As a fan of righteous violence I was actually quite amused to hear that Labour MP Eric Joyce had chinned a couple of Tory MPs this week. I’m sure they probably deserved it and the fact that he appears to have actually dropped the nut on one of them is actually hilarious.

However I then reflected that there is a serious side to this. Reading the account in the Telegraph (which may or may not be accurate of course) and learning a bit more about his recent history (he spent the night in a police cell in 2010 for drink driving) he seems like a man with a drink problem. Which isn’t that funny really. The photo I copied above is that of man who looks very different to the fresh faced MP of a few years ago. Something appears to have gone very wrong.

It’s difficult to feel too much sympathy for a man with such outrageous yearly expenses claims but one does get the feeling that his life is spiralling out of control. He has apparently just broken up with his wife and things are looking very messy.

Sadly the boozing culture and the cross-party chumminess that seems to induce is part and parcel of the British Houses of Parliament. Whilst I have no objection to people enjoying a tipple it does seem it has gone too far and Parliament is treated like a club. MPs appear to have easy access to lots of cheap and free booze when discharging their various responsibilities and some people obviously can’t cope with it. Joyce, it would appear, is one of them.

The collegiate ‘club’ atmosphere in the Commons and Lords is one that bothers me very much. There is often a lot of talk of British politics being too ‘adversarial’ but I take the opposite view. The disagreements are invariably shrill but never over matters of serious principle. Considering the stakes they should hate each other. It worries me more when they don’t. It should be a violent clash of ideologies and worldviews. That it isn’t is largely due to Labour’s failings over the years and eagerness to adapt to the status quo. One actually can’t take issue with Joyce’s drunken statement that there are ‘too many Tories’ in the House but such brainless tribalism isn’t enough I’m afraid.

Personally I think they should close the bar. It may sound radical and authoritarian but in how many other workplaces would such a state of affairs be tolerated? The bar that used to be open at the hospital I work at has been shut for years. MPs, when it comes to expenses, pensions and boozing seem to operate by a different set of rules to the rest of us. There is clearly a conceit, that they often fail to veil convincingly, that they are special and deserve to be treated differently and that they could all be earning more money in the private sector.  

Maybe some MPs need to remember what they are paid handsomely to do and that it is a privilege for them (not us) for them to be our elected representatives. And if they do think they can earn more elsewhere, then piss off and do it. They are a bunch of faceless mediocrities for the most part anyway.

And finally I think we would be best not to sneer and laugh Joyce too much. He sounds like he needs help rather than mockery. Whether this will finish his political career or not we shall have to see, but I have an uneasy premonition of him going the way of that other drink-soaked politician, Charles Kennedy, and fading into embarrassing irrelevance or even worse. Whilst Joyce is no great shakes as a parliamentarian, it would be a tragic fall from grace on a purely human level.

Steve Bruce: the last man standing?

The farcical managerial situation at Wolverhampton Wanderers continues. The latest man to throw his out of the managerial ring was former Everton and Rangers boss Walter Smith. Not a huge tragedy really as he was completely shit at Everton and anyone can win with Rangers (just ask Graeme Souness).

So Reading’s Brian McDermott, Alan Curbishley and now Smith have all turned down the offer to manage the Premier League club. Roy Keane has been mentioned but not followed up and Colin Wanker has taken over at Leeds (him and Bates are a perfect match don’t you think?)

It appears that Steve Bruce is the last remaining candidate. Even though I would have thought personally that you would have had to exterminate every other man, woman and child on planet Earth for him to be the favourite. He is bloody terrible, as we have demonstrated before at the Mambo at great length, and it would be a disaster of biblical proportions if a club I actually quite like employed that halfwit.

One wonders why Mick McCarthy was sacked considering the abysmal standard of most of the candidates to have been interviewed or suggested. What’s the point of sacking someone if the replacement is worse?

The Incredible Tart?

One wonders what exactly the staff running Porto were thinking when they decided to make an issue of the chants directed at their striker Hulk (whilst he ran around doing very little of note) by the Man City fans during their 4-0 defeat yesterday in the Europa League.

“You’re not incredible” they sang. (How does one put that into a chant anyway?)

Witless, yes. Also harmless.

Porto are making an official complaint about the ‘unsporting’ chanting directed at their player.

If they succeed then I presume every chant ever invented will also have to be banned.

Churlish in the extreme, and presumably a petty response to the rather more serious accusations levelled at their fans in the previous leg when they are alleged to have racially  abused Mario Balotelli and Yaya Toure.

A proud club with a great tradition of excellence are making fools of themselves.

You have to be kidding me?

Stuart Pearce has put himself forward to manage England during Euro 2012. I suppose there was a grim inevitability about it and one can only hope that it does doesn’t come to pass.

