I was the one saying 'Sven-Göran Eriksson was the best England manager we have had for years.' He lost only 5 competitive games. his popularity had declined when England inexplicably failed to win the world cup in 2002. But not for me. I still backed him.
Even when Eriksson's England team lost a World Cup qualifying match against Northern Ireland 1–0, the first time that England had lost to that team since 1972, it was a 'don't panic' message from me.
So, I was the almost loan voice in the UK still suggesting many years after it was acceptable, to stick with Ericksson. That was despite two press attempts to remove him. One that only a rumoured squad strike prevented. But I still thought, correctly as it turned out, that a replacement would do no better. Probably even worse.
With Hodgson, I was concerned from day one. He'd had a good season, for sure. And been steady enough for decades. But was that really enough? A safe appointment ?
He certainly stated well enough. Win upon win. So benefit of the Quango doubt given again.
But he didn't face any real tests. It was all very easy. Easy qualifiers in easy groups with easy friendlies. Looking much better than perhaps he was.
Still, why change a winning team? Even if it was a mixture of those past their prime and those too inexperienced to be relied upon.
Same with Dave Cameron. Long after it became apparent he wasn't going to win us the world cup either, I was personally still suggesting he was better than whoever else was available. He may have had only an extra time win against the Broons, and a 1-0 against the Miliband, it was still better than expected. And the performances overall were solid enough.
But he went, with 'good riddance' from the many ringing in his ears.
I would have preferred Johnson to succeed him. Even with his enourmous baggage train. And the rift his premiership would have brought. i thought better to have the war during the actual war. Rather than an insurgency of Remain for years and years.
But Boris managed to knife everyone. Including himself. And, if the Shipman book is correct, largely through lack of attention to detail, carelessness, a poor team around him and a large slice of bad luck.
So, TRESemmé it was. She was given the Quango 'benefit of the doubt'. But others on here were not at all convinced. She may have been the best of a bad bunch, but that didn't make her good. Just, less bad.
Theresa May. Tessa May.
TRESemmé.
With May, 10 months after her rise to the top, I already think she should be gone as soon as it is practically possible. No replacement could do as badly as she has done. She hasn't got the benefit of the doubt.
Neither Johnson nor Gove would have lost a majority. Not Davis. Not even the, for some baffling reason, hotly tipped Rudd. Not Hammond and not even lightweight Leadsom would have lost the majority. Not even 'Chancer' Fox.
She was playing a final match, against Corbyn, for a place at the Euros.
CORBYN.
That means a solid 2-0 expected to see her through.
A 5-0 against such poor and part time opposition, was wildly predicted by the press.
The fans would have been happy with a good 3-1 to raise the spirits for the coming tournament.
One-Nil would have done in reality. Just to get to the actual upcoming event.
Instead we got a dismal 0-0.
And even that wasn't the whole story. Players injured. Players sent off. Red cards awarded. A dressing room split. A team line-up that baffled everyone. Star players left on the bench. No understanding of the opponents strengths and weaknesses. Players playing out of position. No tactical sense of how to beat the opposition.
No plan B, when plan A started to go wrong. Just a long ball up to the front and a hope somehow that it goes in.
And a very worrying feeling, that they might be weak and inferior opposition, but they have turned up to win. And we haven't.
When responding after the game she revealed she hadn't even brought her regular back room staff along for this crucial match. Instead she was using a new strategy for the election. Formulated in complete secrecy and never tried on the training grounds. By her two closest and youngest advisers.
You can't win anything with kids.
15 comments:
Don't hold back, tell us what you really think!!
Awesomely accurate!
Who is corbyn though I wonder? Is it Kevin Keegan - the popular but hopeless loser?
The Google motto is to fail faster, and to fail often.
The catch is to learn from your mistaiks, something the current bunch of Tories seem to have overlooked.
You forget though Bill....we didn't have the choice of keeping Dave as he ran away when he didn't get the result he wanted. I agree we would have been better off keeping him. Did anyone try to persuade him to stay?
This seems as good a place as any to ask something that's been bothering me
for a while.
What does the Conservative Party think it is for?
Jeremy Corbyn's party clearly represents the interests of the beneficiaries of
public spending and of virtue-signaling, metropolitan, champagne socialists.
