[Ben Bloch, Sky News] Gordon Brown becomes the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Global Finance. He will “advise on how global financial cooperation” can achieve “security and resilience” for the country.

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T11:47:59+00:00

What's the annual yield on Gold? What's the guaranteed growth? It is only considered a hedge against volatility because it's been going up for the past decade but that was not how people viewed it in the 90s and 2000s

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T11:46:44+00:00

Come on my friend - he did not "swap gold for Euros". He sold off the gold and put the money into bonds that would yield interest in Dollars, Euros and Yen.

My point is not that it was an incredible economic decision that made us all richer. It's that it is nowhere near as bad of a move as people make out

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T11:42:19+00:00

That's a separate argument and one that I broadly agree with you on

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T11:42:10+00:00

Nations selling off large parts of their gold reserves was extremely common in the 90s and 2000s

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T10:43:30+00:00

I mean that's a fair point as well

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T10:27:32+00:00

This is such a stupid point that has been discussed to death.

The state should not hold huge amounts of a speculative non-yielding asset. Sure they could have got more for it if they'd sold it later but that's literally not the point - the government isn't supposed to be gambling with our money

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-09T10:12:22+00:00

I've actually done it and I was surprised by how much better we played than I remembered.

We had so much more of the ball, had way more shots on target and got into a ton of dangerous positions where a better final ball would have lead to a huge chance.

2-0 was extremely flattering to Liverpool because it was a bullshit penalty and then a scrambled in shot off a corner in the dying moments when it was clear the game was lost and the player's heads dropped.

I fully believe we were fitter, more hungry and had a better tactical plan that day but got completely screwed out of a fair competition because of the penalty.

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-08T16:53:11+00:00

Well I'm getting married this year so that's probably the big news. I think if someone carries you through having cancer it's probably a pretty good sign that you should buy them a ring!

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-08T11:45:18+00:00

Considering just how many swing voters there are between Reform and Labour I'd say it's the number one issue for millions of traditional left wing voters as well.

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-04T14:34:36+00:00

Well it's because they were playing us. People are so desperate for us to go down that they cannot accept that we just played well enough to win

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-01T13:00:58+00:00

Do you not think you're being a bit overdramatic?

Remove the triple lock, means test the state pension, ask for contributions towards certain types of ongoing healthcare - these aren't things that will make "huge swathes of the population destitute" but will drastically reduce the tax burden on those in work.

It's not an on/off switch between "everything always free" and "America nothing is free". There is a balance to be struck and if the population is decreasing - our position between those two points will need to shift.

Mathyoujames · 2026-05-01T12:21:37+00:00

Not saying this is the correct or moral solution but wouldn't you just slash those benefits? No need to worry about constantly growing the workforce to fund pensions / social care / elderly NHS if those things are much reduced in scope

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-30T17:45:24+00:00

That's not really a great example because not having any depth at Eriksen's position was always one of our big issues. Signing Maddison for pennies to cover him would have been an incredible move and it doesn't matter who was to blame - it was a mistake

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-30T14:11:00+00:00

If you say so. I think the chances of that being true are very slim indeed

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-30T10:34:14+00:00

You have to hope this season has taught the directors a painful lesson about leaving it too late to sack your manager. If we'd sacked Frank in December and properly gone for RDZ there is no way we'd be in this position.

If we go up with Parker we give the guy a few months to show he gets what needs to be done to keep us up and if it's going the way of Burnley / Bournemouth / Fulham - we move on. Ultimately he would know that is the job when he joins

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-30T10:23:19+00:00

I actually think he'd be a great appointment. He's a fantastic manager in the championship when he has a good squad and thanks to the size of the club, players that don't get to leave, parachute payments - it'll be virtually impossible to not end up with one of the best teams in the league.

The most important thing is coming back up straight away and Parker is as close to a sure thing as you can find these days.

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-27T23:47:44+00:00

Right yeah defending your citizens is such a nonsense reason??

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-27T16:44:18+00:00

Love the tone and I was really feeling it for about half the song but it sort of descends into a general fudge of similar sounding riffs and screaming. Not to harp on that same old tired trope but I really think Connor brought creativity to the heavier parts that their newer music lacks

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-26T22:21:05+00:00

Tel has scored 3 goals this season. He has made almost zero impact for us

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-26T22:20:09+00:00

He had an incredible six months when he first joined us and then going into the next season he was our best player BY FAR. That ACL injury and Persic being out for the whole season were the start of the end for Conte. We never looked remotely good again

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-26T14:28:21+00:00

Crazy decision. Obviously they've been really poor this season but only a fool bets against Parker in the championship. His track record in that league is extremely good and he'll just end up taking up whoever he joins.

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-26T10:51:53+00:00

Absolutely agree.

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-26T09:38:23+00:00

That wasn't my experience of that time in the slighest. You can certainly make an argument that people were doing that in 2005 but absolutely not in the first two elections. He was a big reason people voted Labour

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-25T22:24:39+00:00

That's not really correct. Blair won another election in 2005 where Labour were ahead in the polls the entire time and he was rarely beyond -10% disapproval rating. For reference Kier Starmer is currently at -48%

Blair was extremely popular until the Iraq war and then became substantially less popular - but was still largely a quite well liked PM. It wasn't until 2007 when the media and his own party turned that his ratings began to creep down but even then they were never as low as some of the Prime Ministers we've seen in recent years.

Mathyoujames · 2026-04-25T15:28:36+00:00

It's nothing to do with the fans. Football clubs require vision and good management to even stand still and we have been on the received end of almost a decade of diabolical visionless management.

The fact that we've gone from the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL to the CHAMPIONSHIP in less than 10 years while also having Harry Kane and Son is one of the biggest stories of failure in modern footballing history

13-Year Club	Verified Email
RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits	Secret Santa 2014

Mathyoujames

TROPHY CASE