Best Of

12 days to the World Cup.
Can anyone ever recall less excitement?

Reasons? Possibles:

It's in the USA so the Trump problem applies. He will barge in. We don't trust or admire the USA currently. Some who always go will stay away.
The sense that it's a rip off for those who go.
The USA hasn't got any interest in football
The time difference problem.
The English game is so dominated by foreign stars that the England squad don't feel like familiar superstars.
Far too many teams in the finals (48). In 1966 there were 16. So far too many obscure games. Too much, too long, diluted quality.
Cape Verde are there and Italy are not.
According to the rankings England are the 4th best in the world, which suggests that this isn't going to be a feast of genius, as we are mostly unwatchable.
You can watch football on telly if you are a fan more or less 365 days a year. It isn't special.

Football was more exciting when you went with your Dad at 3pm on a Saturday to watch your local team, with local men playing in the team.

I went with our next door neighbour to St Andrews. So it really wasn't.

Once you've been to St Andrews as a kid you are a blue nose.

No other ground in Midlands comes remotely close for atmosphere...

Kemi is lowering standards, ferfuxake, what a terrible idea.

Builders as Tory MPs? I mean no wonder she keeps on getting mullered in elections.

Badenoch: I want teachers and builders to become Tory MPs

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/30/badenoch-want-teachers-builders-future-tory-mps/

She is right and good on her

The full context

Leader of the British Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch speaks to the media outside Westminster Town Hall after winning the Westminster Council from the ruling Labour Party at the local elections, in London, Britain, 08 May 2026

Kemi Badenoch vowed to ‘reverse the culture that has turned legislators into social workers’

Kemi Badenoch has pledged that the next generation of Conservative MPs will “focus on the big decisions” instead of acting as glorified social workers.

The Tory leader also promised that parliamentary business would not be allowed to overwhelm the busy schedules of the professionals she is seeking to attract to the party.

“Britain needs serious people to steer us through serious times,” she said, and believed people working as teachers, engineers, electricians and builders should consider entering political life.

Writing for The Telegraph, she called the current Labour Government the most economically illiterate and the most unserious the country has ever had.

Under her watch there's not going to be another generation of Tory MPs.

It's not entirely her fault, in the 'normal' course of events the party would probably have had an entire parliamentary term to lick their wounds after a Labour landslide without that much pressure on their status as main opposition, but the situation facing them now is different and is genuinely existential, and she is not able to rise to that challenge - maybe no one could.

I agree with her words about the role of MPs and getting those types of people into politics, but she's still dependent on outside factors for the party to survive, let alone thrive, and that is not a comfortable position to be in.

Kemi is lowering standards, ferfuxake, what a terrible idea.

Builders as Tory MPs? I mean no wonder she keeps on getting mullered in elections.

Badenoch: I want teachers and builders to become Tory MPs

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/30/badenoch-want-teachers-builders-future-tory-mps/

I'm sure you're not 100% serious about the lowering of standards, but the widening of backgrounds would in general be a good thing. Not to fetishise the working and lower middle classes and assume they'd make better MPs (no reason they should), but doctors and lawyers are more than capable of being utter cretins (twitter has shown this many times), but they get a presumed level of positive quality even when (for lawyers at least) they are not liked or trusted. Whereas a builder might be accused of being sneaky if they are very obviously clever, as if that was a bad thing.

Indeed.

The best known story about Lord "Jack" Weatherill, former Speaker of the House of Commons, who has died aged 86, concerns a conversation he overheard in the members' toilets after the 1964 general election. A crusty old shire Tory was grumbling that he didn't know what the country was coming to; why, even his tailor had been elected. Weatherill, who had just succeeded a grand admiral as Conservative MP for Croydon North East, always carried a silver thimble in his pocket, a reminder of his family origins - as a tailor.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/may/08/guardianobituaries.obituaries

My problem with this policy is that it seems bigoted against middle class professionals.

Who could have predicted nationalisation would be utter shite.

Rail services slashed after Thameslink nationalised

Britain’s biggest train operator announced the cuts hours before being taken into state ownership

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/30/thameslink-greenwich-nationalisation-rail-heidi-alexander/

BEFORE being taken into State ownership...

But ministers have asked train companies to reduce their services this summer in an effort to save money, and GTR will cut dozens of daily services from its schedules between July 18 and the end of August.

So matching supply with demand during the summer holidays.

It almost sounds like the market in action.

Nope.

A dozen trains per day will be scrapped from Thameslink’s Greenwich line services alone, according to internal briefing notes for staff seen by The Telegraph, and Greenwich council has urged ministers to reconsider cuts which fall at the height of the tourist season.

Calum O’Byrne Mulligan*, the cabinet member for climate action, sustainability and transport, said: “A reliable and regular rail service is vital for residents right across Greenwich, and so any reduction in services – even if just for a period of time – through any part of our borough would be very disappointing.”

He told the local Greenwich Wire news website: “I did not receive a formal notification of the timetable changes, and we have sought clarification from Thameslink, urging them to reconsider any potential timetable changes during the school holidays and busiest tourism season.”

*He's a Labour councillor

Greenwich will still have three trains to London each hour.

I don't know how "the tourists" get to Greenwich.

The other options are the DLR or the Thames Clippers riverboat service.

I would imagine most tourists use the DLR. I used to go to Greenwich when I lived in London, the station is quite a walk from the touristy bits. There are also buses, but the traffic can be appalling

The Cutty Sark DLR has reopened after a complete refurb and that's the one most of the tourists will use

Kemi is lowering standards, ferfuxake, what a terrible idea.

Builders as Tory MPs? I mean no wonder she keeps on getting mullered in elections.

Badenoch: I want teachers and builders to become Tory MPs

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/30/badenoch-want-teachers-builders-future-tory-mps/

'Future Tory candidate selection, she said, would focus on the five C’s – cleverness, charisma, communication skills, conviction and Conservatism.

“I will not allow people who do not share our beliefs to use the Conservative Party as a vehicle to further their personal ambitions,” she added.'

If she's serious, this is good news. The party has been destroyed by selecting candidates ranging from merely awful to sociopathic in recent times. There are endless horror stories about it. Even as Boris removed the wets the party management was selecting worse ones. I hope there's also a significant role for local associations.

Local associations must have more role in picking the shortlist which they were largely denied at the last general election...

Why must they?

I don't mean that local parties picking candidates is inherently bad, and obviously it pleases members and may not be unreasonable to give them roles purely on a party management basis. But I'm curious if there is any indication the quality of locally picked candidates is any better than centralised control, or indeed whether either way does better come election time?

I'd assume the effect is minimal, some right duffers parachuted in by national parties win all the time when the parties do well, but curious if outside party management there is any genuine benefit to be had.