Few who attended the Division One match between Oxford United and Manchester United twenty years ago this week (myself included), could have predicted that they were witnessing the start of a new era in English football.
Especially as Oxford eased to a 2-0 victory to leave their opponents firmly entrenched in the relegation zone.
Man United's new manager, despite losing his first match in charge, was up-beat in the post- match press conference. "We'll work at it. We'll get things right," he promised. He certainly kept his word.
Here's my assessment of Sir Alex Ferguson's twenty years at Old Trafford, from today's First Post.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=1054
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Stick to the stage, dear boy.....
Noted thespian Jeremy Irons regurgitates all the old, tired anti-capital punishment chestnuts in his Times Thunderer column today. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-2429214,00.html
While slipping in the compulsory reference to Derek Bentley, (now that it's been proved beyond any doubt that James Hanratty, that other cause celebre of the abolitionists WAS guilty)- he neglects to mention that thanks to DNA referencing, the chances of executing the wrong person are now around 1 billion to one.
He also claims that "in the US, executions and high murder rates go hand in hand"- when in fact strong evidence exists to show a direct correlation between the use of capital punishment and a decline in murder rates.
Irons also claims that capital punishment of murderers "appears to lead to a lowering of the threshold of general respect for life." Is he seriously suggesting that "general respect for life" is higher in Britain today than it was back in the 1950s, when we still executed our murderers? Our rapidly spiralling homicide rate strongly suggests otherwise.
While slipping in the compulsory reference to Derek Bentley, (now that it's been proved beyond any doubt that James Hanratty, that other cause celebre of the abolitionists WAS guilty)- he neglects to mention that thanks to DNA referencing, the chances of executing the wrong person are now around 1 billion to one.
He also claims that "in the US, executions and high murder rates go hand in hand"- when in fact strong evidence exists to show a direct correlation between the use of capital punishment and a decline in murder rates.
Irons also claims that capital punishment of murderers "appears to lead to a lowering of the threshold of general respect for life." Is he seriously suggesting that "general respect for life" is higher in Britain today than it was back in the 1950s, when we still executed our murderers? Our rapidly spiralling homicide rate strongly suggests otherwise.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
He doesn't just talk rubbish, he is rubbish
We always knew that the self-regarding Environment Minister (and former Minister at the Foreign Office), Ben Bradshaw, has a tendency to talk rubbish. But as the Mail on Sunday disclosed today, he's a pretty rubbishy guy all round.
Word Service interview, 23rd March 2003
Is the British Government's war aim based on regime change, weapons or any other motive?
Ben Bradshaw: "The British Government is totally consistent in this. We have based our justification on international law and UN resolutions on Saddam's illegal possession of weapons of mass destruction.
What will the UK Government do if you do not find any weapons of mass destruction?
Ben Bradshaw: "I'm very confident that we will [find weapons of mass destruction]
What do you say to the charge that the current actions of the Coalition are destroying the UN?
Ben Bradshaw: "I think there's a problem with the United Nations Security Council.We had the fascist dictator Milosevic in the Balkans running rampage for many years with the UN doing nothing".
On Monday 23rd October 2006, Ben Bradshaw told BBC Radio 4's You And Yours programme:
"If local councils are going to the trouble of making it easier for people by providing a kerbside recycling collection service, it really is rather irresponsible of people to abuse that service or not to use it.
Not only are they contributing to climate change unnecessarily but they are increasing the council tax bills of their neighbours. By failing to recycle they are increasing their local authority's costs and therefore putting pressure on council tax bills of all the other people who are acting responsibly."
Last Thursday, two white sacks left outside the Minister's home contained no fewer than 17 items that should have been recycled. Two days earlier, two orange sacks contained numerous non-recyclable items.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=413188&in_page_id=1770
Word Service interview, 23rd March 2003
Is the British Government's war aim based on regime change, weapons or any other motive?
Ben Bradshaw: "The British Government is totally consistent in this. We have based our justification on international law and UN resolutions on Saddam's illegal possession of weapons of mass destruction.