The man they call ‘psycho’ has had a less than distinguished managerial career so far. It is an indication of the utter insignificance of the (male) Olympic football tournament that he has been selected to coach Great Britain.

Pearce fits the English national footballing stereotype perfectly. Gritty, no-nonsense, hard-working, honest, earnest, self-destructively brave and not terribly inspired as a player (well ok he wasn’t too bad) or manager (where he really was shit).

Although he has the redeeming feature of not attacking referees, one of the curses of the modern game, his results at Man City were risible (10 goals at home all season and none after New Year’s Day in 2006-2007) and have given no indication that he is capable of successfully managing a team at a major international tournament. He offers nothing tactically, hasn’t pulled up any trees with the U-21s and although he has done the right thing in dropping Frank Lampard for the forthcoming friendly with Holland one can assume when the tournament comes around he will revert to type and select the ‘big names’ who have failed so many times before.

Already people are muttering that Euro 2012 should be considered a ‘write-off’ and that sort of thinking could pave for the way for a short-term Pearce appointment with Redknapp taking over permanently after England tank the tournament. Writing off probably the second most important international football tournament seems a peculiar notion to me, especially if it is buttressed by the idea that England can start to build for the next world cup, which I’m guessing we have no chance of winning either.

I fail to believe there aren’t better coaches or managers out there than Pearce (or Redknapp for that matter) who could make a better fist of a competition that England could go some way in if the right players were selected and the correct tactics chosen.

DC is always right.

Just a few days ago our star columnist, DC, gave Stoke manager Tony Pulis a severe ticking off. The occasion for his exquisitely savage critique was Pulis’s criticisms of Spanish football. And the occasion for Pulis’s Neanderthal ramblings was the visit of La Liga’s Valencia in the Europa League to the Midlands last week.

Of course one can see in retrospect what Pulis was playing at. He probably knew that his team were going to receive a footballing lesson and wanted to get his excuses in early. His brave, naïve grafters would be outsmarted by their more cynical opponents.  

And so it proved. Well the bit about being outplayed anyway. The 1-0 defeat was immensely flattering to the home team and Valencia never looked in any kind of danger. Pulis appears to have already thrown in the towel for the second leg (despite his club having only the FA cup left to play for this season) and selected a deliberately weakened team for the trip to the Estadio Mestalla. Much to the chagrin of Stoke fans, many of whom have paid large sums to be a part of what should be a historic night for the club.

One does get the feeling that Pulis and his uninspiring approach may have had its day.

Welcome back Liam. We've all missed you so much. Really.

You just can’t keep a good man down can you.

Liam Fox has raised his head again. His piece in the FT is supposed to signal the beginning of the political comeback for a man who resigned last year over issues of naked corruption his rather curious relationship with his bezzie mate Adam Werrity. Various scandalous rumours circulated over what exactly he was getting up to with his professional partner he was probably shagging him but we won’t go into that now.

It matters not a jot what Fox gets up to in his personal life. The issue with Fox has always been snouts in troughs. And there was a lot of that with former defence secretary and Werrity, which is ultimately why he had to stand down.

But presumably Fox thinks he has served the time for his crime and now, several months later, he can get back in the saddle. He is a hero of the Tory right and they want one of their chief spokesmen back.

Of course I was rally excited to hear what Fox had to say about where British politics should be going. It promised to be a  radical, unique series of insights from a political titan. I’m sure the man has spent the intervening period reassessing the debates and objectively analysing the Coalition’s abysmal record in office. Hell, he might even have something to say about addressing endemic corruption in public life.

Or perhaps not.

The good doctor has come up with some fairly unsurprising ideas. Namely:

1) Cut taxes

2) Make it easier to sack people.

3) Cut public spending even more.

Fan-fucking tastic. I tip my hat off to you sir.

I suppose the first thing to say is that we hear this shit every single day in the media. Why is he presenting it as some sort of brilliant insight? How long did he spend thinking about the article? Was it a cut and paste job of everything he has ever said about the economy, ever?

I suppose I better deal with each in turn (sigh…….)

1) Everyone is saying that one way to stimulate the economy is to cut taxes on the worst off. So nothing new there. I also presume he means cutting taxes on the wealthy, even though time and again this has been shown to have no positive effect aside from…..letting the rich pay less tax. The higher rates of tax have brought in significant extra revenues to the government. But of course this is a political question. Fox wants his mates looked after.

2) Oh dear god not this old one. When the economy is tanking then the right want to make it easier to sack people and pay them less because that will stimulate the economy supposedly. Not true. Insecure workers will naturally spend less of their money and save more if they are fearful of losing their jobs. And when the economy is doing well the right still say they want less regulation as it is holding back growth and prosperity. Fox just wants weaker employee protection per se. He is forgetting that firstly employees are actual people with lives and families and needs and secondly that countries with stronger employment regulation and unions, i.e. Germany and some of the Scandinavian economies, have weathered the economic storm rather better than Britain has (and I’m not suggesting that Germany is a paradise by any stretch……) This isn’t about economic competitiveness. Once again this is Fox defending the interests of his mates and trying to increase their profit margins.

