"We have put down the placards, and picked up the reins of power"

That was Nick Clegg's rallying call to his Liberal Democrat party yesterday, reported by the BBC here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12720315

It was an evocative choice of words as public opinion of the Lib Dems continues to angrily plummett.

They have gone back on their manifesto promises on cuts and tuition fees. They have tried to shift focus on to electoral reform - though even that has come with concessions to their Tory masters.

Barely a word is uttered now about the Proportional Representation that they actually favour. Instead we have a referendum on the Alternative Vote system - this is far from the same thing, and it is not what the Lib Dems really believe in.

I refer you to Chris Huhne MP, who surmises this better than I can:

http://www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Liberal_Democrats_will_fight_for_proportional_representation_says_Huhne&pPK=700bb819-e9c5-443f-9d77-8612c33044fa

But who cares what they believe in. They have "put down" their beliefs and "picked up" their role in the Coalition Government.

That, it seems, is Nick Clegg's real message to his party: forget your principles, it's all about power.

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Life in the words of....

"
This is my book, and this is how it reads
A documentary that nobody believes

Ginger Elvis Presley looked a fraction sad
Roaming the whole town from bin to bin
But living on the street isn't all that bad
Where no-one seems to that he's the King

Half an hour is seven hours
A year could be a decade, spent alone

You had a little time and you had a little fun
Didn't you?

You cheapened and you nastied every woman in this land
But you're so handy

Like pink lipstick on a 5 year old girl
It makes you think that it's a plastic world...
A plastic world and we're all plastic too
Just a couple of different faces in a dead man's queue

I want my sundrenched, windswept Ingrid Bergman kiss
And not in the next life
I want it in this

But if... If you choose
That we must always lose
Well then I'll sail this ship alone
Between the sharks and the treasure
I'll sail this ship alone
Through the pain and the pleasure

Your name is always mentioned in the jokes and cracks
Your Coach & Horses and your Woolpacks

They have the vocal chords of elephants
And the characters of mice

Good as gold, stupid as mud
They carry on regardless

I wrote this song for you

Let love speak up itself....
Let it rise up in the morning and take us for a walk
And let it do the talking
When we're too tired to talk

We are eachother

And... Now my face looks like a map of the town
And my teeth are either yellow or they're brown
But you'll never hear the crack of a frown when you are here
You'll never hear the crack of a frown
"
All quoted, in bits and pieces, from Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray (the Beautiful South). The OST of my life! Angry / nostalgic montage. Lol.

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Sailing this ship alone

So that's it. It's over. My ex-girlfriend has told me that she no longer wants to keep in touch.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it did.

We haven't seen eachother since before Christmas. We broke up last summer. We don't talk on the phone. We are not friends on Facebook.

I shouldn't miss her, as a friend, but I will.

I will miss little things. Texts asking how I am doing. Someone to text when I am down, or angry. Knowing that someone out there cares. Little things are important, sometimes.

I should be over missing her as a girlfriend and, in many ways, I am. I am still notalgic though, for the good times we had. We both know that the bad ones outweighed them. Still, we had something special and I choose to remember that first.

I choose to remember the first date. I choose to remember the first kiss. I choose to remember the Sea-life Centre. I hope she remembers that too.

The bad stuff is personal and, I think, it can stay that way. Let's both forget it.

I'll refer to the soundtrack of my life here - the Beautiful South back catalogue - and i'll say that, if you want to know how I feel, listen to I'll Sail This Ship Alone. If ever any song summed up any man's feelings at any time, this is it for me, now.

You might listen to it and think it is hopelessly depressive. It's not. The song is about love and loss, yes. But it is also about dealing with it, and moving on. Love and loss is easier because, normally, there is no element of choice. It's the moving on that's hard.

Don't worry though. I will.

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Disgrace!

It's a disgrace! That's the resounding sentiment of Tweeters, Facebookers and general disgruntled Englanders.

The reality? England have lost. England have lost to Bangladesh. England could go out of the World Cup.

Of course, England have had a mammoth winter of touring. England have won The Ashes on Australian soil for the first time in a billion years. England have made great strides under Andy Flower.

None of this matters. They lost to Bangladesh. Disgrace!

Ok. It's sensationalist. It's unfair. It's lacking in context, balance and grace. But, nevertheless, it is the overriding public opinion. It is also, to an extent, what makes sport interesting. Or, at least, what makes it newsworthy. But only to an extent.

Sport, really, should be about excellence and competitiveness: two traits which England seem currently to be lacking.

Why? The gruelling touring schedule. An obscene number of one day games. An unrelenting hunger for more and more cricket - not from the players, but from the consumers.

For sport, like any other commercial asset, is now an item of consumption. No wonder the players are jaded.

Kevin Pietersen went home a few days ago. Andy Flower, through diplomatic lips, vented his dissatisfaction at this (read Mike Atherton's piece in The Times).

But Pietersen probably just doesn't care that much. He's both over-worked and over-paid - a mind-boggling combination, for us mere mortals. But consider this: the press build you up as a star, you earn a fortune; you are dragged around the world to play in seemingly infinite and often meaningless games, and every stroke of your bat, and every word you utter, is under the most extreme scrutiny.

