Caving In

It is now less than a year to the next General Election and the main political parties are already manoeuvring to present the parties in the best possible lights come poling day..  Fair enough, you may say but presentation is all about spin these days.  David Cameron wants to win the next election outright for the Tories — I suspect there will be much reduced Lib-Dem members to lend their support — and to do this he has thought it a good time to have a government re-shuffle.  In general, the only people who think re-shuffles either important or a good thing are those in the Westminster village. Half the cabinet are unknown and obscure to most of the public  so mixing them up a bit does not lead to much reaction out on the streets.  This latest re-shuffle by Cameron has gone further than most people expected and I think Cameron will come to regret his actions.  It is a re-shuffle based on surface appearances rather than substance.  There are, I think, only 39 women MPs in the Tory Party, yet 25 of them are, strangely, now suited to ministerial office.  Most of them are young, look pretty, are almost totally lacking in experience, but will look good on TV..  

Some changes were sensible and inevitable.  Ken Clark has said for some time that he was going to retire and will not stand at the next election. So he will have 10 months on the back benches.  William Hague has had enough of politics and will also stand down at the election.  He has been an experienced hand on the tiller but, I suspect he has found time spent in endless meetings that achieve nothing is a waste of his time, A problem that must be especially true with the European Union, where no meeting can ever decide anything more momentous than the date of the next meeting.  Additionally, in government, there must be whole armies of middle-aged men who never will be missed but they did their jobs.  Now they are to be replaced by telegenic bimbos who are even more obscure than the people they replace.  Some of them will be good at their jobs but when the prime objective is to put in place somebody who will look good on TV, the trivialization of politics is complete.  How can we have confidence in a government that is little more than a branding and marketing exercise.

But of all the changes in this sorry spin, the worst by far is the sacking of Michael Gove as Education Secretary.  Within minutes, the teaching unions were gloating and branding this as a great victory for the unions — and it is.  Here was a man determined to set off down the road to reform education, re-establish standards of learning and get our kids educated, able to perform as well as the children in the best schools in Europe and the Far East.  Of course, he got up the backs of the teaching unions — organisations that are less than valueless when it comes to educational standards.  It is pure Sir Humphrey.  Keep the unions happy and the kids under-stressed, while we educate our children privately!  Certainly it is OK in cabinet stuffed with Old Etonians.  Sacking Michael Gove on the advice of Cameron's electoral spin doctor is bad, bad, bad.  He was the most radical Education Secretary since WWII, and has tried his best to improve standards in schools, while being opposed totally by the unions, the beans and sandals Lefties, the parliamentary opposition and the Guardianistas of Britain.  A motley crew that I would not trust to train the dog.

Next year I have to decide who to vote for in the General Election.  Now there is no-one 

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Record Breaking at Trent Bridge

Today is the day of the football World Cup Final.  Yesterday in the match to decide the bronze medal, Holland beat Brazil 3 - 0.  Those last two games have been soul destroying for the nation of Brazil.  Secure in the knowledge of their expertise in this game they were confident of their abilities and would win the World Cup on home territory.  This left them oblivious to their team's failings when they were less than impressive in some of the qualifying games and were absolutely atrocious when they were defeated 7 - 1 by Germany.  They were little better against Holland and spent a lot of time diving about the field trying to engineer penalties and free-kicks.  Above all, they suffered from.complacency and were prone to bouts of unconnected ramblings around the field.  Most of their players play in Europe and hardly ever play together — but they were still atrocious.  The Brazilians are not used to such disastrous performances and the fans were in tears.  . 

On the other hand, we have come to expect our footballers to be useless, overpaid, arrogant, failing prima-donas led by donkeys and they, ever anxious not to be found wanting, oblige.  We can take it on the chin, in preparation for the next disaster.  In recent times we have got quite good at many sports — except football — but this has not been our best year.  We had a fabulous time at the most successful Olympics in history and we won the Tour de France for the second time in 2 years but after that it was all downhill.  The rugby team is getting better and they may do OK at the World Cup — but it is over ten years since we won it.

And then there is the cricket team.  We have beaten the Aussies several times — and that is the main thing.  We went off to Australia last winter, full of confidence, odds-on favourites to give the Aussies another thrashing.  In the event, we were in trouble from day one and ended suffering a 5 - 0 humiliation.  A return to normalcy, said the Aussies.  We were beginning to feel confident about the cricketers but they came back well-beaten and needing to sort out what was wrong.  They lost the three match series in England against Sri Lanka — giving the visitors their first ever series win in England.  Pretty bad that.  Now we are playing the Indians and that was not going too well either in the first test at Trent Bridge — Nottingham.  The Indians compiled 457 runs in their first innings and then England laboured to 352 for 9 at the end of the third day. 

The last batsman had come in when the score was 298, so the last pair had already added 54 runs.  Nevertheless, things were not looking good with England still more than 100 runs short of the Indian total.  On day four Joe Root came out with England's No.11 batsman James Anderson to see if they could add a few more before they had to start getting the Indians out again.