3) The Americans rejected austerity, implemented a small but significant stimulus package and their economy is slowly climbing out of recession. Britain has been attempting an almost unprecedented scaling back of public expenditure (on some things, not all) and the economy could be about to re-enter recession. The consenus now is that the Tories plans aren’t working and are probably motivated purely by ideology. And yet Fox wants more austerity. You do the math.

Fox is just repeating the same old dystopian shit he has spent his entire political career trotting out. Why is it suddenly front page news in the Financial Times?

Who's a big boy then? Eric Pickles

I hadn’t said anything about the recent controversy regarding prayers being banned from council meetings but I think I’ll add my two penneth.

I wasn’t even aware that many councillors get down on their knees and beg for the Lord’s mercy before council meetings and I’ve been quite shocked to find out how widespread the practice is. It makes me very uncomfortable that councillors are being openly divided not on a party basis but on a religious one. And make no mistake, that is what is happening.

I think as a story it is a classic example of the media with an agenda deliberately misrepresenting what has been decided by the judges.

The ruling banned prayers from council meetings. That is to say, council meetings are now a protected secular space where secular or atheist councillors do not have the religious beliefs of other thrust down their throat. No one has been prevented from organising a praying session before or after the meeting at another venue. What has been stopped is the prayers being a part of  meetings.

We are not a Christian country. Most people do not pray every day. Most people do not go to church. Religion is tolerated and accepted but no longer made a central part of the British way of life. That, my friends, is called secularism in action. A healthy, respectful secularism that the non-religious and religious alike should welcome. Making religion a part of council meetings is divisive when the real divides should be over issues of policy.

The religious rights of councillors are not really being infringed (and in any case the rights of non-religious candidates not to have it rammed down their throats should take precedence). They can do as they please before or after the meeting. But they no longer have the right (if the ruling is upheld that is) to make their religion a part of a council meeting. How could anyone possibly object to that…….?

A good example of the dishonesty of the pro-prayers brigade is this piece in the Telegraph. The headline in particular:

Prayers before council meetings ruled unlawful

The prayers weren’t before the meetings. They were a part of the meeting.

Eric Pickles argument is telling:

“While welcoming and respecting fellow British citizens who belong to other faiths, we are a Christian country, with an established Church in England, governed by the Queen. Christianity plays an important part in the culture, heritage and fabric of our nation. Public authorities – be it Parliament or a parish council – should have the right to say prayers before meetings if they wish. The right to worship is a fundamental and hard-fought British liberty.”

I think it needs repeating; I really don’t think we are a Christian country anymore. But even if we were, prayers forming part of meetings of elected representatives would still be inappropriate. And it also needs repeating that the prayers weren’t before the meeting. They were a part of it and the non-religious and atheists were being by definition excluded and marginalised. How is that democratic, or tolerant? And no one is denying people’s right to worship-another Tory straw man.

Someone might like to get their cock out when they are in the privacy of their own home. If they were a councillor I would hope they would refrain from it at council meetings, however important they thought it was to their lives. There is a time and a place for these things………

And if we have an established Church of England, maybe it’s time to disestablish it. It would make things so much easier.

I’m loath to attack those of faith too hard. They are absolutely right that they are entitled to their religious beliefs. But when it impinges on the political process and religious political representatives wish to inflict their ideas on everyone else then those of a secular disposition need to take a firm stand. Judge Ouseley’s ruling is a welcome one and I sincerely hope it isn’t reversed.

John Harris in the Guardian has beaten me to it regarding a response to Iain Duncan Smith’s simply outrageous piece in the Daily Mail about ‘job snobs’ but I thought I would say a few words about it anyway.

Of course the article is motivated by the growing outcry regarding the government’s various workfare schemes (and that, Iain, is what they are in all but name, you sanctimonious, pedantic dickhead) where JSA claimants are forced into doing jobs for no pay in order to keep their benefits. There is a whiff of feudal Britain about the policy, as Harris correctly points out.

Duncan Smith’s thinks the critics of the various schemes are ‘job snobs’ who look down on the people who do the kind of work that people on the schemes are being forced into.

I don’t know whether Duncan Smith is an idiot or is deliberately misrepresenting the views of his opponents here. I would imagine the latter

No one is objecting to the work itself. The issue is that the people doing it aren’t being paid a fair wage to do it. They aren’t being paid at all most of the time, for fuck’s sake! And in the majority of cases there isn’t a job at the end of it for them. It is a government-subsidised pool of desperate benefits claimants for big companies to dip into and get free or very low cost labour.

