We Shouldn't Let Sentimentality Get In The Way Of The Beckham Decision

So David Beckham's career in competitive internationals seems to be over.  Fabio Capello made that quite clear last night..

We shouldn't get lost in sentimentality about this decision. There should be no room for sentimentality in the cut throat world of international football.

It has been clear for a while that Beckham's international career is in the 'swansong' phase.  His club form and recent form at international level hasn't really justified international inclusion (although that doesn't always make a difference as the preposterous Heskey selection shows).  The only reasons for selecting him in future would be sentimental rather than footballing ones.

Beckham will probably go down in the second tier of England internationals.  Not quite up there with the likes of Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore (or some members of the 1990 squad) but somebody who would easily make the top 40 all time England players and has served his country with distinction over the years.

On O'Neill's Resignation - Boardroom Interference In Football Matters Never Ends Well

It looks like Martin O'Neill has walked away from Aston Villa after taking one too many humiliations over the sale of James Milner to Man City and the inability to gain extra money to strengthen Villa's squad.  We are also told this morning by The Sun that O'Neill was being forced to endure a further clear out of top players.

It is a big loss to Villa.  I'm a massive Martin O'Neill fan - he's an astute tactician and a great man manager.  He is very much a manager in the Brian Clough mould.  He was my choice as England manager when the FA lost their collective marbles and appointed Steve Maclaren as manager a few years ago.

O' Neill's resignation just goes to show that boardroom interference in the footballing side of the club is almost always counter productive.  It is quite clear that Milner is being sold against the wishes of the Manager.  It is also clear that O'Neill wasn't getting the financial support he thought the team needed to go to the next level.

This saga illustrates the gap between the top four in the Premiership and the rest.  It illustrates that the concept of loyalty amongst most top players is an endangered species.  Above all, it proves that fundamental point that boardroom interference in footballing matters almost always ends with declining performance on the pitch and a managerial departure.

Quite A Recovery For Eminem

I have just picked up Eminem's latest album, 'Recovery'.  After his last two efforts, I wasn't expecting much but, I'm pleased to say, it is a real return to form.

The Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP were brilliant, his 'Renegade' duet with Jay Z on Blueprint was witty and awesome and Lose Yourself was a genuine anthem.  But since then the creativity seemed to dry up.  It might have been the eventful private life, the drug problems or the fame.  Whatever it was, the magic seemed to disappear.  The cleverness in the lyrics was replaced by retreads and machismo.

He admits as much on 'Recovery', saying on Talking To Myself:

"Them last two albums don't count
... I got something to prove to fans 'cause I feel like I let em down"

For a hip hop album, Recovery feels staggeringly vulnerable.  It presents the artist as being human and having human frailties.  Once again, the lyrics have rediscovered their bite.  Eminem sounds like he has rediscovered his hunger.  The album is well worth a listen (even to see how he has sampled Haddaway of all people!)

The Observer Sets Out The Decline In Test Match Crowds

I have blogged a few times over the past few weeks on declining crowds at this summer's test matches.  This morning's Observer has a report on the matter.  As Paul Weaver's article says:

The redevelopment work at Edgbaston has cut the capacity to 15,000, but just 10,020 pitched up for the first day and the match is expected to be completed tomorrow, the third day of the match... The situation at Nottingham was no better, with a poor attendance on the opening day, while the ground was also mostly empty when England won the match on the Sunday.

The Oval are also, apparently, "struggling for day one."





Weaver put forward a number of very valid reasons for the decline in crowds.  Too much international cricket, the poor form of Pakistan and the baffling decision to hold back to back tests in the Midlands, followed by back to back tests in London are mentioned.  The fact that cricketing authorities have totally ignored the North for this series is, of course, unforgivable.


However, Weaver doesn't mention two very important potential factors on declining crowds.  Firstly, there is a sense that the series is somehow hidden away on Sky.  Secondly, and crucially, the pricing policy for test matches puts test match cricket out of the reach of too many people.  Most tickets for the Oval test match are between £70 and £80.  That isn't really a working man's price - particularly for a series that is (surprisingly) beginning to look like a mismatch and for a match that starts after the football season has started.  


Hopefully, the cricketing authorities will review their pricing policy before next season so that new fans and supporters on a budget are not excluded on the basis of price.

Tony Judt RIP

I'm very sorry to hear that, according to the New Statesman and a number of other sources, the historian and essayist, Tony Judt, has died.  He will be a big loss.

His magnus opus, which probably has the pride of place in plenty of bookshelves around the country, is his massive, scholarly and utterly readable 'Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945'.  He has also been responsible for some great studies and reappraisals of the French left.