And the lefty answer to my question is that the Conservatives represent "the
rich" - with a side order of conning enough votes out of the gullible to
secure a majority.
But what is the Conservative answer? If the party thinks it represents, say,
"working people" or "tax-payers" or whatever, then wouldn't it be a good idea
to start doing things that a) benefit those people and b) encourage other
people to join that group while c) discouraging growth of the groups that
support Corbyn?
I naively thought that it should be possible to figure out what the
Conservative party is for by watching what it does - but it turns out I
can't.
YDG: as stated the other day I reckon that right now, for practical purposes the Conservative Party doesn't exist
symptom: there is no-one that could walk into CCHQ or the '22 and say OK, this is what we're going to do and raise any response beoyond a scepitcal eyebrow
it's just baronial factions, circling and waiting
good point YDG - it is a poltical grouping which has no raison d'etre. Historically good at winning elections it has been ensnared by various sub groups but is not coherent. Still enough of a brand and organisation to destroy any challengers to it on the "right".
Andrea Leadsom has the knack of saying the right thing in the wrong way.
Yes we should pull together over Brexit
Yes a childless PM doesn't necessarily have the emotional capital to relate to the public and their fears.
May comes over as disconnected and out of touch and the longer she is there the more damage is being done. She doesn't represent core values but some distorted sort of Victorian daughter of the manse. Very like the last days of Brown.
Why can't we get real people who have had real jobs and know about the life as practiced every day by 60+mn people in this country.
If ever the men in suits were needed, they are needed now.
Anon - real people would not touch the shitshow that is politics with a stick. Look at the grief Labour supporting Alan Sugar gets even.
Normal people in my experience do not seek fame either, being able to identify it correctly as the faustian deal that it is.
So we get 2nd and 3rd raters instead.
anon@5.36 - Ask for a suit and you get Sajid Javid, 'nuff said.
Thanks Nick.
I take your point about the Conservative party as it is right now. I was groping towards a question (that I still can't state very well) about the longer term purpose of the party - something like what the various local party groupings would agree on, not just this month, but over the longer term. The central choice in British politics seems to be between one party that has a very clear sense of self - one that is stupid, vindictive and hypocritical, but clear - and a Conservative party that doesn't seem to know what it wants.
I fear Hovis may be right - a party that is whatever it takes to win more than it loses. Tactically astute but strategically blind.
YDG - when I first joined the Party (a few decades ago) the constitution said (and maybe still does)
membership is open to anyone who opposes Socialism and Communism
- in short, defined negatively! but conservatives are intrinsically un-doctrinaire, so what else can you do?
(inside, of course, there lurk plenty of doctrinaire factions ...)
It seems that President Trump has chosen Macron's respectful France over May's inhospitable Britain. So it's not just her majority she lost - with it goes a confident Brexit.
The Tory Party should have split decades ago. It will never see a significant majority again. Because of it we are facing a perilously half hearted Brexit - I now see that.
Peter Hitchens was right. To leave the EU we first needed the party with the full conviction and discipline to lead us out of it having tamed the BBC first.
Calm down E-K, it wasn't so long ago that Blair ruled and we thought we'd never see a Tory admin again - of course we were right, we got "the heir to Blair" himself.
If you want to be really depressed, read Max Hastings on the new QE battleship, seemingly designed for our 21st century needs - hi-tech bombing of assorted Middle East and African countries, while the invasion armadas pour across the Med and the small headline on p4 tells us "13,489 refugees rescued yesterday".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4645434/Pride-Britain-HMS-Queen-Elizabeth-6bn-blunder.html
"The Navy’s website today lists the types of warships it owns — frigates, minehunters, destroyers and so on — but wisely does not give their respective numbers, because these are so embarrassing: it has just 19 significant surface vessels, together with some submarines and small craft.
Most sailors are privately as miserable about the burden the carriers impose on them as are soldiers and airmen. Yet the political cost of adopting the most rational course — sailing the QE into the North Sea and opening its seacocks to let the water flood in — is deemed unacceptable."
Y Ddraig Goch "What does the Conservative Party think it is for?"
I've reached the conclusion that the party is for winning power. I see fuck all else that it offers to those of us who are sound of brain and principle.
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