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Parking the bus or “to the Arsenal one nil” – politicalbetting.com
Parking the bus or “to the Arsenal one nil” – politicalbetting.com
Boxing day football is one of our many British Christmas traditions. The season tends to end much as at this halfway point, though rarely precisely, so quite the benchmark.
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What odds Arsenal for the title and Labour for a majority? Perhaps Arteta and Starmer have been sharing notes.
Another sporting cliche springs to mind - 'running down the clock'. This seems as appropriate to me for Starmer as 'parking the bus'. He has no need to do anything flamboyant or enterprising. Indeed, all that he has to do is wait and let the opposition expire quietly. Said opposition seems only too happy to do that. Indeed it regularly makes mistakes and contributes to its own misfortunes. There's no need for any initiatives from Starmer. All he needs to do is run down that clock....
Or park the bus, if you prefer.
I must admit to be not paying much attention to the Premier League this year, with my team in the next tier. For me the big game is away at Ipswich, who have had a brilliant first half of the season, and attack with flair.
Leicester are leading the division with a style of football very similar to Manchester City, playing out from the back with a possession based style, and an inverted fullback. Lots of teams try to park the bus against us, particularly at The King Power Stadium. Our hiccup could be losing 4 first team players to the African Cup of Nations for a month.
There are effectively only two major teams in British politics, and they are paying each other without a break. And one of those teams hasn't won a match all season.
A football league is quite a different dynamic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67821515
Fair to say it was a big bang; in which case, it will be a tiny bit more than 'damage'.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1739516839196000764
Rumours are that a ship hit was carrying weapons from Iran.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/25/biden-climate-agenda-hurdles-00126109
When John Podesta arrived at the White House to speed up President Joe Biden’s clean energy agenda, the aging electric grid topped his priority list.
Pulling down barriers to Biden’s far-reaching goals for combating climate threats was now the task of the former White House chief of staff. Right away, Podesta sat down with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. The two ran through a list of proposed high-voltage electric transmission projects critical to delivering wind and solar power to American cities and suburbs — as air conditioners run at full tilt and digital technology consumes expanding amounts of energy.
One project stood out: SunZia Wind and Transmission, which would ship carbon-free electricity from the central desert of New Mexico to Arizona and Southern California.
It had been in the works for 16 years.
“Oh, my God,” Podesta blurted out. “We’ve gotten nowhere on that?”
A year later, it’s finally under construction.
Like the other projects on this list, SunZia had been stuck in yearslong spin cycles of local controversies and government reviews, challenged by critics ranging from birders to Native American tribes to the U.S. Army. Now, it was getting a prime spot on Podesta’s get-it-done list — an opening move in what White House officials call the largest investment in electric grid infrastructure in U.S. history...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4376797-trump-may-they-rot-in-hell-merry-christmas/
..“Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and ‘sick’ as the THUGS we have inside our Country who, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!” the former president concluded. ..
Now, people will say "oh yeah, but you have to build fossil fired power stations as backup", but the reality is that CCGTs are cheap from a capex and maintenance perspective; and it's the fuel that is expensive.
There will be opportunities where gaffes occur or events happen unexpectedly in a campaign. Events like Blair being harangued by a patient outside a hospital, "that bigoted woman" or Corbyn's unexpected reception at a music festival igniting a spontaneous song from the crowd. It is impossible to plan everything.
That said, the Labour plan is clearly heavily defensive.
Well, the pink bus.
At.keast some better news to counter all.the miserable stuff posted here.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/85e7094e-eb75-4cfe-8d7c-387905eb2f10?shareToken=05615c7057792d10d1277a2e8f58f75e
Is that really enough?
And happy boxing day everyone! We had an excellent lunch at our local pub yesterday.
At least George Graham recovered from that ban by eventually managing the biggest club in North London.
King Cole, Hardman always cam eacross as an intelligent commentator back when I watched This Week a thousand years ago.
Not being enthused is fine for Starmer to win the election but it could mean support is crumblier than it was far Blair. Especially once in office and the question isn't "How do we spend all this lovely money?".