If Tesco et al have all these posts they need to fill then employ extra staff with proper pay and conditions (and that of course would mean better salaries and conditions than the pitiful ones on offer at the moment. But retaining the status quo would be a start…..) Considering their huge profits, they can clearly afford it.

No one is objecting to shop work. We are objecting to people being compelled to do it and not being paid the correct wage for doing so.

Duncan Smith says the various schemes are ‘purely voluntary’. In a sense of course they are. If you are ok with the other choice on offer. Starvation. MWA is a scheme where claimants are forced to work on pain of losing their benefits for months at a time.

The best bit is this:

“Anyone who is gulled by those who believe in the first path is in danger of creating a society with a twisted culture that thinks being a celebrity or appearing on The X Factor is the only route worth pursuing in life.

The belief that you can just sit at home or wait to become a TV star and that work simply lands in your lap, in turn, feeds the pernicious idea that success is not related to effort and work.”

Quality. Because of course that is what the people opposed to this think we should all be doing instead. It’s one of the most appalling straw man arguments imaginable on a par with Gove’s arrogant dismissal of his critics in the education system as ‘enemies of promise’ and ‘trots’. The sheer intellectual dishonesty and deliberate misrepresentation of his opponent’s arguments is quite disgraceful. Of course that is what the Tories resort to when they are rattled and the self-evident stupidity of their plans is exposed

The problem is of course that Duncan Smith can’t say what he really thinks. That he is happy with a pool of unpaid labour being there at the beck and call of Britain’s corporations. That high unemployment and pitifully low wages at the bottom end of the jobs market are actually a desirable, if politically awkward, outcome for people of his mindset.     

The simple litmus test for all the Tory MPs lecturing us on what we should be putting up with: would they do that kind of work for that kind of money?

And if Duncan Smith thinks that shop work is so noble, then why doesn’t he advocate an increase in the minimum wage so those noble workers are remunerated appropriately for their noble efforts? In fact, why not ensure they are paid the same as an MP?

Why the west should rule out military action against Iran

Posted by John Baron MP -20 February 201217:58

The threat of military force heightens tensions and makes a peaceful outcome less likely.

With tough new sanctions in place, further measures threatened by Iran, naval forces mustering in the Persian Gulf, and state-sponsored terrorism ongoing, we are on the brink of a military conflict.Israel, at this very moment, is contemplating whether to undertake a strike. This would be calamitous, and could lead to regional war. What is desperately needed is a fresh assessment of the situation. The west’s approach of sanctions and sabre-rattling are yesterday’s failed policies. The fact we are once again on the cusp of conflict is testament to that failure.

My motion today therefore calls for the government – and, by implication, the west – to rule out the use of force in order to reduce tensions and bring us back from the brink of war, and to redouble diplomatic efforts. By ruling out the use of force – except, of course, in self-defence – we can reflect on some of the inconvenient truths which the west chooses to ignore, and the need for a fresh approach.

The catalyst for the most recent round of condemnation of Iran has been the IAEA’s latest report. However, close reading of the report reveals no ‘smoking gun’. There is no evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons, or of a decision to do so. Much is made of western intelligence reports. But Iraq should have taught us to be careful of basing major foreign policy decisions on secret intelligence.

A second inconvenient truth relates to the usual depiction of Iran as intransigent and chauvinistic in her foreign policy. Western governments too easily forget that Iran is not totally at fault here. There have been opportunities to better relations between Iran and the west which the west has spurned. We forget Iran expressed solidarity with the US following 9/11, and that attempts were made to develop contacts during the early stages of the Afghan war. Her reward was to be declared part of the “Axis of Evil” by President Bush. This led directly to the removal of the reformist President Khatami. Despite this, further attempts at cooperation followed in the run-up to the Iraq war, and these were similarly rebuffed.

I am not an apologist forIran. No-one can agree with her human rights record, or her sponsoring of terrorism beyond her borders. But these are not arguments for military intervention. Rather, I suggest no-one’s hands are clean in the region, including our own particularly after the invasion ofIraq.

The argument is advanced that, should Iran develop nuclear weapons, this will lead to a nuclear arms race in the region, but without the safety mechanisms that existed during the Cold War – and this could lead to nuclear escalation. I do not accept this argument.

There is no reason why the west’s adherence to the theory of nuclear deterrence should not be equally valid in other regions of the world. Despite the rhetoric, there is no evidence of irrational behaviour byIran. This view was re-enforced by the Israeli defence minister last year. Meanwhile, other countries in the region, such as India and Pakistan, have fought wars and yet shown nuclear restraint. Only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in anger.

We are then told it is naïve to rule out the use of force, that all options must ‘be left on the table’. But I suggest pursuing a policy which has clearly failed is naïve. It has brought us to the brink of military conflict.