What will the UK Government do if you do not find any weapons of mass destruction?
Ben Bradshaw: "I'm very confident that we will [find weapons of mass destruction]
What do you say to the charge that the current actions of the Coalition are destroying the UN?
Ben Bradshaw: "I think there's a problem with the United Nations Security Council.We had the fascist dictator Milosevic in the Balkans running rampage for many years with the UN doing nothing".
On Monday 23rd October 2006, Ben Bradshaw told BBC Radio 4's You And Yours programme:
"If local councils are going to the trouble of making it easier for people by providing a kerbside recycling collection service, it really is rather irresponsible of people to abuse that service or not to use it.
Not only are they contributing to climate change unnecessarily but they are increasing the council tax bills of their neighbours. By failing to recycle they are increasing their local authority's costs and therefore putting pressure on council tax bills of all the other people who are acting responsibly."
Last Thursday, two white sacks left outside the Minister's home contained no fewer than 17 items that should have been recycled. Two days earlier, two orange sacks contained numerous non-recyclable items.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=413188&in_page_id=1770
Friday, October 27, 2006
Today's Perle Nominee: Andrew Roberts
No, not the fiery West Indies fast bowler of the 1970s, but the man who is to history what Tommy Cooper was to magic. Andrew is the undisputed winner of The Most Stupid Historical Analogy Award for his attempts to compare the "threat" posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with its mitten-wearing Dads Army and one and a half Scuds, to that posed by the Third Reich at its terrible peak. Good luck with your new book and tv series, Andrew.
http://hnn.us/comments/8816.html#ROBERTS
February 2003.
"This is not another Suez crisis, for the obvious and straightforward reasons that the west is not today trying to recapture anything for itself, that Egypt posed no military threat to the Nato allies in 1956 and that the British government is pursuing its ends openly through the UN, at least initially, rather than through collusion. Moreover, the people of Egypt were fully in support of Nasser, whereas the moment a US-led invasion of Iraq is successful, the full extent of the Iraqi people's fear and hatred of Saddam will immediately become evident.
No, the situation is far closer to the late 1930s, when a fascist dictator stealthily acquired weapons of mass destruction - the Luftwaffe's bombing arm - and attempted to acquire nuclear weapons, too.
For Churchill, his apotheosis came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it will come when Iraq is successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction are unearthed from where they have been hidden by Saddam's henchmen.
They must have hidden them pretty well, Andrew........
http://hnn.us/comments/8816.html#ROBERTS
February 2003.
"This is not another Suez crisis, for the obvious and straightforward reasons that the west is not today trying to recapture anything for itself, that Egypt posed no military threat to the Nato allies in 1956 and that the British government is pursuing its ends openly through the UN, at least initially, rather than through collusion. Moreover, the people of Egypt were fully in support of Nasser, whereas the moment a US-led invasion of Iraq is successful, the full extent of the Iraqi people's fear and hatred of Saddam will immediately become evident.
No, the situation is far closer to the late 1930s, when a fascist dictator stealthily acquired weapons of mass destruction - the Luftwaffe's bombing arm - and attempted to acquire nuclear weapons, too.
For Churchill, his apotheosis came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it will come when Iraq is successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction are unearthed from where they have been hidden by Saddam's henchmen.
They must have hidden them pretty well, Andrew........
No civil liberties for pipe-smokers
A couple of months back Venichka, one of the few sane commenters on the webblog 'Harry's Place', put up a post on the Pipe Club of Beirut and the club's sterling efforts to keep proceedings going as normal as possible during the Israeli bombardment.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/08/10/
briars_under_fire.php
Back home, pipe smokers face not the bombs of the Israeli air force- but Patricia Hewitt's draconian ban on smoking in public places, due to come into force next summer. The ban means that pipe smoking contests, such as the Norfolk Pipe Club's annual championship, which attracts smokers from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, will most probably be consigned to history. Nice work from a politician who was once an officer for the National Council of Civil Liberties.