I am glad that the UK economy is performing adequately right now, but that shouldn't blind us to some of the challenges ahead.
Bitter experience would suggest we can never say such things with 'absolute certainty.'
Personally, I would think it's the enormous amount of debt (both public and private) overhanging the economy.
By the way, did you watch Die Hard yesterday?
By contrast, Starmer will inherit debt levels in excess of 100% of GDP, combined with serious demographic issues and a populous that wishes to be rid of austerity. (When "austerity" is the natural consequence of an ageing population squeezing government spending.)
The only telly I watched yesterday was Doctor Who.
Russell T. Davies + Ncuti Gatwa is the greatest double act since Osborne & Cameron.
We are in for an awesome era of the Doctor.
The levels of incompetence, mendacity and grift we have seen from the Tories over recent years mean that an incoming Labour government would have to be spectacularly awful to look worse than the current one. In the same way, such has been the decline in living standards and public services that it won’t take much for improvements to be seen and felt.
There is also the matter of how the Tories might react to a defeat. As things stand, a swing back to the centre looks unlikely. A more realistic scenario is a shift even further to the right.
The challenge for Labour may be less the governing than the getting to power in the first place. I broadly agree with the safety first strategy, though I would like to see more hope on offer. Starmer is no Blair. But, then, Sunak is no Major either.
I can see parallels between that late GG side and Sir Keir’s Labour - he has got rid of the characters and installed workmanlike grafters, and the party are very disciplined if a little uninspiring. Now they’ve been handed a lead they seem well set up to defend it. The problem could be if they ever got pegged back; lack of creativity was the big problem with that Arsenal side, but that just doesn’t seem likely given the current state of the Tories.
Regarding @TheScreamingEagles mentioning Sir Keir not being sleazy like GG, at the time George Graham was Starmer-like in his unblemished reputation as ‘Mr Rules’, albeit a much smoother and more stylish version, and it was a bolt from the blue to even think he could have been on the take. I think that
shows “anything’s possible” rather than “one thing we can say with absolute certainty”
Very enjoyable Header @Foxy the analogy really works .
When the football season finishes in May Keir will have disappointment and triumph.
Disappointment as his football team fall just short once again but...
Triumph as his own team win their own title since 2005 however less clear of the opposition than expected
Excellent analogy in the header. The danger of parking the bus in actual football, of course, is that if executed well you allow the other team to do all the running and crown around your penalty while your own team get further and further back and have less and less possession. Labour don’t seem too troubled by this - they are defending like Italians, with an increasingly frustrated Tory party constantly trying new tactics and making weird substitutions.
My preferred analogy would be limited overs cricket though. Put simply, the Tories were chasing an achievable target but have suffered a humiliating middle order batting collapse. Previous match winner Boris threw his wicket with a series of reckless shots, then much hyped Truss got out for a duck after looking totally bamboozled against spin. Now remaining batsman Rishi, usually an orthodox defensive bat, has to rotate the strike with rank tailenders, and has another 100 to get in 10 overs. Every time he tries a risky shot he’s in danger of getting himself out. All Starmer’s bowlers have to do is pitch line and length.
I've been a latecomer to the delights of the beautiful game but now watch my son play every Sunday and it is the highlight of my week. Shutting down the game to defend a lead is something his U15 team hasn't quite mastered yet, but Starmer seems to be quite good at it, as @Foxy notes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiw0ILaXJf0
I think they will win if they can both park the bus and convey the sense that with the Tories the UK glass is half empty and emptying, and with Starmer the UK glass is half full and capable of filling. There are no facts in this, only psychology. Ask Blair. It is not a battle of facts but of minds.
It is not written in stone anywhere that our way of life is set to continue, forevermore.
Happy Boxing Day all. Some interesting history for y’all: government income and spending in 1951.
Though as you remarked the other day, the skills required to be LOTO are quite different to being PM.
I can't see that the Tory attack line of "the economy is shot, public services fit only for the knackers yard and no money left for anything" is much of a crowd pleaser either!
The household is emerging from its slumbers, but I will drop by a bit later.
