Absolutely gutted.  My condolences to Dave's family and the people who were close to him.

This.

RIP El Blondie.

I really don't understand why a grown man would waste their time writing out the posts arrboy does.

It's like an atheist constantly posting on a religious forum telling them all how deluded they are.

He does it because he gets pleasure from winding you all up.

If y'all ignored him, he would soon get bored.

Argue himself is clearly a pretty unfulfilled and self-conscious character I'd imagine, even if publicly he comes across v differently, guys like him are ones to pity IMHO. It's not really him. He's two a penny in forums. I think it's more the fact that he's clearly a WUM but the mods do nothing about it. When the time comes that what I as a poster thinks varies so far from what they think it's simply time to move on.

Eventually he'll troll the feck out of the TfT thread when the rest of the place has died. No doubt he'll get short shrift then at least.

I'm more interested in the posts of the last few pages which you have chosen to ignore. Several posters have complained about the way arboy posts in this thread but no comment on that from you.

Why does arboy constantly get a free pass to insult and post whatever he wants?

He doesn't, no one does

He is certainly a very robust debater and on occasions when he has taken that too far the mods have had forthright discussions with him

i personally read every post, don't ignore any of them, but I didn't contact arbboy about anything in recent days on this thread. nor have the mods received a single compalint

if anyone wants to formally complain there is a service where people can "report to moderator"

in general terms, a lot of the football threads have become very thin-skinned, in my opinion. this thread didn't used to be one of them.

Can't really disagree more. He's a troll with a clear and well thought out agenda - pretending like he isn't is just a bit bonkers really. I recently read the thread titled "blondepoker stats page" or something similar. It's guys like that that out people off posting. I'll always be a lurker for as long as blonde is about but I cba posting with a moron like that running loose.id be amazed if others didn't feel the same. It's a shame such a good thread is ruined by one person. Same in the politics thread to be honest. He needs a hobby.

Lol you seem like a very bitter man. GL with all that.

A lot of noise that he's a dead man walking. Considering the calibre of the jobless managers available at the end of this season - a couple of which are clearly interested - you have to wonder if FSG fancy giving him all of the Sterlng money to blow again.

Fox News have already reported its a done deal. Rafa and Klopp look early favourites as the next boss. I can see Rafa at Madrid and Ancelotti at Milan, so Klopp?! He's crazier than Suarez & Ballotelli combined.

If he gets another year it'll be becuase they lost out on their first choice imo.

Poll it? Quite enjoyed the general election poll.

Proportion of £ spent on election is almost exactly the same proportion of votes won according to Brian May. True?

I'm not astounded or surprised that conservatives win general elections - it's built so that they do. I have voted conservative in the past and probably will again in my lifetime with the right leader, local candidate and most importantly, manifesto.

But I'm astounded that THESE conservatives managed to win considering their economic policy and that they won by getting people who wouldn't normally vote conservative to do so and even though for a lot of them it wont have been in their day-to-day best interests to do so. (Obv people here think differently on this point so fair play, gg, gl, etc) like Rich I think the fear vote has helped a lot.

I've studied economics my entire adult life and I'm about to be a little more qualified in it than I am now and I think THIS conservative party is more right than the majority of swing voters are aware of. This is not the heir to Blair.

Amazing stuff. Time will tell how it turns out. I'd be amazed if we weren't back at a hung parliament in 5 years time unless DC really fecks things up. Let's hope not though.

FWIW I voted Labour this time. If they stay where they are on the ideological circle (I don't see a decent leader amongst them - pandering to the unions wins it again, groan) I'd probably move to centre ground next time. Who knows what 5 years will bring?

With the exception of the usual suspects with the rubdowns/"you're deluded" type comments it's been a great thread. Even with some of the terrible economic commentary - most notably from John Major! I guess it just shows what the electorate will swallow. Most of the input has been truly first class though and fair play to Rich for the life in it.

It's been emotional. Sort of.

It's been a great thread and the minority views of the left have been presented well. However fact is the Tories secured an outright majority victory! Sour grapes from the minority left aimed at people who voted for a majority conservative government is cringeworthy. British people have spoken. They trust the Tories to deliver on the issues that matter. Five years majority conservative government!!

