Saturday, May 11, 2013 

Oshun.


Also, I'm not here next week. Although seeing as I'm now sadly smartphoned to the 9s, if something truly earth shattering occurs I might put in an appearance.

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Friday, May 10, 2013 

The real Fergie.

Arseblog:


The very best things that Ferguson brought to the football world were borne out of his undoubted will to win, but they were completely and utterly at odds with ours and our desires as Arsenal fans. For all his talent as a manager he was rude, boorish, ignorant and incredibly, incredibly annoying. He was a hypocrite, what was good for his team was means for vociferous, spittle-flecked complaint when enjoyed, however rarely, by others.
People might laugh at ‘Fergie time’ now but think back to when a referee stuck 5 or 6 minutes of injury time on to a game in which we were holding a lead, or in a game in which we needed them to drop points only for a late goal to scupper things. Not so funny. He had a team who would berate and intimidate referees, very much in his image, yet when anyone had the temerity to question him, regardless of the legitimacy of it, he’d throw his toys out of the pram.
He danced on our pitch, he fought with our manager, he was so irritating one of our players chucked a slice of pizza in his face, and while I completely and utterly respect what he did, I didn’t like him then and I don’t like him now. I’m also sure that’s pretty much exactly how he wanted it. I realise there’s a vast difference between someone’s public image and the private reality. Lots of the tributes posted in the last 24 hours have spoken about the side of him that people didn’t see, the decent, charitable one, but having never been party to that I can only go from what he showed us.


Keith Jackson:

Because as much as I respect Fergie for everything he has done in football there is something about his character which is pretty damn difficult to like.
Often he comes across as a rather boorish bully. At times he can appear downright obnoxious.
 
It’s almost as if all of those who have dared to step across the threshold at Old Trafford over the last 26 years have done so in varying degrees of terror.
 
Unless, of course, they made it all the way into the sanctuary of Ferguson’s inner sanctum.
 
Those who did – be they coaches or hacks – were almost like made men. The Manchester Mob. Untouchable.
 
These people gush about Ferguson in truly glowing terms. The likes of Walter Smith, Alex Smith, Jim McLean and Craig Brown would not hear or utter a bad word about the man they affectionately call the Godfather.
 
There are others, around the greyest edges of the Press pack, who dote on him with even more reverence. Some of them go weak at the knees at the mention of his name. Their adoration is somewhat sickly. It’s tantamount to man love.
 
I don’t know Ferguson well enough to understand why he is capable of commanding such levels of control. In fact, I can’t claim to know the man at all.
 
He’s a genius. I’ll give him that much. His achievements in management are unlikely to be matched, never mind surpassed.
 
...
 
But that doesn’t necessarily make him a nice person.

Freddy Gray:

There’s a darker side to Fergie’s legacy, too. Sir Alex helped cultivate the with-us-or-against-us, win-at-all-costs mentality that has taken over English football – and removed whatever tiny vestiges of sporting decency might have been left in the national game. Fergie’s Manchester United taught the rest of English football how to bully the ref. The sight of pig-thick footballers surrounding match officials, screaming and gesticulating psychotically, their faces twisted in mindless indignation, is now an integral part of the Premier League circus, and every team does it. But Man U mastered the act before anyone else.  

...
 
And let’s not forget his outrageous arrogance towards the BBC, which had the temerity to produce a documentary about Manchester United’s business dealings with his son Jason. Ferguson refused to talk to the Beeb for eight years – even though the Beeb pay huge amounts of money for the broadcasting rights of Premier League highlights. He only gave up his protest after football’s authorities threatened to fine Man U every time their manager refused to be interviewed. It’s hard to imagine that, with any lesser manager, the league would have taken so long to act.

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Thursday, May 09, 2013 

Probation policies exchanged.

If the constituent parts of the coalition seem determined to do one over on their enemies within purely out of spite just at the moment, for which see the Tory backbench attempt to get a vote on the EU referendum next week, designed to make things even more difficult for poor old Dave, as well as Clegg doing the equivalent of poking his finger into the eye of Liz Truss over her beloved childcare plans, it's worth remembering that elsewhere relations seem just as cosy as ever.

