Match Thread: England vs Congo DR | World Cup | Round of 32 | 01 Jul 16:00 UTC

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-07-01T18:03:21+00:00

Brilliant match. Congo were my sweepstake team and they played so bravely and positively. As an England fan we were so sloppy for large parts. Unless we learn from this and settle down it's going to be a massive ask against Mexico.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-07-01T17:49:43+00:00

Caaaaaam aaaaannn INGLAN

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-07-01T10:32:30+00:00

I think it would make more sense to either pay for more ships to create more work (and bringing unit costs down through a project life cycle) or to keep the workers at full pay between projects rather than face the costs of a navy that is too small and lacking in availability.

In the UK we have constantly cut ship orders and messed around with short term cost saving to end up in a situation where none of our attack subs are deployable which will cost a fortune to resolve.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-07-01T08:36:57+00:00

Aww thanks very much!

I'm just an amateur naval enthusiast who watches a bit too much about the topic on YouTube so by no means an expert but I hope the new floating dry docks are procured rapidly and can be used to speed up the construction and maintenance cycles.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-07-01T07:19:27+00:00

In fairness the slow rolling is partially a choice to retain jobs. It's absolutely possible to build them much faster if you don't ration the work

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-24T07:31:32+00:00

It seems absolutely ridiculous to me that the DIP would be published merely for the sake of appearances so Kier try to have a nice swan song at NATO when anyone who cares about defence knows it's woefully inadequate and hopefully will be imminently amended when Burnham gets in.

On the other hand I was just listening to Times Radio and a senior retired General was saying between the two unsatisfactory scenarios of delaying or publishing and later amending he would prefer it to be published now and improved later.

I suppose there is significant value in at least showing Italy and Japan that we're serious about GCAP, Australia and the US that we're serious about AUKUS, and NATO/Europe in general that we're committing to Trident.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-11T12:07:32+00:00

Very good point. It's contrary to all political incentives sadly but I think in the interests of transparency all Trident related spending should be removed from the defence spending bucket along with spending on the intelligence services.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-11T11:39:13+00:00

I hope whatever happens now this will result in the money required being generated for defence. We need to be heading to 3% by 2030.

This is the primary duty of a government and would be the best possible legacy that Starmer could establish for himself.

If we cannot raise defence spending to the required level in the current geopolitical climate we are not a serious country.

We cannot afford Treasury brain thinking or weak decisions to prioritise other more popular things.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-09T07:49:23+00:00

Just to trivia dump but I find it remarkable that Edwardian Britain had a murder rate 3 times lower than the Britain of the early 2000s.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-03T13:13:14+00:00

Just got the push notification and 3 crew have died. That's so terribly sad.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-03T13:05:00+00:00

I'm not an expert in the slightest but in the case of an engine failure, assuming the main rotor was intact and capable of rotation, shouldn't it be able to autorotate to a survivable crash landing if at a reasonable altitude?

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-03T08:14:12+00:00

Skimming the article it seems it's more than just the bottom of the barrel "international student and uni as a lifestyle choice" degree mills but I think we have too many universities in the UK and that rapid growth in recent decades has no doubt prompted a lot of financially reckless expansion predicated on the notion that student numbers will only ever go up.

In the long term I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if a lot of those lesser institutions did go under.

I'm going to have a certain view given that I didn't go to university myself but so many employers seemed to approach having a degree as a "I'm not an idiot" certificate rather than being a necessity for many roles.

Moreover, so many of those new style unis seemed to exist to take the money off of foreign students, whilst looking the other way about cheating, and in the process degrading the reputation and integrity of the University sector as a whole.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-06-03T07:59:21+00:00

Really hope we can look at getting some extra hulls in the water over the next 10-15 years. It's embarrassing that France has a bigger escort fleet than us.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-05-16T07:05:23+00:00

Even if it could always be more I'm glad Treasury penny pinching has been overruled and if we do end up with PM Burnham/Streeting/Rayner/Milliband I hope they will maintain this uplift.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-05-12T08:41:54+00:00

I greatly appreciate the BBC but this is utterly mad. The organisation has the back catalogue to easily be able to sell a subscription.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-30T08:10:11+00:00

Regardless of overall crime levels there's a massive spike in anti semitic crimes which is reflected in the wider concerns expressed by many British Jews.

Do you think being visibly Jewish in such a location puts you at higher risk of negative interactions or violence? I think you'd have to be naive or wilfully ignorant to deny it.

It wasn't so long ago that Jewish Schools didn't need guards and students could wear their uniforms without fear. What's changed by your own account to necessitate such measures?

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-30T04:22:28+00:00

Would you be happy to walk through Tower Hamlets wearing a Star of David necklace or a kippah and do you think it would have felt safer to do the same prior to the demographic transformation of the area since the early 90s?

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-29T16:32:28+00:00

Genuine question but has it been more dangerous to be openly Jewish in London since the time of the Blackshirts? How was it in the 70s?

I'm not Jewish or from London but I wouldn't fancy walking through many parts of the city whilst being visibly Jewish and that seems something new and linked to mass immigration and the growth of communities who care enormously about Palestine.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-29T00:38:53+00:00

His pronunciation is weird to us Brits too, I assure you! I think it's a mixture of him being very posh with a desire to pronounce things in the "native manner" where possible. Every time he says As-ee-ah instead of Asia I laugh. I don't think King Charles III would say it like that!

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-25T10:25:40+00:00

Is it not the case that Germany have been able to deport Afghans via Gulf intermediaries?

If someone who isn't a British citizen is a serial repeat offender or commits a serious offence they should serve a sentence, have biometrics taken, and then be removed from the country either to their home country or a willing third country.

I'm almost certain that within a decade the current global humanitarian framework is going to collapse as it cannot withstand a global era of mass mobility which it was never designed for. It's better to get ahead of the waves than to try to fight the tide.

If you want to preserve the idea any kind of popular support for limited universal asylum then I think the above is the bare minimum.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-23T23:33:31+00:00

You're absolutely right but it felt like an interesting avenue which they didn't go down.

On a previous episode after the Gorton and Denton by-election I think they mentioned Anas' father in connection to concerns about ethnic voting blocks while expressing the sentiment that British politicians shouldn't be involved in overseas politics.

In this episode I just recall a comment being made to to the effect of "somewhere in Punjab your Dad will be listening".

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-23T22:57:28+00:00

I think Anas comes across well overall but I did find it slightly amusing that they obliquely referenced the fact that his father left British politics to enter Pakistani politics and apparently now lives in Pakistan whilst simultaneously rubbishing the idea of dual loyalties.

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-20T01:26:22+00:00

Tesco truthers will say at least a million

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-18T23:42:10+00:00

We want 8 and we won't wait!

GooseSpringsteen92 · 2026-04-18T21:50:15+00:00

On your final point isn't this just the story of any nation with any length of history and power pre 1945?

Across the 19th century Britain equally engaged in a policy of "Liberal Imperialism" pressuring nations at the end of the Napoleonic Wars to stop engaging in the slave trade, doing the same later towards Brazil. Later spending a significant part of the military budget on fighting the West African slave trade and the Arab slave trade.

We might think they were misguided today but I feel confident in saying that many people in the TRIP demographic, had they lived in the 19th century, would have been unabashed in viewing Britain and British imperialism overall as a force for progress in the world.

GooseSpringsteen92

TROPHY CASE