Think you will find English people spoke.  There is a massive difference. 

Think you will find the south of England, not including London, spoke.

that is just lazy

loads of midlands marginals, seats in lancashire, yorkshire, stockton south in the north east. five seats in wales,scottish borders (400 votes off a second seat), sweep of the south west

certainly London (more multi-cultural, anti UKIP) performed much better for Labour but not a lot of progress in places like Battersea. meanwhile twickenham, kingston, sutton etc all went Tory

only in 2020 (when no doubt there will be a different set of issues to the fore) will we see how much of England sticking with conservative was a "fear" vote or not. i suspect it probably was.

Ofc, was just adding to the generalisation.

Agree with your last line also.

Tax evasion facts

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-by-hmrc-on-tax-evasion-and-the-hsbc-suisse-data-leak

The government has strongly supported HMRC’s approach to tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance by increasing investment in HMRC’s enforcement capacity, and by strengthening HMRC’s powers.

The government has invested around £1 billion in HMRC’s compliance activities since 2010, and has made 42 changes to tax laws to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion.

....

We have also increased criminal prosecutions five-fold, and between 2010 and 2014 HMRC secured more than 2,650 criminal prosecutions and 2,718 years of prison sentences for tax crimes.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/prosecuting_tax_evasion/

Firstly, it seems to have been the last Labour government that initiated the crackdown

in April 2010 the Crown Prosecution Service and the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office joined forces.  An expert team from RCPO combined with an expert team from the CPS to form a new Central Fraud Division within the CPS

The coalition did fund it, though it isn't clear whether that was extra money or the money Labour planned to spend, I don't know.

It seems that the crackdown is directed at frauds such as vat carousel frauds and tobacco and alcohol smuggling.  The man in the street wants to see prosecutions for income tax and corporation tax evasion - do you have any evidence that those rose in the last five years?

I have produced some fairly conclusive evidence that it is wrong to say the Tories are soft on tax evasion.  Read the site, inland revenue resources aimed at tax evasion have increased very significantly.  

Why don't you produce some evidence yourself that I am wrong?   It is fairly easy to find previous prosecutions using Google for instance.

You can blame them for lots of things but not this.

I'm sorry but I'm going to be skeptical about a press release coming from a government department that is under fire for not prosecuting income tax evaders with HSBC accounts in Switzerland.

As I pointed out the prosecution figures mostly seem to be large scale frauds and from your link:

collected £135 million in tax, interest and penalties from people on the HSBC Suisse list

secured £852 million from the UK’s 6,000 richest people

These people do not appear to have been prosecuted, in contrast to the thousands that are prosecuted for benefit fraud.

It says in link why their have been no prosecutions in the HSBC cases, the general reason being because they have to work within the law.

Benefit fraud is legally many times more straightforward and easy to prove.

Funny that.

It's been a great thread and the minority views of the left have been presented well. However fact is the Tories secured an outright majority victory! Sour grapes from the minority left aimed at people who voted for a majority conservative government is cringeworthy. British people have spoken. They trust the Tories to deliver on the issues that matter. Five years majority conservative government!!

Think you will find English people spoke.  There is a massive difference. 

Think you will find the south of England, not including London, spoke.

Camel smashing it as uje.

SNP got 1.48m votes and 56 MPs

UKIP 3.77m and 1 MP

Under a second preference type of PR, that would have translated to about 85 UKIP MPs

whilst i expect electoral reform to be a big issue, its not as big an issue as the union imo

with con in majority there is no realistic prospect of FPTP changing

 but there is a realistic prospect of fiscal autonomy for scotland, home rule etc

it has also to said that ukip was anti-change in the 2011 referendum and is now pro-change now that it suits them

Where did those 84 seats go? Oh that's right the Conservative party who are nearly 100 seats better off with FPTP.

It won't change in my lifetime.

Rematch on the cards. Sigh.

Casual boxing fans may well think he won. He's aggressive and Floyd backs off with single shots. People who don't watch boxing too regularly might well think that. Especially if you can't hear the commentators.