What compounds the error of this approach is that most agree a military strike would be counter-productive. It would unite Iran in fury and perhaps trigger a regional war. It would not work – a fact the US defence secretary has recently highlighted. Furthermore, knowledge cannot be eradicated by military intervention. There are even influential voices from inside Israel against a strike.

Yet, despite this, the present policy is to refuse to rule out the use of force. Such a policy is not only naïve, but illogical: we are keeping an option alive which all know would be a disaster; against a country which chooses to ignore it; yet this option heightens tensions and makes a peaceful outcome less likely. It is a nonsense.

A fresh approach is required. Israel will not attack Iran if Washington objects. Now is the time for the US to make clear to her ally that force should not be used. Ruling out the use of force would have the immediate effect of reducing tensions and making conflict less likely. This would lessen the chance of another accident, such as Iran Air 655, which could in itself trigger a conflict. Such a policy longer-term would give diplomacy a greater chance of success.

We need to better understand and engage with Iran, and offer the prospect of implicit recognition ofIran’s status as a major power in the region – a status we created ourselves by our misguided invasion of Iraq which fundamentally altered the regional balance of power. There is a precedent for recognising this new status. In the 1960s, when the US presence in Asia was waning and China was beginning to flex her muscles, Nixon did not respond by denying the reality of Chinese power. His visit to China in 1972 took everyone by surprise, but it was the right decision – it was a defining moment.

I suggest the US needs to realise that this is one of those defining moments.Israel and Iranare two proud nations, both perhaps uncertain as to the best course of action. The US is the elephant in the room. It needs to put behind it the underlying antagonism of the last 30 years which defines this crisis. It needs to make clear an Israeli attack would be unacceptable, and then better engage withIran. It is in Israel’s long-term interest that this happens.

We need to go the extra mile for peace. War should always be the measure of last resort: to be used only when all other avenues have been exhausted. We have not reached this point here.

John Baron is the Member of Parliament for Basildon and Billericay. A former soldier and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he resigned from the shadow frontbench to vote against the Iraq war, opposed our intervention in Afghanistan, and was the only Conservative MP to vote against the Libyan intervention.

Tony Pulis: Dressed to impress.

Premier League managers would be advised to tread with the gentlest of care when preaching the imagined moral superiority of the British game, with it highly doubtful that any could justifiably declare their charges immune from bouts of exaggeration and gamesmanship. Still, there remains a backward core of regressive, parochial philistines dismissive of diving and on-field dramatics as a disease devised by deceitful foreign cowards, albeit one whose insidious influence is threatening the noble honesty inherent on these shores. Such sentiment is, of course, bollocks but the truth has rarely infringed upon the nonsensical drivel discharged from contemptible Stoke City boss Tony Pulis. For the Welshman, Spain’s La Liga is little more than a villainous haven for cheats and conmen, where unscrupulous chicanery is nonchalently accepted “as the norm” and it’s two leading lights, Barcelona and Real Madrid, serve up only a gutless spectacle “littered with people rolling around at every challenge” in games where both sides have ”forgot (sic) about football.”

Inevitably, such a scathing and misguided attack on a footballing culture that has produced the reigning world and European champions, whilst lending itself to accusations of insularity, even xenophobia, is also pretty hollow coming from a native of a nation with only a solitary appearance, 54 years ago, at a major finals. From Pulis inparticular, those words highlight a quite astonishing hypocrisy and an extraordinary poverty of self-awareness. Perhaps the temerity of a man whose team habitually practice a crude appropriation of the game at it’s lowest, most base form decrying sides of infinitely greater aesthetic grace and ability for negating football would be admirable if it wasn’t quite so graphically and so sickeningly abhorrent. But then Pulis isn’t really a man known for his understanding of aesthetics. Just look at him. Tracksuit-clad whilst his trademark bargain-bin baseball cap veils a sharply receding hairline and as with so many men in their 50s, such headwear serves only to suggest the look of someone struggling against terminal illness or a learning difficulty. Either way, his aggressively arched eyebrows imply that whatever the malady, it leaves him scarred by grudge.

Obviously, to suggest that Pulis’ sartorial shoddiness and unfamiliarity with Saville Row undermines his managerial authority would be frivolous yet presenting for work in attire more suited for walking the dog than leading a professional football team is indicative of his place very much in the game’s ‘old-school.’ And Pulis’ Stoke are very, very ‘old-school.’ That is euphemistically to say, dirty, unrefined, uncouth, unimaginative, physical and elephant-man ugly. Essentially, every unflattering but largely substantiated stereotype about British football manifested in one apolyptic nadir of a club. Under Pulis, Stoke have consistently enjoyed less possession than any other Premiership side, which inevitably leads to the team occupying an unflattering position in the fair play rankings. Less possession necessitates more tackling and seemingly above all else, Pulis loves a tackle. Good old British self-proclaimed ‘football men’ are often found rhapsodising upon the noble art of tackling, tellingly a concept that Real Madrid’s cultured Xabi Alonso openly found perplexing during his time at Liverpool, as far from being a last resort, a wild, studs-showing, injury-inducing lunge exhibiting a laissez-faire attitude to actually cleanly winning the ball is the game’s raison d’être for Pulis and his neanderthal ilk. Not that any of his lads are that sort of player, of course.

