois each.  hazard looks hungry.

55 minutes ago, tonkaroost said:

So who will RM get now? Mbappe, Neymar, or Hazard?

Belgian press convinced they want Courtois and Hazard

Dembele starts, good.

6 hours ago, Bailey said:

Maybe so but it highlights why many people may have voted leave and why the whole thing was a pointless exercise, even if the examples arent exactly enlightening. 

The country has been at loggerheads over this for however many years and for what benefit? As pointless as they may be, if we as a country are unable to do the type of things he suggested (not that I am saying we should), then we really are just an annex (or colony as he said) to the EU abiding by their rules and regulations without an influence upon them. Every single tax payers pound spent, every word written in this thread, every heated debate or foul mouthed twitter rant has all been for nothing. 

To cap it all off you would think that removing Davis and Boris would make things a bit better in government and then May goes and appoints one similar clown and one bigger clown. 

But that is true for every country in Europe that isn'tt in the EU, why would the UK be any different?  This was always going to be the meaning of brexit. (except in case of 'no deal').

I don't have the feeling it has all been for nothing. The UK needed a big public debate about the EU because it couldn't continue being a half assed member state (see my posts on why I, as a European, backed brexit), and brexit resulted in more EU awareness on the continent as well.

3 hours ago, Steve_E said:

I mostly haven't been a fan of Roberto during his time in charge of Belgium, but he did well with the changes he made for the Brazil game. Moving to a 4-3-3 when defending and a 3-4-3 when attacking, inserting the less talented but more dependable Chadli for Carrasco, adding defensive steel with Fellaini for Mertens while at the same time freeing De Bruyne. He waited too long to make subs, I felt, as we stopped threatening Brazil on the counter attack as time went on in the second half. I didn't agree with taking Lukaku off, though Hazard ultimately did an incredible job keeping the ball and moving the team up field those final minutes. 

I'm curious how he's going to line up against France though, now that Meunier is suspended. According to the Belgian press, the most likely option is that Chadli moves to right back and that either Carrasco re-enters the starting line-up at left wing back or that Vermaelen will play next to Kompany and Alderweireld and that Vertonghen plays left wing back. A less likely option would be that Chadli stays at that hybrid left wing back in attack / central midfield in defense role he played versus Brazil, that Vertonghen, Vermaelen and Kompany play at the back and Alderweireld plays right back. 

I don't trust Carrasco defending on the same side Mbappé plays so out of those options I'd favor Vertonghen playing the left wing back position with Vermaelen backing him up. I don't know whether I trust that swapping between 4-3-3 and 3-4-3 either, that might work against the less brilliant Willian, but I think that's going to leave a lot of space for Mbappé in transition. I'm hoping for a fixed 4-3-3 with Vertonghen, Vermaelen, Kompany, Alderweireld in defense and Dembélé, Fellaini and Tielemans in midfield (of course Witsel is going to play though) behind Hazard, Lukaku and De Bruyne. 

 

Completely agree. In an ideal world Naingolan would be starting instead of Tielemans in your line up.