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=57518&sort=1&sparte=4
Former winner Keith Garrard said: "We are looking at alternatives like having an open sided marquee but in all likelihood it looks like this will be the last competition. I think the ban is over the top... we can't go outside and have a quick smoke."
"Over the top" is expressing it far too mildly, Keith. "Fascistic" would be a far better word.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/08/10/
briars_under_fire.php
Back home, pipe smokers face not the bombs of the Israeli air force- but Patricia Hewitt's draconian ban on smoking in public places, due to come into force next summer. The ban means that pipe smoking contests, such as the Norfolk Pipe Club's annual championship, which attracts smokers from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, will most probably be consigned to history. Nice work from a politician who was once an officer for the National Council of Civil Liberties.
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=57518&sort=1&sparte=4
Former winner Keith Garrard said: "We are looking at alternatives like having an open sided marquee but in all likelihood it looks like this will be the last competition. I think the ban is over the top... we can't go outside and have a quick smoke."
"Over the top" is expressing it far too mildly, Keith. "Fascistic" would be a far better word.
How we know the war lobby lied over WMD
Stephen Pollard and Melanie Phillips, in common with other supporters of the Iraq war, would like us to believe that Bush and Blair honestly believed Iraq possessed WMD.
There's only one word which can be said in response to their claim. (Here's a clue: it rhymes with 'Rollocks'.)
Although we'll never find a signed memo from either Bush or Blair saying "Of course I know Iraq doesn't have WMD, but we've got to invent something," there is neverthless incontrovertible evidence that both men were lying. Namely, that having read the various dossiers and intelligence reports, they took our countries to war. Here's my 2004 piece from The Australian.
THE AUSTRALIAN:
We know the war lobby lied
5th February 2004
It really is very simple.‘Blame the spooks’ is now the official line of those who took us to war. Our political leaders didn’t wish to attack Iraq, but faced with such alarming intelligence reports of the threat Saddam posed, they had no other option. There is however one important and much overlooked point that gives the lie to this all-too convenient interpretation of events. The strongest and most irrefutable evidence that the coalition leaders did not believe the information contained in the hastily cobbled together ‘dossiers’, is the very fact that having read them, they then went to war.
Let’s remind ourselves of some of the information the intelligence reports contained. They included claims that the Iraqi military was ‘able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order’ and that Saddam’s WMD programme was ‘active, detailed and running’. Imagine for a moment you are either George Bush, Tony Blair or John Howard reading these reports. Why on earth would you then do the one thing which would provoke Iraq to use its deadly weapons ? Had the Coalition really believed Iraq could ‘deliver chemical and biological weapons using an extensive range of artillery shells, free fall bombs, sprayers and ballistic missiles’ as the British dossier of September 24th 2002 claimed, then we would have reasonably expected that at the first sign of attack on his country Saddam would have ordered some pretty serious delivering. The coalition could, if the dossier claims were true, have expected to incur losses in the thousands with many more seriously injured. Are we expected to believe that our political leaders, would have countenanced such casualties and the political fall-out which would follow ?
The war party’s argument, put around in the first weeks of hostilities, that the most demonised dictator of modern times had not used his WMD for fear of opprobrium is patently absurd, though not quite as absurd as the one that the one that he may have destroyed them just before the invasion. If Saddam wasn’t going to use his WMD when attacked, then when on earth would he have used them ? History teaches us that countries attack others only when they are convinced of their opponent’s relative weakness. This is why Mussolini bombed Abyssinia and Hitler marched into Poland. It is why Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and why Belgrade was blitzed in 1999. Bush, Blair and Howard would now have us believe that for the first time in history, a set of countries went to war last year because of an enemy’s military strength.
For what the Coalition really thought of the Iraqi ‘threat’, we get a truer picture from Colin Powell’s speech, in Egypt in 2001, when he declared that. ‘He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with regard to WMD. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours’.Saddam was attacked not because Bush, Blair and Howard thought he had WMD, but because they were pretty damn sure that he didn’t.
