u/e-streeter

Any recommendations for someone who could do a good quality loft conversion? Any good experiences?

This is not really about bias, or even about individual commentators I happen not to like. It feels more like the whole tone of mainstream UK football commentary has shifted, and not for the better.

The main commentary pairings now seem to be some of the weakest options each broadcaster has:

TNT: Darren Fletcher and Ally McCoist
ITV: Jon Champion and Ally McCoist
BBC: Guy Mowbray and Alan Shearer

That is strange, because each broadcaster has better options. The BBC, for example, has Jonathan Pearce, who I think is far stronger than the main pairing they usually push.

My issue is not that every commentator needs to sound like Barry Davies, or that there should be no personality. It is that the balance feels completely wrong now.
The main problems for me are:

**The analysis is often very basic, and sometimes just wrong.**
You will see something fairly obvious tactically, technically or even physically, and the commentary either misses it or describes something different from what is happening.

**They regularly miss key incidents that are clear on the broadcast.**
Fouls, pulls, deflections, off-ball blocks, tactical fouls, shape changes — things viewers can see at home are often ignored or noticed far too late.

**There is far too much inane chat.**
One commentator winding the other up, jokes about something that happened earlier in the day, little breakfast anecdotes, forced laughter, running gags. Meanwhile, the match is going on.

**The lead commentator often seems desperate to sound matey with the ex-player.**
Fletcher is the worst for this, in my view. The whole thing can start to sound like two lads trying to entertain each other rather than two broadcasters serving the game.

That is why Peter Drury feels like such an outlier to me. He is not perfect and I understand why some people find him too florid, but at least he treats the game as the main event. He seems prepared, he notices momentum, he gives moments weight, and he does not constantly sound like he is trying to prove he is mates with the co-commentator.

Sky is probably the exception overall. It still has annoying moments, but the coverage generally feels more professional and less like everyone has been told to be “relatable” at all costs.
So what has happened?

Is this just a move towards entertainment-led coverage because broadcasters think viewers want personality over precision?

Is it the podcastification of live sport? Is it producers telling commentators to be more informal? Or am I just being nostalgic for a style of commentary that had plenty of flaws too?

Because at the moment, some of the biggest matches on UK television are becoming genuinely hard to listen to.

Any idea on whether he has support and when likely to be on stage?

Looking to change bath and shower. Not a full remodel. Need to check for leaks under and stuff as well. Anywhere that would be good to help source the gear and fit it? Anywhere plumbers that do that, or should I go to Bathshack or something?

Just watched Chris Curtis on Newsnight defending Wes Streeting and it really reinforced something that increasingly bothers me about modern Westminster politics.

Curtis is presented as part of a new generation of serious Labour thinkers, but looking at his background it’s basically politics all the way down: UK Youth Parliament, political research, polling, think tank/psephology world, then straight into Parliament. There’s very little evidence of experience outside the political and media bubble.

And Streeting feels similar to me. Very polished, very ambitious, very good at internal political manoeuvring — but I struggle to see much underlying conviction or real-world grounding behind it. It often comes across as careerism first, politics second.

Maybe this is unfair and modern politics simply selects for communications skills and factional navigation. But I do think there’s a broader issue in both major parties where increasing numbers of MPs have spent almost their entire adult lives adjacent to politics rather than doing things outside Westminster.

Just watched Arlene Foster on Newsnight calling for Keir Starmer to resign because he’s supposedly become detached from reality and lost the confidence of his party.

The lack of self-awareness is genuinely incredible.

This is the same Arlene Foster who presided over the RHI scandal, one of the biggest political fiascos in NI history, helped collapse Stormont, and left office as probably the most publicly unpopular First Minister we’ve had in decades. The same leader whose own party eventually turned on her after years of drift, denial and political damage.

What really stood out was her talking about how painful it is when your party turns against you. But even now there’s still no real acknowledgement that maybe the reason people turned was because she herself had become the problem. It’s all framed as betrayal rather than accountability.

And somehow, a few years later, Westminster has reinvented her as a respectable elder stateswoman and handed her a life peerage. Northern Ireland politics really does have an unbelievable ability to rehabilitate people regardless of actual performance.

It’s especially bizarre because whenever Foster speaks publicly now, she rarely comes across as insightful or reflective — just very confident in very shallow takes. Yet the media still wheel her out as if she’s some great authority on leadership and political judgement.