This all-pervading lust for the primitive stretches to see Rory Delap’s presence on the team-sheet owing more to his ability with the ball in his hands than at his feet. Delap is a central midfielder by trade and as such occupies a territory officially unrecognised by Pulis, as the crass, direct style afflicted upon his team sees the area bypassed by a bludgeoning barrage of aimless, hopeful punts upfield. Incomprehensibly, this coarse philosophy is often praised for the ‘variety’ it engenders, even provoking the infamous rhetoric of cheerfully departed Sky Sports ‘analyst’ Andy Gray, who felt bizarrely moved to question the hypothetical influence of Barcelona’s Argentine genius Lionel Messi on a wet, windy Tuesday night in Stoke. Quite how the prospect of giving cumbersome donkeys of Robert Huth and Andy Wilkinson’s calibre the runaround is meant to intimidate the world’s finest footballer is anyone’s guess and such nonsense serves mostly to strengthen the joy that the boorish boys’ club of the Gray and his hairy-handed, massive-faced misogynistic side-kick Richard Keys no longer stains the nation’s screens.

Nevertheless, for all his obnoxious knuckle-dragging and bombastic alpha-male bravado, Gray’s choice of Stoke for the location of his mistaken musings is telling. Shamelessly physical and boastfully pragmatic in their ‘play to your strengths’ dogma, Stoke’s reliance upon set-pieces and long balls is such that last weekend saw the team surrender 63% of possession to Crawley Town, a side 3 divisions beneath them. That the tie ended with Stoke 2-0 victors is immaterial. Instead, Pulis’ disinterest in actually playing football was exposed even when confronted by a team with a fraction of the budget of supposedly, pedigree of his own. Stoke’s perplexingly plentiful apologists will point to Matthew Etherington and illiterate hoodlum Jermaine Pennant as evidence of Pulis’ partial indulgence of flair but instructing busy wingers to toss the ball into the area at every opportunity is merely an extension of his Reepian preference for playing the percentages rather than a reputation-jarring allowance for expression. The redundancy of more progressive signings such as Eidur Gudjohnsen and Tuncay Sanli speak further of the club’s failure to engage a more nuanced approach whilst the huge fees that secured the combative Wilson Palacios, erratic sometime-target-man Kenwyne Jones and England international striker Peter Crouch, surely signed more for his beanpole 6 ft 7 in frame than the unusually sure touch it accompanies, make clear where the manager’s asinine affections lie.

Still, although Pulis may have a point about El Clasico featuring less football following the toxic tenure of José Mourinho in Madrid, such comments are nevertheless an excruciating embarrassment coming as they do from the least appropriate agent in top level European football. The crux of his criticism however, is far more predictable. In Britain, senseless sensationalism often abounds around the game’s illusory descent into the realms of becoming a ‘non-contact sport.’ That is to say, that crude, ill-timed attempts at maiming an opponent are no longer allowed to pass unpunished, unlike in those glorious halcyon days of yore where hooliganism both on and off the pitch proved an omnipotent footballing supplement. Pulis, discernibly laments the loss of these dark days and is in no doubt as to what has curtailed the blood-lust: diving, or more specifically, diving foreigners. Inevitably, aside from the rather more worrying inferences such a slant suggests, Pulis’ thoughts can clearly be viewed as motivated by rampant self-interest with the aim of creating doubt in the minds of those set to officiate Stoke’s forthcoming fixtures. With his team naturally spending longer stretches chasing possession than those of his competitors, his want for publicly highlighting the perceived evils of exaggeration is explained by the subsequent need for his players to make more tackles and a desire for referees to therefore adopt a more tolerant stance.

Nonetheless, Pulis may be correct in his denunciation of diving as “cheating” but is it really a stronger iniquity than say, the career-threatening challenges of Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross that damaged Francis Jeffers’ ligaments in 2007 or more infamously, inflicted a double leg fracture on Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey? Clearly not. Clumsy, reckless challenges should, undoubtedly, be punished and whilst emphasising contact or feigning injury may be unpaltable, they are only the secondary offence here and besides, victims of mis-timed tackles are under no obligation to stay on their feet for fear of falling foul of what Pulis piously preaches “goes against the grain for British football.” The puritanism is particularly surprising, given Pulis’ position in football’s broad spectrum resides at the polar opposite of romantic, though the blinkered refusal to countenance that natives of these isles are equally inclined to gain a dishonest advantage is ridiculous. Of course, quite whether affronting a culture that produces hypocritical wankers like Tony Pulis should be deemed negative is open to debate.