Take the Home Office and Ministry of Justice.  Apart from Clegg's attempt to kibosh the "snooper's charter", the Lib Dems have barely raised a squeak over anything that's from the departments helmed by Theresa May and Chris Grayling.  True, they've made clear their opposition to any Tory attempt to withdraw from the ECHR, but then that has never been considered a serious option.

The latest policy they seem to be at one on is Grayling's pet privatising of the probation service.  As is so often the case in government, it involves one idea that could be a genuinely good reform, introducing probation for those serving short sentences in an attempt to reduce re-offending, and then covers it with two others that completely negate any potential benefit, in this instance putting the likes of G4S and Serco in charge and making life for those under supervision even more miserable than it may have been inside. Think of it as a shit sandwich reversed, which underlines just how stupid the Lib Dems have been to take a bite.

Grayling's only justification for not allowing the state to bid for the new contracts (unless the local bodies set themselves up as co-operatives, in which case their bids will be considered and then rejected) is that due to the cuts, more has to be done with less. While there is always the potential for waste to be identified, it's mostly found in the back office rather than at the stretched front line. Indeed, that the state will continue to have a monopoly in supervising the most serious offenders and those under MAPPA rather suggests that on the whole the current system is working. Why not extend that expertise rather than rely on companies and third sector organisations that are either untested or have had poor results in other payment by results schemes?

The answer is that this is another of those off the rack policies provided by Policy Exchange. Their spokesman today spoke of vested interests, but at least we know why NAPO is opposed. Policy Exchange by contrast is one of those think-tanks that refuses to say where its funding comes from, although we can make a few educated guesses based on the reports it's churned out over the years. PE has been instrumental in the pushing of the payments by results model, which so far has led to much in the way of payments (although not enough to keep some of those sub-contracted from going bust) but little in the way of results, the latest set of Work programme figures having been delayed repeatedly in the hope something will turn up (see recent Private Eyes).

Lest it be forgot, the Lib Dem position at the election was for short sentences to be all but abolished. That was never going to happen unless judges and magistrates had their discretion further eroded, which would have been a retrograde step, yet it looks as though we've somehow ended up with a system that will combine the questionable parts of community service with the alienation of prison life. It could well help some, while making things even more problematic for the majority.  Which is a perfectly good summary of what the coalition as a whole has achieved so far.

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Wednesday, May 08, 2013 

The cavalcade of idiocy rolls on.

If there's one day a year when it's impossible not to be proud to be British, it has to be on the state opening of parliament.  No other democracy can lay claim to such an awe-inspiring spectacle: the grandeur, the opulence, the incomprehensible and the entirely risible.  We might be behind most other countries when it comes to small things like having a democratically elected second chamber, but who needs a senate when you have a ceremony which involves a gentleman with a black rod entertaining the head of state? And what could be more quintessentially British than asking a 87-year-old woman to put on her finest rags, plonk a regal hat on her head that weighs about the same as a small bag of potatoes and then read out the political equivalent of a ridiculously vague shopping list, only rather than being on paper the list is inscribed on goatskin vellum? The European parliament can't even begin to hold a candle to the mother of them all.

To drop the irritating sarcasm, there can't be a better example of what can only be described as the cretinous decision to carry on with the state opening in its current form regardless of Brenda's advancing age than how even Fergie is deciding to jack it in at the end of the season.  He's 71, for comparison's sake. If we can't just dispense with the entire stupidity, then surely Charles can take the place of his mother, as is happening at the next meeting of the Commonwealth.  He is after all ever so keen to prepare for his kingship; let him announce how his mummy's government "is committed to a fairer society where aspiration and responsibility are rewarded".

Chaz would doubtless approve of the tone of the speech, if not with some of the policies (it's doubtful he approves of HS2).  If you thought George Osborne had overdone it a bit in the budget with the nonsense about how it was all for those "who want to work hard and get on", then it's probably best to avoid a television tonight, as those responsible for writing Queenie's sermon went off the deep end.  Hard work this and hard work that; those who do will be properly rewarded, not with a living wage of course, or a cut in VAT, or anything that might actually help with the cost of living, but indirectly through the continuing crackdowns on those not doing "the right thing".  Never mind, sheer aspiration and responsibility will get you there in the end.  Look at the example set by Dave's inner circle, all there purely on merit, achievement and hard graft.  What more inspiration do you need?

