It's back : NHS privatisation

So, it would appear that it's back....after the Coalition's much publicised "Listening Exercise" it would appear there is around 1000 amendments but despite the national outcry over this bill the government are only giving MPs two days to debate it....apparently that's less than 10 seconds per amendment.

The noises we are hearing are not good. Senior Lib Dems are voicing concern that this is still a back door privatisation. Shirley Williams herself breaking ranks

The future of the government's health reforms has been plunged into fresh doubt as the Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams raises new concerns, and secret emails reveal plans to hand over the running of up to 20 hospitals to overseas companies.


The revelations come as MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday for what promises to be a crucial stage of the flagship health and social care bill. Baroness Williams, one of the original leaders of a Lib Dem rebellion against health secretary Andrew Lansley's plans – who appeared to have been pacified after changes were made over the summer – said she had new doubts, having re-examined the proposals. "Despite the great efforts made by Nick Clegg and Paul Burstow [the Lib Dem health minister], I still have huge concerns about the bill. The battle is far from over," she said These secret emails are pretty much a smoking gun and should be enough to derail this ridiculous unheralded, unmandated destruction of our much loved health service.

Unison are seizing on this because they prove that the government are lying to us "Regardless of what Cameron and Clegg say in public, it is clear that behind the scenes the government is planning to privatise the NHS. Private companies will only run hospitals if they see a profit in it. This, together with lifting the cap off the number of private patients NHS hospitals can treat, will completely change the culture of the NHS. It will be profits before patients. "We demand that the government come clean on their plans. If this is true, patient choice is a complete sham. The move to any qualified provider is clearly about creating a market for private companies. Any MP who votes for the health and social care bill is voting for the end of the NHS."

The BBC lay out the issues at stake in frightening detail

Despite protecting the NHS budget, the health service is still having to make savings. It has been tasked with finding £20bn over the next four years - that is about 4% a year from its annual budget. The government argues this can be made through making the service more efficient, but the fear is that the NHS will fall back on the easier option of restricting access to care. Reports have emerged of NHS trusts limiting access to some services, such as IVF, while completely stopping funding others.


There are also signs that waiting times may be on the rise. The prime minister recently reiterated his commitment to keeping waiting times for hospital operations to below 18 weeks. In practice, that means nine in 10 patients have to be seen that quickly to reflect the fact there are valid medical and personal reasons why some people wait longer. In a third of areas, this standard is being breached, although nationally it is being kept because other areas are overperforming. With winter just round the corner - when more demands are placed on the health service - the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

So despite the talk the Coalition ARE looking to privatise the NHS and it looks like the only people who can stop it at the Lib Dems...this is their chance however there are reports of Clegg calling a meeting of their MPs and ordering them not to "Rock the boat".

So there you have it, another betrayal. The Tories have no mandate from the people, they expressly promised no top-down reforms of the health service, they promised us a listening exercise....but here we are.

There's nobody better than Mikel Arteta

Bit delayed in getting round to doing this because we feeling pretty low on Wednesday & Thursday then busy over the weekend. What a rotten way to lose a player, so many flashbacks to Rooney and Lescott's departures. It makes you appreciate the fact that Everton don't get cherry picked all that often now. So who do we blame, we it's so disappointing to have Mikel force the move through but let's face it the club accepted the bid and allowed Arsenal to speak to him. The chance of Champions League footy was just too much of a draw for a player of his age and of his quality. Even so Evertonians are pretty gutted to lose him. You can be pragmatic and point to his advancing years or his ups and downs in form but at the end of the day it just shouldn't have ended like that. Watching the minutes tick and away waiting for the news to come through was pretty miserable and if I blame anyone I blame Wenger...the pompous, stubborn fool sat there all summer insisting he didn't need to buy and then when his team got utterly found out he came panic buying. Every schoolkid in the country knew Arsenal lacked steel and experience, it's been like that for years and yet he takes his team into the season woefully short of both and it Everton who'll suffer. Anyway we now have Denis and Royston to muse over. They might turn out to be world beaters but whatever happens we'll miss our Mikel.

Karl Marx was right?

Interesting piece on the BBC about people re-evaluating Marx's theories on Capitalism

As a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.

It had a built-in tendency to produce ever larger booms and busts, and over the longer term it was bound to destroy itself.

Marx welcomed capitalism's self-destruction. He was confident that a popular revolution would occur and bring a communist system into being that would be more productive and far more humane.

Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It's not just capitalism's endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours.
Karl Marx Marx co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels

More profoundly, Marx understood how capitalism destroys its own social base - the middle-class way of life. The Marxist terminology of bourgeois and proletarian has an archaic ring.

Our new stone edging

This took some effort but we have dug down about 8 inches and got them in nice and deep

Our new flowerbed

Spent the day gardening after yesterday?s food and drink festival fun. To show for our efforts this year we have a lovely new flower bed where the yukka used to be and some impressive new stone edging.

Jammy Everton for once

Well after a painfully disappointing start again QPR the blues have bounced back with two wins. Yesterday's against Blackburn probably saw us play a lot worse than we did last week and come away with the points.

When it's your day it's your day...I have to disagree with Moyes about the penalties, both there's are soft penalties but are given every time. No complaints. In terms of ours Samba wins the header but Fellaini is taken out by his jump. Personally I am surprised it was given but if the Rovers players are doing it each and every time they are running the risk.



Still Blackburn must be gutted that they didn't win the game, the Everton players must be delighted. A win is a win.

Remember the Battle of Cable Street and ban the EDL marches

I can absolutely understand why some people are extremely uncomfortable with banning EDL marches.

Why i feel banning the far right EDL would be a dangerous precedence to set

I know we must always beware the thin end of the wedge and I can totally understand quotes like this :

"i think if we allow them to march we can expose them for the racist nazi's they are, much like when the bbc gave nick griffin a platform to speak, many critisised that but after that his support dropped as people could see through him, much the same here i feel. plus we risk shooting ourselves in the foot if we wish to protest for our own means in the future which i am sure we will"

I do think that difficult as it is I am perfectly comfortable with banning scumbags like this from spreading their hateful, divisive lies. It is a sign to the communities they target that we aren't all like that. The alternative is what happened at The Battle of Cable Street when the left rose up and counter-marched against Oswald Mosely's fascists when they targeted the Jewish communities of the east end of London.