DC

Bill and Ben, the flowerpot wankers.

After a day like today one does have to wonder how the Tories managed to get elected. They do seem an incredibly incompetent, cack-handed bunch.

Polling has shown that the Tories are losing support in a big way over their NHS reforms, changes designed purely to offer a money-making opportunity to their friends in the for-profit health sector.

As usual follow the Mambo’s golden rule (we’d love to claim copyright but we aren’t that original); follow the money. This list of MPs and Lords financial interests in healthcare gives a demonstration of why these policies are being pursued. The Tories are looking after their mates and returning the favour to those who fund them.

It is as simple as that. The aim of the bill which is becoming an Act in all but name is to introduce market forces even further into healthcare. It will most emphatically not be in the interests of patients. Only the companies making the profits will benefit.  

Hence the groundswell of professional and public opposition to the government’s plans.

Cameron, like a dog with a meaty bone, just won’t let go of them however. He seems to be determined to press on and today’s ‘summit’ with the NHS professional bodies that support (or at least do not publicly oppose) the plans was evidently not a forum for debating the proposals. Apparently we are passed that now. The issue is implementing the changes successfully. They are presented as a fait accompli. The open contempt for the democratic process, as I have remarked before, is simply disgraceful.

Apparently the failure to win universal support amongst the professionals and public is one of communication. If people knew what the government was doing then they couldn’t possibly oppose it. The reforms haven’t been explained ‘clearly’ enough, according to a statement from Downing Street which implicitly blames Lansley for all the trouble. He is being made the scapegoat for something that Cameron is fully signed up to.

Of course the problem for the government is quite the opposite. People know exactly what they are doing.

The condescending arrogance and worship of market dogma on show is breathtaking, and strangely redolent of the government’s position on selling off forests just before they backed down. I’m not so sure they will back down over this though, sady.

Cameron seems determined to brazen it out, whatever the consequences and public embarrassments, and right now the embarrassments seem to be coming thick and fast.

Most notably we have Lansley being heckled and abused by an old lady today. It was great, and his response, smirking like a twat when confronted with real anger, was that of a man who had no answer and in all honesty doesn’t care about the consequences of what he is doing. ‘Winning’ is all that matters to the little prick.

Then we have the reports of what may have happened when Cameron was at the Newcastle Royal Infirmary last week. I need to stress that the version of events I have linked to is hotly disputed by many officials, but if we assume it did happen then Cameron was accosted by a nurse and his response was to flatly ignore her and walk on by. Journalists were not allowed to accompany the PM and patients were not allowed to leave their beds for the duration of the visit. It all sounds like Tony Blair at his worst.

We are often told that George Osborne is a master political strategist. If he has an ounce of political nous then he needs to take the PM to one side and say that he is behaving like a complete dickhead and could be doing his party huge long-term damage with his mule-like stubbornness. Its damage that I of course would naturally love to see inflicted on them but I’d far rather he just dropped this crazy bill and left the NHS well alone. People’s wellbeing, and lives, are literally at stake and right now the government are treating this as some sort of virility test.

As I’ve previously stated on these pages I’m not quite as enthusiastic about Richard Dawkins as I used to be. He is right on most issues but I find some aspects of his politics and methods a little distasteful.

The latest Dawkins-related story however demands complete sympathy for Britain’s leading atheist.

Dawkins has been attacked by the Sunday Telegraph for having ancestors that were slaveowners. According to them it is an “awkward revelation” for the biologist to deal with that nearly three hundred years ago the Dawkins’ were involved in the slave trade.

Why is it awkward? What has it got to with him? Is it his fault that his ancestors were involved in that way? If so, why?

As a piece of journalism it really is the lowest of the low. Dawkins has upset a lot of people recently and they seem determined to throw anything at him, however ridiculous. Trying to imply Dawkins’ moral responsibility for something that happened several hundred years ago is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It is amazing to hear this from the Telegraph of all places too, surely the house journal of those who have lived comfortably on the proceeds of historically ill-gotten wealth.

According to the Guardian report a Telegraph journalist contacted Dawkins and  

“After the reporter quoted the biblical verse about the Lord “visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” Dawkins said he ended the conversation.

However, he said the reporter rang back and suggested Dawkins may have inherited a “slave supporting” gene from his distant relative.”

One can only hope the reporter was taking the piss.

Gutter journalism. And proof that the most ardent defenders of religion tend to be dunces.

Iran and the Iranian regime’s desire for nuclear weapons is a thorny issue for those of us of a vaguely left-wing disposition.