Along with the likes of David Marquand and John Gray, he has played a role in making the intellectual case for the state and civil society against a market driven hegemony.  Alongside Marquand's majestic 'Progressive Dilemma' and John Gray's prophetic 'False Dawn' (I remember trying to persuade so-called 'Socialists' of the ultimate insecurity of unregulated global financial markets - as predicted by Gray- at the same time as they tried to sell me deregulation in the late 90s), Judt's 'Ill Fares The Land' has to be regarded as a guiding text for those of us who believe that the market should serve society and not vice versa.  Judt argued that society (and the parties of the so-called left) has become so infatuated with the market that it has forgotten how much can be achieved when we work together and Government is used for noble aims.















He didn't believe that liberty was enough without a belief in equality of opportunity.  He believed in freedom to, not just freedom from.  He said in the London Review of Books (via Guardian on line):

I think what we need is a return to a belief not in liberty, because that is easily converted into something else… but in equality. Equality, which is not the same as sameness. Equality of access to information, equality of access to knowledge, equality of access to education, equality of access to power and to politics. We should be more concerned than we are about inequalities of opportunity, whether between young and old or between those with different skills or from different regions of a country. It is another way of talking about injustice. We need to rediscover a language of dissent.

In 'Ill Fares The Land' , he says that:

"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them."

What really marks out Judt in my eyes is his ability to show both ambition and a belief in the power of ideas (and, in an age where such an ambition can be limited, the power of politics and Government to change things for the better), but also his scepticism when other scholars seemed swept aside by big ideas.

Take his Grand Illusion essay on the Common Market and its successors.  He acknowledged the benefits that the Common Market had brought to the Benelux countries since the war and to relations between France and Germany in particular.  But he displayed caution as 'progressive'voices around him suggested that the then  embryonic European Union suggested the best way forward.  He pointed out that achieving homogeneity in an utterly disparate continent (the point that Tony Benn made very well when pointing out the EU's many flaws) was  virtually impossible.  He pointed out the lack of democracy inherent and obvious in the European project, comparing it to some of the "enlightened despotisms" of 18th Century Europe.

Judt always understood that radical principles should include and be governed by the sovereignty of the people and democratic representation.

In an age in which politics is too often driven by people who 're-tweet' the latest spewing of 'facts' by Labour, Liberal or Tory HQ, Tony Judt represents the embodiment of what we should be seeking. The politics that is that of thought and independence rather than subservience.  The social media that represents open argument and debate, rather than the views of political parties.  Hopefully politics will rediscover the inquiring, intellectual spirit; the spirit of  Tyler and Lilburne; that Judt stood for.

Tony Judt RIP

Progressive Postings - The Best Of The Blogosphere, Friday 6th August

Today's must reads inlude:

Huffington Post have a remarkable interview with Christopher Hitchens: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/06/christopher-hitchens-on-c_n_673144.html

Anthony Wells discusses 'Why Labour Lost' http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2769

Platform 10 on how British Toryism reinvented itself: http://www.platform10.org/2010/08/the-reinvention-of-british-conservatism/

Diane Abbott names her Desert Island Discs http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2010/08/06/diane-abbotts-desert-island-discs/

Harry Pearson on the origins of boxing  http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/aug/06/boxing-booths-romance-harry-pearson

Please Support The 'Mad Hatters' and the Run For Congo

Some mates of mine have been doing some extraordinary (or crazy depending on your view) over the past few months.  Dom Goggins, a good mate of mine, and an assorted cast have been doing marathons, triathlons, ultra marathons, iron man triathlons and goodness knows what else for the very good cause of leukemia research.  They are doing this under the apt sobriquet of the 'Mad Hatters Challenge' and looking to raise £10,000 over the next few months.  I would encourage anybody to donate via the following link:

http://www.justgiving.com/madhatterschallenge

Next week, Dom and his mate, Chris Jackson are heading to the Congo, a country decimated by  War in the past decade.  It is an extraordinary thing to do.  The Congo is still, as they are more than aware, a hugely dangerous place.  6 million people were killed in the horrendous Congo War.  Although the war officially ended in 2003, it is still a highly dangerous, violent place (45,000 deaths a month), with the worst example of human tragedy that war brings with it.   Almost four million refugees were created by the terrible war.  Sexual violence against women is at a horrific scale.  Poverty is amongst the worst in the world.

The continuing tragedy in the Congo is one of the reasons that what Dom and Chris is doing is so important.  They are raising awareness of a tragedy that the near amnesiac 24 hour news media has all but forgotten about.  Raising awareness of the people whose lives have been utterly devastated by the terrible conflict.  What they are doing is immensely impressive.  I know that what some of what they see is going to be pretty haunting but, I'm sure Dom would be the first to remind me, not as haunting as what the people of Congo - having lived through a terrible war for more than a decade have had to face.  

There is more about the 'Run For Congo' at this blog:

http://runforcongo.wordpress.com/

Do support them, do spread the word and do donate to a very worthwhile cause.