Starmer's Labour is more like a team that are 2 or even 3 nil up (depending on your reading of the polls) in a Cup Final, have taken off their playmaker for a defensive midfielder, and are happy for the game to become dull and drift towards victory. They've taken their chances. Been the better team. But now rather than try and bang in a third or fourth and risk letting their opposition score, are playing it safe in the knowledge that unless something very strange happens or they somehow fall to bits, that will almost certainly be enough.
Well, maybe. Alternatively, AI and the like will break the link between labour and growth quite dramatically, in which event it is very likely that the US digital giants will become even more powerful than they are already. The Sci-Fi I have read of such scenarios tends towards the dystopian, sadly.
Worse than Dredd Scott?
Don't be silly, its not even remotely in the top 10.
Tonight's game at Ipswich should be a more open game, as they attack well, but Leicester are tight at the back, and play a possession based style. I am really looking forward to it.
Presumably for every £1 of private debt there is a £1 of credit owned by somebody?
Though Communist China absolutely has massive wealth inequalities that completely dwarf the capitalist West (even America).
kamski puts the cart before the horse in thinking that Brexiteers are glad to see Europe failing, Europe failing is disappointing and bad for Britain but is not new, did not begin after 2016 and is why Brexit was a good idea not vice-versa.
Hence, 'activists' blocking roads, introducing meddlesome LTNs, blocking planning applications on often the flimsiest objections, trying to overturn the referendum on EU membership etc etc etc. As the economy of the West has developed - for the good - beyond the dreams of our forefathers, the public sphere seems in my lifetime to have become almost irredeemably restrictive.
I fear the biregeneration may set off Mr Dancer.
Although 'partially' is not sufficient given the woeful retcon.
Mr. Eagles, from what I've seen, that was utterly stupid. Why they don't want the new Doctor to be the real one rather than a secondary, ancillary version to Tennantv2's actual Doctor is perplexing.
I'd only add that the Tory team has several players already on a yellow card, with one player (Cleverly) only saved from a red card by the intervention of Xmas. Labour's team, by contrast, is pretty disciplined these days.
The zero sum approach to EU or non EU never made sense, anymore than Texas being part of the US inhibits its trade with international partners.
The incipient “sclerosis” suffered by some EU members is the same sclerosis suffered by the UK, by Japan in a major way, by most of Latin America and the whole CIS, and in due course expected in Korea, then China. It’s the sclerosis of ageing populations.
The biregeneration led to this awesome tweet from Mrs Tennant.
https://twitter.com/georgiaEtennant/status/1735337984986099992
I'm not sure a package of abandoning our primary economic relationship with Europe, contributing to catastrophic climate change, destroying our natural environment and making our towns and cities unpleasant to walk around will advance the prospects of the British people.
But you do you.
Intelligent politicians would apply themselves to understanding the tangled web we've weaved and whether it's still fit for purpose, but it's far easier to grandstand with new laws rather than do a lot of hard work no-one might notice and, even if they do, long after they've left office.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67754598
Since 1993 (the founding of the modern EU) all major EU countries have floundered, not just Britain.
Its not just Britain but Germany, France and all other major EU countries since 1993 have done worse than non-EU developed nations - with Japan being the notable non-EU exception.
Many Labourites might prefer us to be more like The Toon under Kevin Keegan. But just remember that we won nothing.
In respect to the bi-generation, I kind of got the sense that Gatwa's Doctor 'follows' on from Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor and that Fourteen will ultimately become Fifteen at some point. The whole plotline about the Doctor being knackered and needing a rest doesn't make sense otherwise.
And yet here we are with the polis arresting "a 60-year-old man in Sidcup and a 61-year-old man in Horsham, West Sussex, earlier on Monday." The kind of angry weaponised ignorance and stupidity Brexiteer with a classic car that I and several others pointed out would be the only outraged voices on a policy which is largely universally popular.
For all that they foam on about principles, in practice there are non. They want to be free, to do what they want to do. What that is keeps changing and how dare anyone point to the basis of the British constitution - laws, conventions, the courts, international treaties etc - and say that this is what Brexit sovereignty is.