Playing the football card

What is it about Labour politicians and football? Is it the need to demonstrate their ‘man of the people’ credentials, and that they are in touch with, and true to, their roots (whatever these may), or is it that they are just like any other politician, and think they know best about everything?

Whether it was Harold Wilson and the 1996 World Cup, or Tony Blair telling us that he used to watch Newcastle United as a boy (even if his hero Jackie Milburn had hung up his boots quite a few years before), over the years no Labour politician has been able to resist playing the football card.

The latest to do so is Mike O’Brien, the health minister.

O’Brien chose Twitter as the medium, and what he offered in his 140 characters was “The sacking of Terry is crass. Capello has bowed to tabloid pressure. Infidelity is bad but I saw no signs of fatigue in his football”. Having looked at his tweets, the one about Terry is possibly the most interesting unless you are one of O’Brien’s constituents (although glass houses and stones comes to mind, as I don’t think many of mine would pass Tammy Erickson’s test “Are you fun to follow on Twitter?”: see her HBR article). But why tweet about it all?

And why the strange linkage between infidelity and fatigue? Is there something he knows as health minister he isn’t telling us!

Should I just buy bigger glasses?

I sometimes wonder about the world our politicians and their advisers live in (although as reports of this alternative universe (nearly) always come to me through the media, perhaps a pinch of salt is a necessary accompaniment). I was much taken by this morning’s report (no online link available) G&T at home? Mine’s a double by Kate Devlin in the Telegraph (a quick read of the Telegraph is the alternative to listening to Today on Radio 4, if you like a little irritation to kick-start your day).

Apparently, according  to a study conducted for the Government’s Know Your Limits campaign, when pouring drinks at home, we get the measures wrong (i.e. we get carried away and end up drinking much more than we mean to).

What I most liked was the idea that if only we had this pointed out to us, we would start pouring the ‘correct’ amount. What’s the betting that we will soon be able to get optics on the NHS?

No more gunboats

China’s decision to press ahead and execute Akmal Shaikh is repellant : for once Gordon Brown speaks for us all when he says, “I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted”.

But there are two things that have most forcibly struck me about this case: the impotence of the United Kingdom and its diplomatic effort, and China’s intemperate reaction to criticism.

From the FT.com report this morning

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing that no country has the right to comment on China’s judicial sovereignty.  “It is the common wish of people around the world to strike against the crime of drug trafficking. We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British government’s unreasonable criticism of the case. We urge the British to correct their mistake in order to avoid harming China-UK relations,’’ she said.

There is no mistake; and, whether China likes it or not, any country has the right to comment on China’s judicial sovereignty.

Whether as at Copenhagen, or as in this sad case, it seems that the unspoken excuse of the Chinese leadership for the actions it takes, or more often does not, is its domestic situation. That should not deter us from condemning it.

Looking south towards Dawlish

Looking south towards Dawlish

Originally uploaded by crosstreeparents

A cold afternoon’s birding on Dawlish Warren: very little at sea, but from the hide Grey Plover, Dunlin, Curlew, Oystercatchers, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Turnstones and a pair of Twite.

Another lame excuse

You would have thought, with five children between us, that there is very little any of them might now do or say that would surprise us. By and large this is the case, but #5 (the only boy) is the exception.

He has just finished his first term at Loughborough, mainly, if his Facebook photos are to be believed, spent in the usual manner (this involves liberal amounts of alcohol, body paint and attractive fellow students). This was followed by a week snowboarding in France. Earlier today, with Christmas a scarce three days away, his thoughts turned to buying Christmas presents for his siblings. But who wanted what? He decided to call home.

His conversation with #4 did not go well, as she chided him for failing to get his act together, and order things sooner. He remarked that while in France there had been no internet access. Why hadn’t he sorted things out sooner, she asked. Quite a reasonable question, you would have thought. Apparently he didn’t.

“I have had a very busy term” was his reply. Somewhat ill judged to someone in her final year, struggling to get her dissertation finished, essays in and reading completed. He will learn.