Wouldn't you ever feel like just walking away?

Of course that's wrong. Millions of honest Englanders would kill for KP's life. He should honour the badge. But, if you treat people like commodities, they will often start to behave accordingly.

If sport could go back, which it can't, perhaps we could see real men, real passion and real competition once more.

That won't happen, but there are compensations: the technical ability of players, driven by intensified training and higher prizes, is higher than ever before; the television coverage, driven by technology and consumerism, is more interactive and illuminating; the press coverage is, it pains me to admit, more interesting.

But the highlights of my cricketing spectatorship have been the Darren Goughs and the Freddie Flintoffs. The flawed everymans who give a shit. Though their bodies were broken by the intensity of consumer-sport's demanding schedules, their spirits were never quelled.

That's what sport should really be about but, sadly, it is now akin to mere old-fashioned sentimentalism. The Brave New World of sport often has too little time for such trifles.

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Hague blunder leaves Cameron red-faced

"How would you welcome new neighbours to your street?" asked the Shadow Home Secretary, Douglas Alexander. "Would you ring their doorbell, or climb over the back garden fence?"

That about sums up the mess William Hague has made of his "diplomatic mission" to Libya. It started with errors: no communication with the rebel leaders; poor military advice. It ended with a "serious misunderstanding" which could have cost British lives.

Under the cross-examination of his fellow MPs, Hague more closely resembled a child sulking on the naughty step than one of the UK's most senior politicians. Head bowed, he had little defence as MPs took turns to dissect the Foreign Secretary's "serial bungling".

"Ill-conceived, poorly planned and embarrassingly executed," former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell surmised.

It is the latest in a series of headaches for Prime Minister David Cameron, who is already on the back-foot over Prince Andrew's role as UK Trade Envoy, after revelations about his links to a convicted sex offender.

It is not the first time Hague has caused embarrassment for the Conservatives. During his spell as Party Leader he famously claimed to have drunk 14 pints a night in his youth - a comment which drew ridicule, rather than the street cred he may have hoped for.

Nevertheless, Cameron backed Hague by appointing him to one of the most senior positions in the Coalition Cabinet. At such a crucial point in the Libyan crisis, he might have expected a better return on that show of faith.

Watch Hague's explanation of events on the BBC Website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9417000/9417033.stm

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The Alternative View: £50m flop?

The Alternative View: £50m flop?: "It's ridiculous, I know. To write off any player after two games, irrelevant of price, is extraordinarily short-sighted. Nevertheless, two..."

£50m flop?

It's ridiculous, I know. To write off any player after two games, irrelevant of price, is extraordinarily short-sighted.

Nevertheless, two games in to his Chelski career and that's the sort of talk that Fernando Torres is going to have to start getting used to. Unless he starts scoring bucket-loads of goals. Fast.

That is the nature of football support in this country, driven to extremes of opinion by tabloid head-linery.

That Torres is thoroughly proven both internationally and, crucially, in the Premier League matters little. His price-tag alone makes him a target for the hounds. Two goalless games. Two early substitutions. Questions over whether he and Didier Drogba can co-exist. The air is thick with the scent of Torres' blood.

It is not Torres' fault that Chelski are floundering in 5th. It is not even really Carlo Ancelloti's, but the boss must be aware of Roman Abramovich's managerial scythe looming over him.

If any one man at the club is to blame, it is Abramovich himself. His Chelski Empire is built upon the fragile foundations of short-termism. If your team is short of goals, buy a superstar striker. If you're leaking goals, write another cheque. There's no need to worry about youth development or squad togetherness. If a player fails he can be replaced.

If you are the richest team in the land this might work, to an extent. Chelski have won trophies. However, they have not dominated the league as Abramovich might have foreseen. And, crucially, they have not won the Champions League.

This season, they have slipped behind Manchester City and Spurs, who have both taken to splurging on superstars too. Chelski's reaction? The biggest splurge in British football history on their new main man, Torres.

Because one superstar player will, they hope, paper over the cracks of a squad that's too old, too one-dimensional and too mercenary. If that fails I guess Plan B is the equally unimaginative Sack the Manager approach - followed by bringing in the biggest name boss with the biggest salary demands and the biggest magic wand. That'll do the trick. In the short-term. Maybe.

At present, neither Chelski nor City nor Spurs, in spite of their spending, are quite capable of keeping pace with Manchester United or Arsenal in the league table.

Manchester United and Arsenal - squads littered with developing young players; clubs with hard-coded cultures of professionalism and teamwork; managers who have had four decades between them with solid platforms on which to build their legacies.

Player development from the grass-roots up. The board's patient backing, even through the tough times. Long-term economic viability. These are legacies that will last.

When the bottom drops out of football's current mad-money climate, which it inevitably must, it is United and Arsenal who will be best placed to remain at the peak of English football.

What will happen to the likes of Chelsea is a much darker prospect.

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