If we have to do that then fair enough but we have moved on from that and such extremists are beyond the pale. We don't tolerate racism in this country, simple as that. Why shouldn't racist parties & organisations forfeit their rights to have their voices heard.

It is extremely tough because we cherish our freedom in this country, freedom isn't freedom to bully and spread hate though.

I agree with Nick on human rights (but he's wrong to blame Labour)

Read this with interest today, I agree that Nick Clegg is right to defend the human rights act and I agree with his rejection of of the frothy-mouthed tabloid furore every time it is mentioned. It is undeniably a massively important thing and one this country has embraced throughout our history. It is a convenient rabble-rouser for the empty vessel media to get riled about, find any outlying example and report on it as an example of the norm. It's similar to that other favourite spurious anger raiser: Health & Safety. I work with a Health & Safety specialist and let me assure you Health & Safety has not "Gone mad" (Neither has political correctness for that matter) but if you can find on outlandish example in some insignificant backwater than that's your "journalism" done for the say...

...and if you can lump Europe with it all the better. Remember that episode of QI where Stephen Fry debunked the health & safety, human-rights, political correctness, European parliament myths.

Chris Grayling was on the radio earlier this week pledging to try and cut through the mire and myth about health & safety but a rejection of the concept to score cheap political capital is definitely not the way forward.

So anyway while I agree with Nick *shudder* I do disagree with his fairly faint praise of Labour for passing the bill in the first place. Just another example of the whole dismissing of Labour's achievements in favour of a dissection of the bills looking for any negativity (A bit rich when you consider utterly ill thought-out policies such as tuition fees with £9k exceptional circumstances or the NHS Reform currently quivering in the long grass hoping everyone forgets it exists)

He is also fairly mean to single out Jack Straw as an opponent of Human Rights whilst linking to an article where he says basically the same as David Cameron is. Anyway here is an extract from the article :

The Labour government that passed the Human Rights Act then spent years trashing it, allowing a myth to take root that human rights are a foreign invention, unwanted here, a charter for greedy lawyers and meddlesome bureaucrats.

This myth panders to a view that no rights, not even the most basic, come without responsibilities; that criminals ought to forfeit their very humanity the moment they step out of line; and that the punishment of lawbreakers ought not to be restrained by due process.

The reality is that those who need to make use of human rights laws to challenge the decisions of the authorities are nearly always people who are in the care of the state: children's homes, mental hospitals, immigration detention, residential care. They are often vulnerable, powerless, or outsiders, and are sometimes people for whom the public feels little sympathy. But they are human beings, and our common humanity dictates that we treat them as such.

There is, of course, a sensible discussion to be had about the details of how the act operates. In November the UK takes over the chairmanship of the Council of Europe, and the government wants to take the opportunity to advance the reform of the European court of human rights, for example to improve the timeliness and consistency of its decision-making. At home, the government has set up a commission to investigate the case for establishing a UK bill of rights. It has long been my party's policy to use a bill of rights to deepen our commitment to the protections of the Human Rights Act, and also to protect other British liberties, such as the right to jury trial.

But the biggest problem with the Human Rights Act is not how it operates in the courts, nor how it interacts with other rights. It is how it is manipulated not just by the media but by overcautious officials. It was, for example, of no help to anyone when police spokespeople blamed human rights for a decision to deliver a KFC meal to a fugitive on a roof: this had nothing to do with the Human Rights act. There is no human right to fried chicken.

So, as Cameron has said, we need to "get a grip on the misrepresentation of human rights". Too many people have succumbed to a culture of legal paranoia where common sense decisions are questioned – not by the courts, but by overcautious lawyers and officials. This creates an ever-worsening cycle: the more we perpetuate the myth that, in the words of Jack Straw, human rights are a "villains' charter", the more those dealing with lawbreakers curtail their behaviour because of a general sense that rights trump common sense. The friends of human rights have the most to gain if we get a grip on this. We must give public officials back the confidence that reasonable decisions taken in the public interest will be defended by the courts – as they usually are when they actually reach the courts.

Court judgments themselves tend to tell a very different story about our rights culture than tabloid papers. The Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights have been instrumental in preventing local authorities from snooping on law-abiding families, in removing innocent people from the national DNA database, in preventing rapists from cross-examining their victims in court, in defending the rights of parents to have a say in the medical treatment of their children, in holding local authorities to account where they have failed to protect children from abuse, in protecting the anonymity of journalists' sources, and in upholding the rights of elderly married couples to be cared for together in care homes.

Everton stall against QPR but bounce back against Sheffield United

The opening day of Everton's season (week two for everyone else) was a massively frustrating one and one that underlined the gloom around the club at the moment. The players are talking positively but the fans see a squad that has been left high & dry by financial constraints.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle because the players see a loyal club that is seeking to back them and reward them for staying...the fans see the team that has needed a striker for about two years.

What is for sure is that a home defeat against QPR was not what we needed. One shot one goal from the visitors but a defeat is a defeat. Everton huffed & puffed, hit the bar, hit the post had penalty claims waved away but ultimately never put QPR on the ropes. Very frustrating.

Goodison was sparely attended on Wednesday (by our standards, apparently there was only 4000 at Loftus Road the night before against Everton 17,000) perhaps owing to the depression felt amongst the bluenoses. In truth Sheffield United offered little by way of a real test but rather humorously took the lead despite Everton dominating the whole game. This seems to act as a wake up call for the Toffeemen who hit back straight away and were out of site by half time.

A win is a win I suppose.

Louise Mensch fibs while Libya burns

The people of Libya are at a crucial point in their history as the rest of the world looks on praying that the Gaddafi regime doesn't have a sting in the tail.