As for the proposed bills themselves, they're a mixture of the piss weak and the stuff that's been talked about for months already.  There's very little to object to in either the care bill, which introduces the Dilnot proposals, albeit with the cap set higher than he advised, or the pensions reform act, although we can quibble about why those who've never had it so good will be getting a further increase when everyone of working age suffers.  More objectionable are the "offender rehabilitation" bill, which will see the probation service part-privatised and those sentenced to under 12 months coming under supervision for the first time, which isn't necessarily a good thing when it's the likes of G4S and A4E that'll be "helping" them not to reoffend, and the latest in a long line of crime/anti-social behaviour acts, which looks set to further infringe on the rights of teenagers to be seen in a public place, while also holding whole families responsible for the actions of one member.

Then we have the immigration bill.  It's come to something when someone so closely associated with Cameron as Ian Birrell is denouncing this latest piece of nonsense in the most virulent of terms, but such is the point we've reached thanks to the panic over UKIP.  How many times does it need to be said that immigrants pay far more in than they take out, or that you can't make things harsher for those who few who are claiming benefits without doing the same for those born here?  For a government supposedly dedicated to reducing the burden of red tape, it has no qualms about imposing more on private landlords, who will somehow be required to check whether those renting aren't here illegally, without explaining how this will work in practice.  Are landlords meant to be the newest arm of the Home Office? Doesn't making illegal immigrants homeless increase the potential problem rather than reduce it? We can't deport every single one, as the Liberal Democrats said at the last election.  Even more concerning is the potential limit of 6 months JSA for those resident elsewhere in the EU if they can't prove they have a chance of finding a job.  Something so obviously discriminatory can't possibly be legal, unless as mentioned above it was introduced across the board.

Whether it's a good thing or not that neither the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol or requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packets made it in is debatable.  I've long doubted something so easily dodged as making strong booze more expensive would work in practice, although evidence suggests it's had an impact in Canada.  Nor have I ever believed that the packs cigarettes come in somehow persuade people to start smoking, yet if the industry is so vehemently opposed to it then perhaps there's something there after all.  Much as I loathe the hypocrisy behind making smokers pariahs when the government benefits so massively through heavily taxing them, and the cigarette model is the obvious one when it comes to decriminalising drugs, it's exceptionally difficult to feel the pain of those who in the end profit from giving people cancer. Politically, dropping both probably makes sense for Cameron.

Does it though for Clegg? This is an overwhelmingly Tory set of bills, with very little indeed for Nick or the Lib Dems to boast about.  Clegg has also failed to fully kill off the "snooper's charter", which can still be resurrected and doubtless will be considering the lobbying of late from the security services.  As this is also likely to be the last Queen's speech before the election, it provides a dismal summary of just what they've achieved in the coalition.  As for the Tories, today just reinforced how they intend to fight the election: by blaming the continuing dire state of the economy on Labour.  Everything that's still deemed to be wrong or unreformed will be Labour's fault, and all they'll do if you let them back in will be to borrow more.  The party that demands everyone else take responsibility continues to accept none itself.

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Tuesday, May 07, 2013 

Cameron: a hostage to fortune.

Although it feels like aeons ago, it was only back in January that David Cameron delivered his Bloomberg speech, pledging an in/out referendum on EU membership should his party win the next election. At the time it must have seemed a good idea, and initially it looked like it had had its desired effect: his restive backbenchers cheered him to the rafters, it seemed to have trapped Labour, and surely it would have some impact on the increase in support for Ukip.

Less than six months later and it's as though the jaws of the trap have snapped back. To further mix metaphors, it always seemed as though Cameron was setting himself up as a hostage to fortune. The man he so wanted to be the heir to never gave in to his backbenchers; instead he thrived on picking fights with them. True, Cameron failed where Blair succeeded, which partially explains the backbencher ire in the first place, yet Dave caved in at first sign of trouble.  Rather than being sated, they've demanded ever since that Cameron move faster, to the point where it looks as though legislation may be forthcoming in this parliament as a further sop.