But then we had some magic and the record books were shattered.  James Anderson played the innings of his life.  He stayed there for 230 minutes, scored 81 runs and when he was out England were on 496, 39 runs ahead of the Indians.  Root, NO 154, and Anderson had put on 198 rune for the tenth wicket — a record in all test cricket.  In the last test against Sri Lanka, Anderson batted in the second innings for 81 minutes without scoring trying to get England a draw.  He was out on the next to last ball of the match.  He had tried so hard to save England and he felt that he had failed everyone.  It would be churlish to suggest that Anderson was only put in this position by the failings of higher order batsmen but, nevertheless, he was in tears as he walked off. Today was going to be different.  This was the first time that Anderson had ever exceeded 50 in an innings in test cricket. Yet in making these runs he played some strokes which Geoff Boycott said he would have been proud of making himself. He posted the highest score ever by an English No.11 batsman, the longest ever innings by a No.11 batsman in all tests [230 minutes and almost one hour longer than the previous record].  Interestingly, the previous record for a tenth wicket partnership was also set at Trent Bridge — in 2013, when Philip Hughes and Ashtong Agar scored 163 for Australia against England.  Has this wicket got some peculiar properties that make it very suitable for No 11 batsman?

On what is still a flat lifeless pitch, this morning India have reached 211 for the loss of 6 wickets.  If England can get these last four batsmen out quickly, they may yet win this match and that would be a real triumph.  More likely is a draw.

But I hope that the Germans thrash Argentina!

Good Luck lads.

Later :

The Cricket ended as a tame draw but Germany did beat Argentina, if only by the one goal.

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An Ambassador Retires

Many years ago, I had a very close friend in university whose mother lived in a beautiful dormi-bungalow in Cheltenham.  I went there many times to stay.  For all the times that I visited there, the family car was a 1957 Morris Oxford.  The Morris Oxford had been the mainstay of the mid-size family car made by Morris before they became part of Austin-Morris and BMC and finally British Leyland.  The car was hardly revolutionary in design but it was always a reliable workhorse.  The distinctive feature of the 1958 model was the sculpted bonnet. It had leather upholstery, a bench front seat and a column gear changer.  Like all such gear changes, the linkages had lots of slack and finding gears was sometimes a hit and miss affair.  But you got used to it and all-in-all for its time it was a good car

Then they started to build the Morris Oxford in India, called it the Ambassador and the car carried on being made virtually unchanged for more than 50 years.  The total production must have run into millions.  The Ambassadors were extensively used as taxis but also for carrying families and all their possessions the length and breadth of India.  Even today there are still 30,000 Ambassador taxis in Calcutta alone.  It had its idiosyncrasies but the Indians got over these with a smile and a few oily or damp rags.  But now it has been announced that production of the Ambassador will cease in the next few months.  It is, after all, an ancient design but it fundamental reliability and robust strength have endeared in to many an Indian family.  Over the years they have carried prime ministers and presidents and carried on when many a lesser vehicle failed completely in the Indian heat and monsoon weather.  It will be a long time before the last one retires but what a glorious history for any motor car. .

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Brazil In Trouble

Today I was firming up on my designs for my master bedroom.  Hopefully I can agree all the details with the suppliers by Thursday and they can go ahead.  

The Tour de France having left behind Le Cote de Blubberhouses and other Peaks in Yorkshire, is now back on Le Continent and will remain there until the finale in Paris.  But whatever happens in this extraordinary sporting spectacle, nothing will compare with the events during the three days in England.  We gave them everything.  Most people in the South of England know little of Yorkshire; the French even less.  And in two days of glorious sunshine Yorkshire showed itself to the world and embraced everything of the Tour de France.  The crowds were absolutely massive — estimated about 2.5 million on each of the two days in Yorkshire and the helicopter showed the fantastic scenery, the glorious buildings, the towns and villages, the literary heritage, and the industrial buildings.  The organisers were gob-smacked by the response and the vast crowds.  Some of the riders reported goose-bumps as they endured the noise and squeezed their way through the walls of people.  And the racing was not bad either.  I was able to realise just how good these bike riders are as athletes as they surged up the cobbled main street of Howarth — Bronte country — a street which I know from direct experience is seriously steep.  They had a genuine sprint finish on the day, which unfortunately left Mark Cavendish badly injured lying on the floor, before he was taken to hospital and eliminated from the race. On day 2 the finish was on a half-a-mile of very steep road in Sheffield — Jenkin Road — which provided a terrific struggle among hill climbers and the top men to keep their places — it was like the Pyrenees. Could we have imagined such a scene?  On day 3 there was a stage form Cambridge across Essex and some beautiful English villages and more vast crowds before another big sprint finish on The Mall in London in the pouring rain.  We had to give them some rain so that they would know that they had been in England in summer.  All in all, it was epic and there is no doubt that the organisers will want to come back here again.  Congrats to all concerned in putting on this spectacle in England.

Meanwhile today in Brazil, Germany inflicted a staggering defeat on the home team in the World Cup semi-final  They won 7 - 1.  The Brazilians supporters are in shock and many were in tears.  But their team were abysmal in a way that only teams like England can aspire to.  They were atrocious and at half-time when they were already five goals down, they were booed off the field.  The booing was not quite so bad at the end because a lot of supporters had left or were sitting on the ground and crying.  It is difficult now not to make Germany favourites for this World Cup.

Good Luck Netherlands, tomorrow.

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