On the one hand we can’t help but be suspicious of any American, Israeli and British government sabre-rattling in the region. They only wish to get rid of a regime that has perversely been the chief beneficiary of the disastrous war in Iraq.

But on the other hand the Iranian regime is simply foul and butchered the left in its thousands in the years after they took power. Supporting Khamenei and Ahmedinejad in the name of “anti-imperialism” is brainless in the extreme.

On the one hand a world free of nuclear weapons would be lovely and it would be very nice if Iran wasn’t seeking to build one.

But on the other you can hardly blame them for doing so, and surely they wouldn’t ever be mad enough to use them first.

Israel, American and Britain have them too, so on what consistent grounds would they deny them to anyone else? The constant rumours of an impending Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites seem motivated more by domestic political opportunism rather than any genuine fear of an Iranian nuclear strike if they developed the weapons and a delivery system.

If all the media reports are to be believed then Israeli is planning a pre-emptive strike in the autumn. There is a feeling in the air that we are now moving in the direction. The Western rhetoric is being ratcheted up and the economic and diplomatic screws gradually tightened on Tehran.

While I am not inclined to think that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to global chaos, as some doom-mongers are predicting, it would surely have pretty grave regional consequences and would surely be counterproductive if the real long-term aim is a nuclear-free Iran and further democracy in the region. An Israeli/US bombing would probably only set Tehran’s nuclear programme back a couple of years and the Iranian regime’s determination to get a nuclear weapon would surely redouble following an attack. Having the ability to strike back with devastating effect would surely deter Israel from anything similar in future……

One gets the feeling that much of the posturing from the Israeli government is domestic political politicking rather than genuine fear of a nuclear-armed Iran. Netanyahu’s apocalyptic language is more a product of his fanatical neoconservatism  than any facts on the ground. I simply don’t accept that a nuclear-armed Iran poses more of a threat to Israeli security than a non-nuclear Iran. If Tehran launched a nuclear attack on Israel they would be signing their own death warrant.

The basic irrationality and likely consequences of military action are leading many in the Israeli defence and security establishment  to oppose an attack. Some quite heavyweight former Israeli military figures have said that they think the exercise would be foolish.

Netanyahu and much of the Israeli political class on the other hand seem determined to launch an attack at some point, and the final decision lies with them.

Here in the West, governments are keen to avoid taking a clear stand for or against bombing. William Hague’s intervention the other day was belligerent in its language about the Iranian government, whilst warning against a rush into conflict, but lacked anything concrete. He is keeping his options open.  

That said the language Hague used was extremely emotive. He talks about a ‘new Cold War’ and arms race in the Middle East if Iran develops nuclear weapons. I’m not sure if the facts actually bear this out, as countries that have nuclear weapons have been notoriously reluctant to use them, thankfully, and I don’t think the Iranian regime would be different. They are extremely obnoxious but they aren’t suicidal.

There is also a slight hint of the colonial mentality running through Hague’s comments too. Surely these mad Arabs can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons…… He is worried about nuclear proliferation in the region. Of course it is worrying. But surely then he should be also directing his criticism at Israel and their large nuclear arsenal? Is that really helping to keep the peace and deter their neighbours from seeking similar weaponry?

And is the belligerent language, sanctions, and likely military action really going to dissuade Iran from seeking to develop the technology that would probably guarantee their immunity from future attack?

In the US there is considerable public and administration support for any possible Israeli strike, and many sections of the Obama administration, whilst preferring the use of sanctions in the short term, seem to have accepted that they aren’t ‘working’  and that the Israelis will launch an attack at some point anyway. Naturally Obama is reluctant, especially in an election year, to unambiguously demand that the Israelis refrain from such a course even though he could easily stop them if he was so inclined.

Even so, senior American officials are warning against precipitate action without ruling it out in the future. Whether that will deter Netanyahu and the Israeli hawks is an open question. On past evidence probably not. The Likud government may act independently and present the action to the Americans as a fait accompli.

Clearly sanctions, as per usual, aren’t having any positive impact on the process. As this excellent article demonstrates (along with a very well-informed general analysis of the situation) the attempt at an economic blockade is effectively shoring up support for a regime that would otherwise probably be in serious trouble right now.

The American/British/Israeli long-term strategy is about regime change, and the replacement regime they have in mind isn’t going to be one that acts in the interests or ordinary Iranians. That’s why it is key, in my humble opinion, to oppose military action, sanctions and the barbaric rule of the Ayatollahs. The Iranians can and will settle matters with their own government in due course as the position of the Iranian government is extremely shaky at best (the Iranian economy would probably be struggling even without sanctions) and only benefits from a belligerent external enemy that they can rally the Iranian people against. The Ayatollahs and Likud, for all the abuse they direct at each other, actually need their ‘enemies’ as without them much of their raison d’être would disappear.