The rest of the world minus Louise Mensch of course. As the TNC rebels massed outside Tripoli and what's hopefully the endgame played itself out everyone's favourite chick-lit author turned A-List selected MP was busy tweeting like a political groupie and proclaiming it a "Genuine Triumph for David Cameron" whilst bizarrely inventing a paralell universe where Ed Miliband opposed the Libyan intervention. See here

This brought about the usual storm of twitter derision but it is very sad considering A: People are still fighting and dying for freedom in Libya and B: Ed made a strong speech supporting the NATO action from the off (As showed in the links below)

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/labour-iraq-miliband-support

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/14/libya-no-fly-zone-hague

Good to see the people at Political scrapbook ar taking her to task

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/08/louise-mensch-libya-smear/

Mensch’s “memory” of this incident appears to be a rather imaginative work of fiction. A quick search of Hansard reveals no such mockery in any of the seven occasions Miliband has mentioned the no fly zone. In fact, he could hardly have been more supportive of the idea:

28 February: “We welcome what the Prime Minister said about a possible no-fly zone.”

14 March: “when the Prime Minister first publicly floated the idea of a no-fly zone two weeks ago, that we welcomed the possibility. It is disappointing that Friday’s communiqué did not mention it … it seems to us that the priority must be to translate the no-fly zone phrase into a practical plan.”

28 March: “I welcome the fact that the military operation to enforce the no-fly zone and protect civilians is showing signs of success.”

I wonder if this shows a desperation amongst The Tories after recent travails. Regardless it is pretty grubby and we await a retraction.

A one eyed view of the Catholic church??? Never

Ignore the good and focus on the bad.

So the likes of the BBC and the Guardian are publicising people protesting over the cost of World Youth Day in Madrid, it must a modern day miracle. Two million people descending on a city and not putting a single penny into the local economy. Perhaps the protesters are expecting the Pontiff to perform the feeding of the two million? He's good but not that good.

*INSERT JOKE ABOUT EVERTON AND CUPS HERE*

So Everton's season finally gets underway today....can't say I am optimistic about Everton's chances but I can't wait to get to Goodison, when all is said and done I do love being a bluenose.

Lib Dems telling "lies" in Liverpool (again).

Got this through from Liverpool Council leader Joe Anderson and though it worthy of a reprint:

"They’re at it again – but then did we ever expect anything less? Many residents have been contacting me over the last week to tell me all about the latest Lib Dem leaflet which has been going through letter boxes across the city this week.

Well, I say ‘across the city’ – its mainly been in the south of the city and in places which were once Lib Dem strongholds, where their sitting Councillors are now clinging on desperately.

Indeed, ‘desperate’ is how I’d describe their latest effort. Its such a shame, this is a bunch of councillors which could be lobbying their Government to stop hitting Liverpool with cut after cut after cut. This is a party which should be on the phone to their Ministers and MPs telling them not to slash 800 officers from Merseyside Police, or another £50million from Liverpool City Council.

But instead, they’ve taken to telling lies about how much we’re spending on taxis, trying to claim that what we’re spending in a year on taxis has been spent in six months. And here’s another thing: the vast majority of these taxis weren’t used by lazy councillors or extravagant council staff, but by adults and children to help them get to their care centres and children’s homes.

Do the Lib Dems want to make these vulnerable people walk to their care homes and children’s centres?

And here’s something else for the Lib Dems to think about from their moral high ground: Last year, 35 Lib Dem councillors claimed £2,321 in travel allowances, whilst 50 Labour councillors claimed just £303.

When the Lib Dems want to have a serious discussion about transport and care packages for vulnerable people – care packages that have to be delivered against a background of savage Lib Dem / Tory cuts – then I am ready to talk sensibly. Until then, I’m more than happy to keep embarrassing them with statistics just like these."

Pretty sneaky from the Liverpool Lib Dems but par for the course after their election fibs about weekly bin collections and the crap they through at Luciana before the general election.

Reminder : "What Next for Labour" is out September 5th

Looks like it will be a good read

What next for Labour

“Labour does not quite seem to get enough credit for its considerable accomplishments. The foundation of our modern state occurred in the 1945-51 period yet seems taken for granted; the 1960's was a vital decade of social change certainly made easier by a centre left Government; the achievements of the Blair period, constitutionally, electorally and socially are to be lauded and never denied; similarly the social spending of Gordon Brown together with his international financial management at a time of need- all represent considerable governmental achievements. That is progress to be proud of and to be built on. No blank sheets but rather a turning of the page.”

“We have to map out a vision of the future of an NHS which stands comparison with the best of consumer services in this country. Choice based on easily understandable information; services integrated across all its different parts; the patient’s journey smooth and unimpeded.”

Chapter list is as follows

LABOUR’s FUTURE

Ann Black: In and Out of Power: A View from the Grass Roots

Lord Whitty: Reflections on Labour votes and Social Democratic Philosophy

Dr Rupa Huq: The Path Back to Power is a Suburban One

Tony Lloyd MP: In Search of Labour’s Big Idea

Peter Watt: Building a Party for the Future

Lord Temple-Morris: Labour: the Progressive Choice

Tracey Cheetham: Social Media and Labour

BUSINESS and THE ECONOMY

James Frith: New Ideas for Labour’s Fresh Economy

Matt Pitt: The Case for a British Investment Bank

COMMUNITY CAMPAIGNING

Siôn Simon: Why Mayors Matter and Why Labour Should Support Them

Joseph Russo: Co-ops and New Labour

Bill Esterson MP: A Campaigning Party

David Hanson MP: What Awaits Labour in 2015?

Eric Joyce MP: It’s a Sin

Richard Robinson: Labour’s Good Society and Strong Communities

DEFENCE and LAW

Ashley Tiffen: A Socialist Law and Order Agenda

Admiral Lord West: Defence: The Most Important Duty of Government but Sadly not a Vote Winner?

EDUCATION, SOCIAL MOBILITY and YOUNG PEOPLE

Lord Knight: What Chance an Enabling State?

Aaron Porter: Where Next for Labour’s Higher Education Policy?

Dr Nick Palmer: Student Fees: A Constructive Response

Axel Landin: Reclaiming Our Status as the Natural Party of the Young

WOMEN and EQUALITY

Ellie Cumbo: All in This Together? The Future of Gender Equality in the Labour Party

Baroness Goudie: Can We End Poverty Globally? Asking the Difficult Questions

THE GREEN AGENDA

William Bain MP: Justice and Growth: Labour’s Agenda on Food Security

Kieran Roberts: Sustainable Socialism

Graham Stringer MP: Transport Policy for the Twenty-First Century

Nick Palmer: Animal Welfare: The Neglected Swing Issue

HEALTH

Irwin Brown: A Socialist Plan for Health

Lord Hunt: Our NHS: The Labour Party Challenge

Premier League football is back

So despite Everton's game being cancelled it was nice to have the Premier League back at the weekend.