Nor has it had the desired effect on Ukip. Indeed, they've been emboldened by it, as was predicted. As counter-intuitive as it seems, support for Ukip isn't about Europe, as is now hopefully apparent. It can be overstated just how far the popularity, such as it is, for Farage is down to a state of mind, and it'd be great to quantify how many of those saying they'd vote for the party would still do so if there was to be a vote on the EU tomorrow.  Total disaffection and/or sending a message of protest nonetheless explains much of it.  It's possible that some of those who've decamped could be won back if Cameron shifted slightly further to the right, or better yet, recruited some advisers from outside his own social milieu, but it's deeply dubious as to whether those voicing their discontent beyond a mere protest can be so easily persuaded to return.

Thankfully, it does seem as though those making clear that much of Ukip's support is irreconcilable are now in the majority.  As easy as it is to fall into stereotype, it's difficult not to meet the odd person that fits all the descriptions of being a Kipper, and they usually aren't shy in venturing their views on Britain as it is in 2013.  They might not be racist, but they certainly don't like immigrants even if they don't mind those they know of locally; they blame the EU at the first opportunity; and they are invariably complaining about something or other.  They don't have to read the Mail/Express/Telegraph, but it helps, and they regard things as being much better at some point in the past, even if they can't say exactly when.

The obvious point to make is that plenty of people also hold one or more of the above things to be self-evident, yet they either don't let everyone else know about it or would ever dream of voting for a party other than the main three.  Nor are any of these things irrational or wrong; rapid change in local communities as happened post-2004 was bound to lead to a backlash, while even those of us who would stay in the EU hardly regard it as being anything close to an unmitigated force for good.  Nostalgia also has to be taken into account: reading the Graun's pieces today on 1963 you can't help but think that was a pretty good year on the whole.  Would any of us who weren't around at the time actually want to live in that period were such a thing possible though?  Almost certainly not.

Those who have moved to Ukip also realise they can't turn the clock back.  They might want to, and they want to make clear that they do, but they know full well that Ukip isn't going to win a general election, nor necessarily would they want Farage to be the prime minister.  This is the conundrum facing the Tories: in almost every way, the party would be a better vehicle for their discontent, as many of their MPs also hold Ukip voters' prejudices, yet for any number of reasons they've lost faith in them and so would rather register their anger elsewhere.  This can't all be put down to Cameron or the detoxification strategy, nor can it be easily explained by all three parties fighting over the same territory.  It is more, as Max Dunbar writes, a lashing out at the present while coming over all rose-tinted about the past.  Perhaps it can be best explained thus: whereas the young disenchanted simply don't vote, those who feel much the same but who were brought up with the importance of the franchise drilled into them regard putting an X in the Ukip box the least worst option.

Lord Lawson's call for us to leave the EU immediately doesn't really change things much.  The EU is the least of most people's worries, although should the Tories increasingly fight over just how soon the referendum should be they might become excised at the amount of attention something arcane is receiving.  Cameron's problem is that a move that was designed to buy him more time and hopefully damage the other parties has so spectacularly backfired.  He doesn't want us to leave the EU, businesses on the whole don't want us to leave, and nor I'd wager would the electorate should the vote be held tomorrow.  He can't however take such a risk, and so the uncertainty that is so damaging will continue instead.  And all the time the boneheads within his party continue their rattling.

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Saturday, May 04, 2013 

Transmission control.

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Friday, May 03, 2013 

Surprise at the surprise.

The one thing about the supposed UKIP breakthrough in yesterday's local elections that surprises is just how it seems to have taken politicians and commentators by, err, surprise.  I mean, who could have possibly guessed that if you essentially say you agree with the party on immigration, Europe and welfare and let them get away with repeatedly abusing statistics, linking Romanians explicitly to crime and generally scaremongering in the most irresponsible way possible that they'll win over your supporters who see you seemingly not doing much about these things?  Who knew that if you dismissed them as loonies, however accurate that description is for some of its supporters, that it would simply come across as ignoring legitimate concerns? Why does it come as a shock that at a time when wages are stagnating and the cost of living is going up, with all three main parties offering either austerity or austerity-lite, that an upstart fourth party gains support regardless of its own economic policies?