The inescapable lesson of the last twelve months, for anyone who still doubted it, is that deterrence works. Iraq, militarily emaciated after years of weapons inspections and sanctions, got Shock and Awe. North Korea, meanwhile, with its self-declared uranium enrichment programme gets offers of ‘dialogue’ and promises of further aid. Pat Buchanan, veteran Cold War warrior and authentic voice of hard-core U.S. conservatism, recommends all countries wanting the respect of Uncle Sam ‘to get the bomb’. Kim Jong II listened to his advice and Pyongyang is spared the B52s. Saddam didn’t and his country lies in ruins.
Here’s to the global proliferation of WMD. Then and only then might we get some real and lasting peace.
There's only one word which can be said in response to their claim. (Here's a clue: it rhymes with 'Rollocks'.)
Although we'll never find a signed memo from either Bush or Blair saying "Of course I know Iraq doesn't have WMD, but we've got to invent something," there is neverthless incontrovertible evidence that both men were lying. Namely, that having read the various dossiers and intelligence reports, they took our countries to war. Here's my 2004 piece from The Australian.
THE AUSTRALIAN:
We know the war lobby lied
5th February 2004
It really is very simple.‘Blame the spooks’ is now the official line of those who took us to war. Our political leaders didn’t wish to attack Iraq, but faced with such alarming intelligence reports of the threat Saddam posed, they had no other option. There is however one important and much overlooked point that gives the lie to this all-too convenient interpretation of events. The strongest and most irrefutable evidence that the coalition leaders did not believe the information contained in the hastily cobbled together ‘dossiers’, is the very fact that having read them, they then went to war.
Let’s remind ourselves of some of the information the intelligence reports contained. They included claims that the Iraqi military was ‘able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order’ and that Saddam’s WMD programme was ‘active, detailed and running’. Imagine for a moment you are either George Bush, Tony Blair or John Howard reading these reports. Why on earth would you then do the one thing which would provoke Iraq to use its deadly weapons ? Had the Coalition really believed Iraq could ‘deliver chemical and biological weapons using an extensive range of artillery shells, free fall bombs, sprayers and ballistic missiles’ as the British dossier of September 24th 2002 claimed, then we would have reasonably expected that at the first sign of attack on his country Saddam would have ordered some pretty serious delivering. The coalition could, if the dossier claims were true, have expected to incur losses in the thousands with many more seriously injured. Are we expected to believe that our political leaders, would have countenanced such casualties and the political fall-out which would follow ?
The war party’s argument, put around in the first weeks of hostilities, that the most demonised dictator of modern times had not used his WMD for fear of opprobrium is patently absurd, though not quite as absurd as the one that the one that he may have destroyed them just before the invasion. If Saddam wasn’t going to use his WMD when attacked, then when on earth would he have used them ? History teaches us that countries attack others only when they are convinced of their opponent’s relative weakness. This is why Mussolini bombed Abyssinia and Hitler marched into Poland. It is why Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and why Belgrade was blitzed in 1999. Bush, Blair and Howard would now have us believe that for the first time in history, a set of countries went to war last year because of an enemy’s military strength.
For what the Coalition really thought of the Iraqi ‘threat’, we get a truer picture from Colin Powell’s speech, in Egypt in 2001, when he declared that. ‘He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with regard to WMD. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours’.Saddam was attacked not because Bush, Blair and Howard thought he had WMD, but because they were pretty damn sure that he didn’t.
The inescapable lesson of the last twelve months, for anyone who still doubted it, is that deterrence works. Iraq, militarily emaciated after years of weapons inspections and sanctions, got Shock and Awe. North Korea, meanwhile, with its self-declared uranium enrichment programme gets offers of ‘dialogue’ and promises of further aid. Pat Buchanan, veteran Cold War warrior and authentic voice of hard-core U.S. conservatism, recommends all countries wanting the respect of Uncle Sam ‘to get the bomb’. Kim Jong II listened to his advice and Pyongyang is spared the B52s. Saddam didn’t and his country lies in ruins.
Here’s to the global proliferation of WMD. Then and only then might we get some real and lasting peace.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
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