United look decent going forward but defensive injuries and their keeper looking suspect could be problematic (once the rest of the league smell blood on a dodgy keeper there is no mercy). City looked outstanding once they'd made the breakthrough against Swansea and Aguero looked immense when he came on (Dzecko looked decent too and Villa was his usual awesome self). Torres looked brilliant for Chelsea whilst Suarez looked superb for you-know-who. Arsenal have some questions to answer especially with losing Fabregas and Nasri.

Everton are in a very tricky position, another year without any transfers is pretty much unforgivable...If teams come looking for the likes of Jagielka and Fellaini we could well be in a lot of trouble because we are paper-thin and lacking strikers. We'll see I suppose.

Ed Miliband setting the right tone over the riots

Have to say I liked the tone Ed Miliband took today on Radio4 (more and more he is impressing me recently), now is not the time for political point-scoring and I am wary of all the knee-jerking I am seeing since the riots began. We need to take time to listen to what places like Tottenham, Croydon and Clapham are telling is. I know being a bleeding heart Liberal is more out of fashion than ever but whilst I agree there has to be a big clamp-down on the criminal scumbags who did this we do need to work hard to see if we can address the issues that made the places such tinderboxes. Anyway, here's what Ed said

Ed Miliband has blamed the riots that swept English cities on a "me first" culture - and accepted Labour must share the blame for creating it.

The Labour leader said his party had failed to tackle inequality and not paid enough attention to morality.

And he linked the riots to a wider collapse in social responsibility exemplified by the banking crisis and MPs expenses scandal.

He said he would set up his own riots inquiry if David Cameron failed to act.

Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the breakdown in social order that occurred this week showed many people had lost their sense of right and wrong and there was a "me first" culture.

"There is an issue which went to all our souls - this is an issue not just about the responsibility and irresponsibility we saw on the streets of Tottenham.

"It's about irresponsibility, wherever we find it in our society.

"We've seen in the past few years MPs' expenses, what happened in the banks, what happened with phone hacking."

And he admitted that Labour had not done enough to tackle deep-rooted moral problems during its 13 years in power.

"I deeply regret that inequality wasn't reduced under the last Labour government. But we did great things to tackle inequality in our society," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We did better at rebuilding the fabric of our country than the ethic of our country."

He urged the prime minister set up a public inquiry in the next few days, adding: "We have got to avoid simplistic answers.

"There's a debate some people are starting: is it culture, is it poverty and lack of opportunity? It's probably both."

Mr Miliband said that if Mr Cameron does not agree to set up an inquiry "I'm going to do it myself".

Speaking to a group of young people in Brixton, south London, Mr Miliband said the inquiry should not just take evidence from the "usual suspects" but should also include people from communities affected by the rioting.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee will begin its inquiry on 6 September, with London Mayor Boris Johnson set to be its first witness.

Committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, said: "We will be looking at police tactics, we will be looking at the operation of gangs, we will be looking at mobile communications, and we will be revisiting some of the issues we have looked at in the past, such as the inquiry into the G20 protests.

"This will be a thoughtful and measured inquiry."

Policing the riots and criticising the police

I am hearing a lot of criticism of the police as the dust settles in the wake of the recent riots. This strikes me as particularly knee-jerk and opportunistic. I saw a lot of scary scenes from the comfort of my front room and I saw a lot of people's lives being torn apart by thugs and criminals and mindless morons but the one thing I didn't see was police lounging round doing nothing.

The police officers who put themselves in harms way night after night have barely caught their breath, I think it's hugely disrespectful to come out and publicly criticise the police and (judging by what I'm hearing from police officers speaking on the radio) Cameron might well live to regret it....yet another example of him looking to blame everyone else whilst taking responsibility for nothing?

I am sure they didn't get it 100% right in a rapidly developing situation, reviews will take place and improvements but it's wrong & distasteful to come out and publicly lambast the people who were landed with the job of containing an unprecedented amount of criminilaty.

The London Riots & David Cameron's Big Society

So what have we all learnt, well judging by the twitter, facebook and phone-ins we can certainly agree that people are very, very angry & shocked over what happened in the London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Salford, Bristol and West Brom. It is always a shame to see the surge of "Hang them high, birch them low" Daily Mail style knee-jerking but after what we've seen over the last week who am I to argue with them?

People took the opportunity to run amok, simple as that. This isn't a protest...it's simple scumbag criminality. The very second they new that police in Tottenham were confined to barrack they went out and started stealing. Then the rest of country's scumbags decided they wanted in too. We all know this...I say it to give a background of how I see it because ultimately we HAVE to look for the reasons behind this otherwise we'll be here again sometime soon. Given the background of cuts to police and fire services it is irresponsible of the coalition to pretend that frontline services can cope with emergencies like this with a massively reduced budget and much less manpower. The young police officers and fire crews who put themselves in harms way this week deserve to have this looked at because they always have our backing if we expect them to go out and bring order to anarchy.

The problem at the moment I see is that to give a reason for these riots seems to be viewed as making excuses...let's be clear (Politician speak!), these little rats where looting and torching local family run businesses with people living in the flats above. See it unfold in our own neighbourhoods or live on our tv screen was appalling. So what factors meant that given the chance to going a rampage people took the opportunity so readily and so widely? There will also be economic factors at play, these are difficult times...jobs are scarce, benefits and services are being cut, families are broken. There is a just a void in these places and gangs and the opportunity to riot fill that. When violent crime takes place the rest of the country doesn't care as long it is is contained & away from the rest of us.

With all this there is no shame in the criminal behaviour because it's seen as taking a bit back from a society that wants to ignore you. There is also a lack of family and community pier groups to re-enforce the pride in being honest. It's an ever-decreasing circle then. Operation Trident was an attempt to police this in a more measured way but we will definitely have to look at where we are with that. My point is that going with the easy, instand reaction of coming down on these people like a tonne of bricks then doing nothing else is only a temporary solution. My thought is that David Cameron will finally get support for his oft-relaunched, oft-rejected Big Society but it will only work if this time he finally puts some funds and resources behind it. Things like SureStart centres are the Big Society but *gasp, shock, horror* they are coming from local government...if you can explain what's wrong with this let me know. Cameron's bizarre obsession with localism and federalisation is a postcode lottery writ large and it's not what we need because these communities where action is needed most have already lost that lottery.