Before we get into the caveats and wider perspective, it's also hardly surprising that a populist fourth party has finally established itself considering the media we have.  The Daily Express and Daily Mail are basically UKIP supporting papers (the Sun is also to a lesser extent, it's just far more comfortable with the country in 2013), it's just that their editorials urge votes for the Tories.  Both constantly fulminate against the "abuse" of human rights laws, 'elf 'n' safety, the EU, the welfare state, immigrants and modern life in general.  Neither can properly pick out when exactly it was that Britain was great, the 50s having been abandoned, although the Mail seemed to be trying its best to suggest it was the 80s as Maggie was waiting to be buried, but it most certainly isn't today.  There's been a gap for some time for a force on the hard right between the Tories and the various openly racist parties, and Nigel Farage has succeeded where others have previously failed.

Add in how little scrutiny the party received prior to the last week from the wider media, despite the likes of Paul Nuttall (nominative determinism) laughably claiming it's been smeared, as well as how Farage has been treated by the BBC (and the likes of the Graun) not so much as a politician but a likeable novelty act it would be churlish to ask serious questions of, and the party's showing in the county council elections is fairly easy to understand.  It has to be emphasised these are county council elections as I simply don't believe as yet that UKIP would have made such inroads into the cities and urban areas.  Yes, they've had strong showings in all the recent by-elections, but these can be mainly understood as protest votes, as YouGov's poll on why people have supported UKIP suggests.

Their share of the vote locally is something deeper.  Local elections have long had low turnouts, and those most likely to vote are generally older, fitting Lord Ashcroft's study that suggests UKIP most appeals to older men who are estranged from modern life and culture and don't want any part of it.  What's so odd is that on almost every point, the Tories do reflect their concerns on Europe, immigration etc.  Where they fall down is that they get the impression that they don't, and that their façade on trying to be all things to all people has further alienated them.  This goes beyond mere disenchantment though, as the Ashcroft poll suggested: this is just as much lashing out as it is expecting UKIP to make any real difference.

Which puts the Tories in such a quandary.  Cameron knows full well, even if his backbenchers don't, that he can't win a general election by being ever so slightly to the left of UKIP.  He couldn't win in 2010 on a centre-right policy platform, albeit one which made promises on protecting budgets his party would otherwise like to cut.  He therefore can steal some of Farage's clothes, cracking down harder on benefits or the perceived access that immigrants have to them, or by possibly bringing forward the EU referendum, although that will entail a battle with the Lib Dems, but go any further and the centrist support he has is likely to evaporate.  The real question is whether come 2015 those now plumping for UKIP decide they'd rather have Cameron as prime minister than Ed Miliband, and my guess is that many will come back to the Tory fold, such will be the level of propaganda about a return to power of Labour.  Some though clearly won't, and it might be those few that end up costing Cameron vital seats.

Then again, we've been here before with the sudden rise of fourth parties, almost all of which have quickly disappeared back into the ether.  Farage himself was talking about the SDP, but more apposite is the surge of the Greens in 1989, or the brief period when it looked as though the BNP might have shaken off its neo-Nazi image.  It's one thing to get elected, it's another to then keep the seat once the electorate have seen what you've done with it.  In this respect it wouldn't be a shock if, like with the BNP, UKIP fairly rapidly fades away.

Overshadowed by UKIP's success is the continuing decline of that former protest party, the Lib Dems.  To get just 352 votes in the South Shields by-election isn't just humiliating, it's catastrophic, as is the loss of another 124 council seats.  If the Eastleigh result showed us that you need a local operation to win, then the decimation the party is suffering bodes ill for 2015.  Nor was yesterday a happy day for Labour, who really ought to be doing far better than winning just shy of 300 seats at this point in the electoral cycle.  They're claiming that they're doing well in the areas which they need to win come 2015, but at the moment it looks as though the party is barely improving on its 2005 result, when disenchantment with Tony Blair was at its high point.

Strangely then, it's the Tories who probably had the second best day of it.  Yes, they've UKIP to worry about, but to lose 335 council seats from such a high point is just about the best they could have hoped for.  It's how the party reacts to the threat from its right that will define how it does over the next couple of years, and all the signs are it's going to fall exactly into the trap outlined above.

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5/03/2013 06:39:00 pm | | | links to this post

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