Gaspode

Agree about McCoist, though hope he doesn't need a plumber in the near future after being less than complimentary about the Polish team...

Badly thought through ploy to scupper the remainer MPs - link the extra NHS money to Brexit and make it hard for anyone to object to Brexit without looking as if they also want to stop money going to the NHS - clever if you can back it up with hard facts, but as they couldn't, then they simply look as if they've assumed everyone is a bit too thick to see through it...

It's because we invented football so we got to choose.....

WTF is this crap at the start of the BBC coverage?

Saving themselves until they play us....

Croatia striker Nikola Kalinic sent home in disgrace by manager Zlatko Dalic after refusing to come on as a substitute in the Group D clash against Nigeria on Saturday.....

The point is that the ref requests the review - it isn't being reviewed in the background where there's a possibility that play can be pulled back (for example to award a penalty) when the ref has previously been happy to allow play to continue. The World Cup implementation is undermining the authority of the refs and causing unnecessary delays - how long until we get a situation where something (unseen by the ref) happens right at the end of the 1st half, the players leave the field and then reappear at the start of the 2nd half whereby the ref is instructed to award a retrospective penalty before they can get underway? They are damaging the spontaneity of the game - not through use of technology, but through the poor implementation....

I'd rather VAR was applied as it is in Rugby - leave it to the Ref to request a review if he's uncertain or thinks he may have made a mistake - it's the 'big brother' looking over the ref's shoulder all the time bit that niggles me - use the technology when it's needed, not all the time....

Didn't Bananarama do a song about him?

and vicars....

It's ALWAYS too early for Mark Lawrenson - should have retired years ago....

You seem to think I'm defending him (which I'm not), but I am trying to understand why he's done such an apparently stupid thing - how many of us knew that laws could be passed on a Friday afternoon when there are hardly any MPs in the chamber? Or that the word of one MP could stop a bill progressing? You say he doesn't want MPs to have a vote, but you you could equally say that he doesn't want a very small group of MPs to have a vote - either way, it appears he's highlighted a weakness in the way parliament works - hopefully, because of the publicity, this bill will sail through at it's next reading and the rules governing how Private Members Bills are considered will be reviewed and improved....

To be fair, every law needs to be debated to ensure that people aren't abusing the process or leaving huge loopholes that can later be abused. As I understand it, the existing decency laws in the case of upskirting are difficult to apply because of the need for someone to witness the offence being committed - the new law would remove this requirement, but then has the potential for it being one person's word against another which may be open to abuse - what if you're sitting on the train looking at your phone and the woman opposite accuses you of trying to take a picture up her skirt? If the law isn't carefully worded, that could result in unwarranted accusations leading to prosecutions... As it is, I don't think it's this proposed law in particular that the muppet MP cares about - it would appear that he (and another couple of MPs) have an issue with the way that Private Members Bills are managed through the commons - they don't like the fact that it's possible for a new law to be passed when hardly any MPs are present to debate the pros and cons - that's actually a fair point to make, but their way of highlighting it (wasting everyone's time and blocking numerous bills which appear to be common sense) is rather pathetic - perhaps the good thing to come out of this will be a review of how such bills are scrutinised so that there's greater confidence that any loopholes have been identified before a vote takes place - it may also make sense to require a minimum number of MPs to be present at any vote to ensure things can't be sneaked through on a Friday afternoon when everyone else has gone home....

I'm more of the opinion that China has used North Korea as a pawn in all this to get the US to reduce their military presence in the area - stopping the war games is the first stage, no doubt to be followed by a withdrawal of some troops from South Korea - now that's not a bad thing if it reduces the chance of a conflict, but I get the feeling that both Presidents have been played by people far smarter than them who are looking at the bigger picture than what is happening to North Korea - even more so when you hear reports that the actual negotiations were carried out one-on-one by Trump and Kim Jong Un with only their translators present - Kim Jong Un doing his Beijing masters bidding and Trump doing what he does to make himself look good....

There's a very good footballer hidden in the "throwing himself to the ground/rolling about/crying like a schoolgirl/cynically hacking people down" personality so I think he's probably worth more than that - but unless he's grown-up a lot in the past 18 months, I wouldn't have thought London was the wisest choice for him.....