One other thing we can be re-assured that the ordinary people of this country will always rise to challenges like this. Armies of clean-up volunteers have been spontaneously coming together to help restore high-streets to order and helping shop-owners get back on their feet...if there is a Big Society this is it, it is restorative rather than preventative though and it's effectively running on adrenalin...if we are to take this and apply it to the communities in question we need cash and resources. Liverpool jumped aboard The Big Society with gusto but quickly backed off when people realised it was little more than a fig leaf for government cuts, if Big Society relaunch #18 (I think that's what we are up to now) is to work when it's needed most then it has to be more than a bumper-sticker.

David Cameron seems to look massively annoyed whenever the job of PM involves something other than gala lunches and meeting famour people...he is a classic captain-of-industry figurehead chairman, well hopefully this week proves you can't do the job from the golf-course (or in this case Tuscany). He needs to work at establishing things that will make improvements to our inner cities and then people will engage...at the moment all he's done is to create a void (through cuts) and created a name for what he hopes will spontaneously fill it. If the Big Society is as important to him as he makes out then he's now got to put up or shut up.

London Riots : I predict a garden festival

So sad and so shocking to watch the capital burn last night. Actually scary to see anarchy live on your tv...all this from a peaceful protest involving an grieving family. Is that what it takes? The police stay at home for 5 minutes and all of a sudden it's time to loot a retail park? Seeing shops set alight and the flames engulfing the surrounding flats just made you feel sick.

You watch with confilcting opinions...the Daily Mail reader inside all of use wants curfews, rubber-bullets, water-cannon and troops on the streets. The Guardian reader in you thinks of the levels of dissaffection, deprivation & anger that must exist for this madness to take hold so quickly. The truth will be much more complex and will almost certainly go back throughout the duration of Operation Trident. For this reason I'm glad Labour haven't jumped up and immediately blamed the cuts.

One thing is for sure this will leave those communities even further in the mire than they were before, there has been a lot of talk from community leaders about staying indoors and clearing the streets and community politicians like Diane Abbott have been talking a lot of sense. I do have to ciriticise Theresa May, just standing in front of the cameras and repeating the words "Sheer criminality" and making vague allusions to how tough the reaction is going to be just made her look horrifically out of her depth.She straight-batted every question with "Let's be clear this is just sheer criminality" and gave no assurances whatsoever to Londoners. She was basically a wind-up toy put out there until the government can chair a COBRA meeting, I don't blame Cameron for going on holiday but there really needed to be a better reaction from those left behind.

It's true, I think.

Popped down to Liverpool Pride (via the excellent new Liverpool Murseum) to say hello to the LGBT Labour chaps and chappesses....it's fair to say they have all the best stickers :)

John Maynard Keynes Vs Friedrich August Hayek live on the BBC

Interesting article on the two economists, Keynes & Hayek. Obviously as a socialist I'd be on the Keynesian Economics side of the debate :

As their economies contracted, governments responded to their mounting budget deficits by raising taxes and cutting spending.

The Great Depression bottomed out at the end of 1932, with British unemployment having reached 20%, American unemployment even higher.

Keynes wrote the General Theory in 1936 to explain why the recovery was so feeble.

His revolutionary proposition was that following a big shock - usually a collapse in investment - there were no automatic recovery forces in a market economy.

The economy would go on shrinking until it reached some sort of stability at a low level.

Keynes called this position "under-employment equilibrium".

The reason was that the level of activity - output and employment - depended on the level of aggregate demand or spending power.

If spending power shrank, output would shrink.

In this situation it was the government's job to increase its own spending to offset the decline in public spending - that is by running a deficit to whatever extent necessary.

To cut government spending was completely the wrong policy in a slump.

When an economy is booming, a hair shirt at the Treasury is the right policy, when it is stagnating it is the wrong policy.

Keynes's message was: you cannot cut your way out of a slump; you have to grow your way out.

Eighty years on we have still not fully learnt the lesson.

Three years after the collapse of 2008, our economy is flat: there are no signs of growth, nor can the Osborne policy of a thousand cuts produce any.

A week away

Spent last week in Lourdes with the Hospitalite hence no posts...was shocked & appalled to hear of the events in Norway. Puts politics and sport in perspective. Thoughts and prayers with the AUF and the whole Arbeiderpartiet,

Lourdes was ace as always btw, hard work but good work...loads to be done and lots of new people to get to know.

It's great to just get on with the work at hand and then kick-back with a pint to relax afterwards. Not everyone's cup of tea but I love it.

Where for art thou Everton

As a blue I always know we aren't going to launch audacious swoops for top level players. Extravagent wages tempting foreign mercenaries to be joined by cherry-picked England internationals...nope it's fair to say that Everton are not a "Money" club.

Instead Moyes' revolution, whilst no less seismic than the City/Chelsea uber-splurges, has been all about players with a point to prove being given the perfect place to prove it. Generally players improve at Everton nowadays, they blossom. Cahill, Arteta & Pienaar cost the same as the amount liverpool lost on the Robbie Keane debacle. Seamus Coleman probably cost the same as Glen Johnson's daily wage.

That said this flow of players seems to have dried up now and signings seems to be very limited. After Lescott left we invested the money in Distin, Bily etc but since then Moyes seems to be feeding on scraps. Beckford was always going to be, at best, a slow burner and Gueye was going to take a long time to adjust to the pace but they represented our only striker signings....this close season looks to be more of the same, Everton have a solid base but they squad is tiny and needs augmenting otherwise another squandered season in the doldrums beckons

either that or we say goodbye to prize assets like Fellaini and/or Baines and trust Moyes and re-invest.

Ed Miliband takes on News International

So Ed is going for the jugular on this, a brave move given that he's the first Labour or Tory leader to disregard the consequences of a hostile News International.

Already dark forces are stirring and warning that they will make it personal for him if he makes calls for Rebekah Brooks to resign. We all remember what happened to Chris Bryant.

Miliband is sticking to his guns though, with David Cameron umming and ahhing and desperate not to make too much noise because he knows he's thick as thieves with the Chipping Norton Set it falls to the Opposition Leader to grasp the nettle and hope the public stay behind him.

The problem with this is that the public are notoriously easily lead (as the Kaiser Chiefs said)...despite the outrage they aparently doubled the print run of the final News of the World, possibly this was a clever, loss-leading publicity stunt but if not what message does it send to the advertisers who made a stand and boycotted the paper?

Interestingly I can see a pleasing devil-may-care attitude to Miliband's attacks and why not? He must have known he was never going to get a fair crack of the whip from the Tory press so why not go out of his way to take them on when they a vulnerable. Even if ultimately the right-wing media ends up as hostile as ever will that, in the eyes of the public, be a bad thing. If Cameron is still seen as their darling then being the man of the people on the outside will be a good thing and will allow him a free-er hand in his opposition.

Our new tree fern is doing nicely

Lost so many plants in that winter. That cold cold did for the huge sprawling yukka we had out the back so we've decided to replace it with something a little more hardy (hopefully)

Andy Coulson to be arrested

It keeps going and going and going. Today Andy Coulson is to be arrested by the police for questioning about the News of the World phone hacking....still we are supposed to believe Rebekah Brooks is innocent and knew nothing about it?

Thought Ed Miliband, who I've been critical of recently, set an excellent tone in calling for a judicial enquiry and highlighting David Cameron's shocking error of judgement in hiring Andy Coulson and brining him into number 10. Apparently Cameron was warned about Coulson by both left & right but still pressed ahead with the appointment.

I did like Ed's careful call for a review that preserves the free press whilst shining a light into the murky world of journalism. He also did well to admit that New Labour were thick as thieves with Murdoch too (although not quite as personally in bed with them as David Cameron is).

The public have spoken, the politicians have listened and look like they are taking action...will the public vote with their feet and move away from the News International papers or meekly start buying the the S*n on Sunday when it arrives? Outrage and righteous indignation is one thing but if people fall into the same pattern of hanging on every word of the press then nothing will change.

News of the World disbanded, S*n goes 7 days a week

So Murdoch sends Rebekah Brooks to tell all those staff they have lost their jobs, she marched in flanked by security staff and then marched out.

Her job is safe though.

Murdoch et al must think we were born yesterday...the News of the World is gone but the urls for The Sunday Sun are already registered. I hope and pray people don't meekly ignore their outrage and switch over to this "new" publication when it inevitably arrives.

If the Tories let Rupert Murdoch take over BSkyB it will just show how under their thumb they are.

They must think we were born yesterday

New Everton home shirt revealed

Amidst all this politics and media scandal it's nice to have something sporty to think about for once. The new Everton home shirt has been revealed.



Blue socks? Not happy, nothing good will come of it. I know this is perhaps one of the most pointless posts in the blog's history but this is the only Everton news around! No signings at all whilst everyone else seems to be having a feeding frenzy. We really do need to augment the squad and get some fire-power up front if we are going to avoid the shambolic stuttering start to the season we've seen in recent years.

In other news the entire Waterloo squad is committed for next season so that is great news. If we can bring in a couple more players we should hopefully banish the spectre of the recent slide through the leagues and start to build for the future.

David Cameron, Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks & the Chipping Norton set

So what about David Cameron, Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks & "The Chipping Norton" set?

There are defining moments when a spotlight is shone into a world and all of a sudden everything is seen in brutal daylight....like the lights going up in the nightclub so everyone can see who it is they've been dancing with then trudge bleary eyed to the exit shaking their heads. Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers brought the suicidally greedy, debt-addicted bankers to their senses, the MPs expenses scandal presented us with a scandal that was beyond parody as we saw how the noses were in the troughs. This News of the World scandal may well be the a watershed for journalism but it may also be a defining moment in how politicians cosy up to the media.

This is not a party political point. Labour were almost as bad as the Conservatives (I say "almost" because Labour have had John Prescott & Alistair Campbell shouting from the rooftops about press corruption for years whilst David Cameron invited Andy Coulson into the inner sanctum when he was fresh from resigning after the original hacking scandal). The Andy Coulson appointment underlines how desperate politicians are to get on the right side of the media (and News International in particular). Reading this piece in the Telegraph makes you realise how much Cameron is thick as thieves with Rebekah Brooks & Andy Coulson

David Cameron, who has returned from Afghanistan as a profoundly damaged figure, now faces exactly such a crisis. The series of disgusting revelations concerning his friends and associates from Rupert Murdoch's News International has permanently and irrevocably damaged his reputation.

Until now it has been easy to argue that Mr Cameron was properly grounded with a decent set of values. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make that assertion any longer. He has made not one, but a long succession of chronic personal misjudgments.

He should never have employed Andy Coulson, the News of the World editor, as his director of communications. He should never have cultivated Rupert Murdoch. And – the worst mistake of all – he should never have allowed himself to become a close friend of Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of the media giant News International, whose departure from that company in shame and disgrace can only be a matter of time.

It was called the Chipping Norton set, an incestuous collection of louche, affluent, power-hungry and amoral Londoners, located in and around the Prime Minister's Oxfordshire constituency. Brooks and her husband, the former racing trainer Charlie Brooks, live in a house scarcely a mile from David and Samantha Cameron's constituency home. The two couples meet frequently, and have continued to do so long after the phone hacking scandal became well known.

PR fixer Matthew Freud, married to Mr Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, is another member of this Chipping Norton set. When Mr Cameron bumped into Freud at Rebekah Brooks's wedding two years ago, he and Mr Freud greeted each other with exuberant high-fives to signal their exclusive friendship.

The Prime Minister cannot claim in defence that he was naively drawn in to this lethal circle. He was warned – many times. Shortly before the last election he was explicitly told about the company he was keeping. Alan Rusbridger – editor of The Guardian newspaper, which has performed such a wonderful service to public decency by bringing to light the shattering depravity of Mr Murdoch's newspaper empire – went to meet one of Mr Cameron's closest advisers shortly before the last election. He briefed this adviser very carefully about Mr Coulson, telling him many troubling pieces of information that could not then be put into the public domain.

Mr Rusbridger then went to see Nick Clegg, now the deputy prime minister. So Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg – the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister – knew all about Mr Coulson before last May's coalition negotiations. And yet they both paid no attention and went on to make him the Downing Street director of communications, an indiscretion that beggars belief.

So the Prime Minister is in a mess. To put the matter rather more graphically, he is in a sewer. The question is this: how does he crawl out and salvage at least some of his reputation for decency and good judgment? This is a potentially deadly moment. If the Prime Minister plays his cards wrong, his public image will change in a matter of a few days. From a popular and respected national leader, he will come to be defined by his ill-judged friendship with the Chipping Norton set. This kind of personal degradation has happened before. By the end, Harold Wilson was irreparably damaged by his friendship with dodgy businessmen such as the raincoat manufacturer Lord Kagan. The Macmillan premiership fell apart under the weight of revelation from Lord Astor's Cliveden set.

Pretty harsh stuff coming from the most staunch of the Tory press.

Bombardier decision costs 1,400 jobs

Well this is a bizarre one

Bombardier announces 1,400 job losses

What on earth is going on there? How can it possibly be the right decision to give this contract to a foreign supplier? How can it make economic sense? Aside from the actual money itself staying in the UK this represents 1,400 people who will potentially have to start drawing benefits. It is 1,400 people who will suddenly stop pay tax.

Government incompetence on a grand scale. Pathetic. Look at the quotes:

"I don't know of any procurement that's been in France or Germany that has gone to any other company other than the indigenous rail manufacturers in their countries," said Mark Young, Unite's co-ordinating officer.

Shadow business secretary John Denham and shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle have written to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to review the decision.

Maria Eagle told the BBC: "I find it amazing that the Secretary of State is denying that he has the power to make any difference here. He clearly does.

"In fact, the last train contract that was let for intercity trains was reviewed twice by the Labour government towards the end of its time in office and by the new Conservative government - they made significant changes to the contract as a result of their review."

But Ms Eagle told the BBC: "I find it amazing that the Secretary of State is denying that he has the power to make any difference here. He clearly does.

"In fact, the last train contract that was let for intercity trains was reviewed twice by the Labour government towards the end of its time in office and by the new Conservative government - they made significant changes to the contract as a result of their review."

Even Vince Cable is making rumblings "There is a perception that other EU countries appear to manage their public procurement processes with a sharper focus on domestic supply than we have hitherto"

Wish the NHS a happy birthday

Got this through today :

The NHS celebrates its 63rd birthday this week, with public satisfaction at an all-time high. But the coalition government's proposals will put everyone at risk. Including you.

Don't be fooled. Even after "listening", the government's legislation would let private companies grab any part of the NHS, putting profits before patients.

Now is the time to stop them, to make sure that the NHS will still be in good shape when it's 64.

This week, we're holding all sorts of events across the country to celebrate the NHS, and make sure we continue to put patients before profit. There are also plenty of online actions that you can do to help us get the message across to our politicians.

It takes just two minutes to make your voice heard, so please help us protect the NHS for the future.

Take action now: Wish the NHS a happy birthday

Thanks for your support,

The Million Voices Campaign

P.S. Don't forget to encourage your family, friends and colleagues to add their
voices to the million voices campaign: http://million-voices.org

Boycott News International and News Corps, it can be done.

Sent this to The Times today

Sir,

Unfortunately I will no longer be buying The Times due to your parent company's association with the News of the World and its actions by standing by Rebekah Brooks. I know this scandal is nothing to do with The Times and it is with a heavy heart I end my longstanding loyalty to your fine newspaper however I have no other way of protesting and voicing my utter disgust at this vile episode and the arrogance your parent company has displayed. If Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson didn't know about the phone hacking then they are two of the most incompetent people to ever grace your industry.

We shall see if anything comes back. I know it is slightly churlish and it wasn't anything to do with The Times but I have no other way to show my disgust at the actions of News Corps and News International both in the original phone hacking and their arrogant refusal to accept responsibilty for it now it's come to light.

What really makes me shudder is this tweet from Robert Peston : "News International execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone". Worse???

Alone my boycott of News International won't make much of a difference but ask any Scouser; these things can be done. The S*n is by far the most popular paper in the country yet on Merseyside you are as likely to see someone reading USA Today or L'Equipe. You can either meekly grumble about these things or vote with your feet. Scousers have stuck to the S*n boycott ever since Hillsborough. It can be done.

News of the World hacking Milly Dowler's phone then closing ranks

I mean this Milly Dowler phone hacking case is beyond reprehensible. Despicable only covers about 10% of the outrage and revulsion we should feel about this. For months this case has rumbled on each revelation getting more and more eyebrow raising. Personally I thought it was jaw-dropping when I found out they'd hacked a serving senior police officer's works mobile but this...

Not only did they hack into a missing girl's phone to listen in on her messages they actually deleted messages to clear space for others...this gave hope to Milly's family that she was still alive and accessing her phone. And for what? To sell a few low quality tabloid newspapers. You can see why Andy Coulson had to jump ship as Cameron's right hand man, he must have known where the investigation was going to lead. I remember Cameron's shrugged, grudging acceptance of his resignation as if to say "These silly allegations are just tittle tattle but I suppose I'll have to soldier on without him".

The PCC have had this happen on their watch and are doing very little, the police were forced into investigating after avoiding taking on the case, the politicians of the day were too afraid of the backlash to bring up the matter.

The only conclusion you can draw is that the press are a law onto themselves and basically out of control. That fact that it seems that Rebekah Brooks is going to just ignore the matter and carry on is testament to this. And yet this week News Corp are given the green light for their takeover...giving this corporation even more power and making it even more unassailable.

Something has to be done and it's clear that a voluntary code of conduct and a voluntary regulatory body aren't up to the job.

Government hiding the truth about the impact of their benefit reforms

Am amazed more isn't being made about this leaked memo outlining the true impact of coalition. If it is how it appears it's utterly appalling. That government departments are issuing private warnings about the possibilty of 40,000 families being made homeless and then ministers are telling the country the exact opposite is reprehensible.

The memo coming out of Eric Pickles' office states "Our modelling indicates that we could see an additional 20,000 homelessness acceptances as a result of the total benefit cap. This on top of the 20,000 additional acceptances already anticipated as a result of other changes to housing benefit"

This article in the Guardian outlines the way the coalition have resorted to lying whenever Labour have voiced concerns.

What makes it even more distasteful is that the government don't even think that the changes will save any money

"We are concerned the savings from this measure, currently estimated at £270million from 2014-2015, do not take account of the additional costs to local authorities through homelessness and temporary accommodation. We think it likely that the policy as it stands will generate a net cost"

This makes it clear, the changes aren't about the defecit, it is about the Tory ideology of "The devil take the hindmost". They see poverty & misery for ordinary people in this country as a price worth paying. 40,000 families are acceptable collateral damage as they slim down the state. The Lib Dems are standing by and doing nothing whilst it happens.

I hope now the media will start taking more notice when Labour highlight these fears...and I also hope Ed Miliband takes Cameron to the cleaners about this in the next PMQs, it's utterly indefensible.

June 30 Public Sector strikes. Mark Serwotka skewers Francis Maude

Don't believe the hype over yesterday's strikes. The lollipop ladies and nurses didn't cause this financial crisis so why are the government raiding their pensions? This article on New Statesman outlines exactly why these changes to the pensions are unjustified.

Just look at the graph, the pensions outlay is decreasing as a percentage of GDP. Mark Serwotka (Or "Sir Wotka" as he should be knighted) called Francis Maude to put up or shut up on the government's scaremongering and he simply couldn't. By the afternoon Maude (and his "unaffordable" mantra) had been locked in a cupboard and Danny Alexander was doing the rounds using the phrase "untenable".

So don't believe the hype over these strikes, this is just ordinary workers standing up for each other when faced with an ideological dismantling of their working conditions. Divide and Conquer is how the government will beat the ordinary people of this country into submission. They can casually say Labour are bought and paid for by the Unions (plainly nonsense given Labour's silence on the subject) but it seems to be a taboo to point out that the conservatives are bought and paid for by rich tax-dodging bankers.

The government are in disarray over this, they can't win the argument so they rely on media lapdogs, when they are put on the spot they are exposed. Listen to Francis Maude flounder and then think back to the NHS Reforms, the pitiful "bonfire of the quangos", the farce of the £9k student fees ("exceptional circumstances" anyone?).

So where is Labour on this, 1000s of members & supporters will have been on strike yesterday and ministers went out of their way to condemn to strike action as much as the government...it can't be right that the Labour party are too paralysed by fear of public opinion to make a stand on issues like this. Instead of vague allusions of sticking up for the "squeezed middle" we have to stand up and be counted in supporting and trying to protect ordinary hard-working people. Why did we let the agenda be set as loony left public sector fat-cats and their massively lucrative pensions instead of going out and saying "We will fight for public sector pensions just as much as we will fight for decent private sector provision". Unfortunately we allowed it to become "Divide and Conquer" and that's how they beat us every time.

Why are we afraid to stand up for unions, everyone knows they are on our side of the argument. Why try and be vague and mumbly about it? It is less toxic than the Tory affiliations with the bankers and tax-evaders. Again we let the media set the agenda and we are nipping around the sides. The government is there for the taking as Ed Miliband has proved 3 weeks in a row at Prime Ministers Questions...yet it falls to the likes of Serwotka, Crow and Bousted to skewer the ministers. It feels like a huge missed oportunity to show people that we are standing up for everyone rather than being afraid to stand up for anyone.

Mother in law email from Carolyn Bourne to Heidi Withers

I am posting this mainly so I can always find it and chuckle about it. Firmly on Carolyn's side it has to be said. Some superb quotes in there

from: Carolyn Bourne
to: heidi withers
subject: your lack of manners

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:
When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
You do not remark that you do not have enough food.

You do not start before everyone else.
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)

If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.

Zane Lowe, Laruen Laverne & Beyonce at Glastonbury

Wow, amazing what Twitter will get itself worked up about. Seems as though Zane Lowe was honest about his opinions about an act on the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, in this case Beyonce. He said he didn't see her set so didn't comment. What's wrong with that?

Throughout the coverage I was wondering just what you'd have to do to get anything other than the gushing, sycophantic stream of hyperbole ("Just...Amazing") that follows every act.

In this case I thought Lauren Laverne saying how Beyonce's set encompassed punk & rock was clearly ridiculous. She glammed it up and the starry eyed girls in front lapped it up but it wasn't punk.

This blog post goes into more detail as does this but I'm with Zane Lowe on this one.

Africa Oye

Just to prove that the current deluge isn't all we ever get in the north west. Had an aqesome day at Liverpool's free African music festival. Sun, smiles and great music

Torrential rain? Gore-tex? Wellies? Must be England in June!

Ironically I got burnt to a crisp yesterday at Africa Oye in Sefton park. Love this country

1st Division play-off final

Had a great time at the Division One Play-off final with our Peterborough United fan friends. Great way to round off the season especially given that Posh emerged victorious despite being under the cosh for the majority of the 2nd half.

The Huddersfield Town fans had travelled in large numbers and dominted Old Trafford with their colour co-ordinated t-shirts....in contrast the Posh fans barely filled the lower tier but were a noisy boisterous bunch. They diid give me the daggers when I cheered Kilbane and Clarke though.

3 goals in 7 minutes were stunning given that Peterborough had barely had the ball for the previous 20, who cares though. Great day for Peterborough fan and daytripper alike.

Europa League Final zzzzz

Really dissappointed with the Europa League final last night...usually they are great games but last nights final in the ridiculously lob-sided Aviva Stadium (Lansdowne Road for the corporately challenged amongst us) was a sifled, scrppy stultified affair. Braga looked more afraid of losing than being desperate to win and Porto seemed to come down to their level. The game was illuminated by one piece of brilliance from Falcao although in truth Braga received at least one glorious chance to score themselves and really should have took their chance. In the end it looked like one of those games where both teams had about 14 players on the pitch. Never room to move, no space to run into. The Football League play-offs, on the other hand, have been excellent value with the games in Swansea, Cardiff & Huddersfield all showing exactly what a football match should look like.

The Poznan Celebration or attention seeking superfan knobbery

So Everton 2 - 1 Man City and our hoodoo over the billionaire mercenaries continues...Extremely gratifying given it was Lescott's first return to Goodison. Also gratifying given how much I detest the faux-zany superfan-wannabe scoring celebration that is "The Poznan". Honestly, what is that all about? I do know that going the game is meant to be fun...but your team has just scored a goal, why turn around and jump up and down looking at the arse of the person on the row above. It's the match not a performance art exhibit. I am just not impressed with all this co-ordination. Why do modern fans have an obsession with it. Music after a goal, all holding scraves up at once, flags, murals....what's wrong with just going to the game and enjoying the football. The trained seal routine just does not do it for me at all.

I have ceanothus envy

I am slighlty obsessed with ceanothus (californian lilac). One day I'll have one like this