The Premier League, and all that.........

Growing up in a family that had a rugby playing father and a cousin who played for Ireland and the Lions, and having played rugby at school, to quite a high standard, it is somewhat surprising that I follow football as closely as I do, and tend to not follow the Six Nations.
There has been enough already written about the goings on in the Premier League, and I have had my own tuppence worth (see earlier posts), but we re getting to the end of the season and it is still 'Game On'!
At the top, it is obvious that one of the Manchester clubs will claim the title.  Personally, I hope it will be the blue half of the city that is celebrating.  What are the odds on Carlos Tevez scoring the winner in injury time in the Derby later on this month?
Further down the table it gets a bit more interesting.  How high can Swansea and Newcastle finish?  Swansea have delighted everyone this season with their style of football, and Brendan Rodgers has been rightly hailed as one of the outstanding mangers of the season.  But hang on a moment, Alan Pardew has not done too badly either, having bee written off as the 'bosses friend' and expected to lead Newcastle into a relegation fight.  But he has bought well, his strikers, if they remain at Newcastle will certainly light up the League next term, but there is the difficulty, they have played well and it has not gone unnoticed.
Chelsea seemed to have hit on a winning formula with RDM at the helm, what price on him keeping his job?  I would also suggest that the main reason is the astute man-management that he has employed leading to the 'senior players' not spitting their dummies out when left on the bench.  He has communicated his reasons to these players and they all seem to have bought in to his philosophy.
Arsenal, my wife's favourite team (she also has the hots for Arsene), have seemed to have done enough recently to claim a Champions League place, whereas Tottenham's wheels seem to have come off, and it is touch and go whether they will deny Chelsea their space in the top four.
Down at the bottom, I think that Wigan, Wolves and QPR (sorry James) will be the teams to go down, although one of those might successfully swap places with Bolton, a team that I thought would do better than they have.  Blackburn, I hope, will be safe and a just reward for Steve Kean, who has been given dog's abuse that he did not deserve.  If they do stay up, it will be interesting who they buy, and who they can hold on to, as some of the better players will be easily persuaded to jump ship.
Anyway, I have written enough, and I am sorry to have said so much, but you know.........

Disturbing Image...........

Sorry all, but I have been having an unpleasant image going round and round in my head, rather like a bad song that you keep hearing.  The image I have is of a group of very fat pigs with their snouts in a trough.  It used to be that these were faceless 'bankers' (I took special care typing that word) but after reading that some 50% of members of the commissioning bodies that will be commissioning health services for you and me, have external financial interests in private health companies.  It looks like the trough will be getting very crowded during the course of this Government.  Some of these are not for profit, like the Virgin Care Group, but others are not.  So your GP may have a conflict of interest:  his/her Hippocratic oath saying that he/she should do no harm, against giving you a lot of 'unnesscessary' treatments to make him more money.

Just to add to the image, GP's salaries are not on the list for regional pay deals, but nearly everyone else in the NHS is on the list for regional pay deals.
The plot thickens............................

Selling off the family silver.

Greetings!
As you are aware, we all own an 82% share of the Royal Bank of Scotland.  We paid £45.5 billion for the privilege.  We had to 'step in' when RBS ran out of money and was in danger of collapsing and leaving the management with very red faces indeed.  The price we paid was when the bank shares traded at approximately 50 pence a share.  Currently, we have been rumoured to be in negotiations with Abu Dhabi for them to purchase up to a third of the Governments share of RBS at the current price of about 25 pence a share.
The Government has long stated that it is not in the bank-owning business and would like to dispose of the RBS shares back to the private sector, where they belong.  Nationalisation has not been in fashion for a long time.
If this deal goes through, the Government will get back 1 million pounds for every 2 million pounds it invested in RBS on our behalf.  Any way that you look at this deal, the figures do not add up.  They make even less sense when you think that we are in a recession and lots of people have lost their jobs.
Of course the Government is hoping that once they signal that RBS shares are being sold, that will mean that the price of the shares will rise.  Hopefully, that will be true, but will they rise to such a point where they are sold at a break-even price?  That is more than double the current price - I think not!
The other benefit to this Government of selling the RBS shares is that the management of the bank can pay themselves fantastic bonuses for working for RBS.  Remember the noise that was made about Stephen Hester's (CEO of RBS) £1 million bonus, and there was the probability that the issue would be discussed in Parliament! When RBS is in private hands we will be told that is is 'none of our concern'.
So once again, this Government is selling off our assets at knock-down prices to their 'buddies' in the private sector.
Champers all round!

I must be getting old.........

Today, for the first time in a number of years, I went to the dentist.  It was not as bad as I thought it would be: some extractions of 'root retained', I think there are three of them, and one filling.  The point I would like to make is that the dentist looked like she was twagging from school.  I expected an older lady come in and berate her for not being at school.  Anyway, Rachel, was very professional and definitely gave the impression that she knew what she was doing, it is just my prejudices.
It is like the experience I had some years ago when I re-visited my primary school.  I have distinct memories of standing in front of a mirror, which was head height when I was at school.  Now, it is waist height, things that I remember have 'grown up' with me, so I expect dentists to be older than me, just like they were when I attended regularly with my Mum.

George Osbourne - The Game's Up!

Yesterday was Budget day, and there were lots of people with more time and intelligence than me pouring over the figures and working out what it meant for people in various situations up and down the country.  I am sure that you have your favourite 'sound bite' and fact that arose from this momentous occasion.  I tried to read a number of articles so that I could get a bablanced view.  There were a number of findings that were reported that stuck in my head.  Poor families could be up to £220 per year worse off, whereas rich people, earning over £150,000 per year have received a tax cut of £10,000 per year.  Yes, George, we are all in this together.  This tax cut for the wealthy comes from the fact that the top rate of tax will be reduced from 50% to 45%.  George felt that he had to do this so that the 'wealth creators' would not leave the country.  However, if they did, when they sold their house, would not the income be taxed?  Then, when somebody else bought it they would have to pay stamp duty at the increased rate of 7%! Ker-ching!!! 
There is one group of wealthy individuals that I would like to leave, can you tell who?
Anyway, to the point.  On the Guardian website, Polly Curtis has a Blog called 'Reality Check' (check it out, it is fab!).  In yesterday's blog she had a graphic which sums it all up, which I have 'borrowed' and posted here:

Need I say more................................................

It's never Dull in 'Ull

For those that do not know, I moved to Hull in 2000, and I have stayed here ever since.  The city of Hull has its problems, like many other inner cities, but the Council and Business have been working together to try and improve things for the people of Hull.  We have had new shopping centres added to our city and although some shops have come and gone they are pleasant places to visit.  The Bus Station has also been modernised, but there was a design feature that might not have been foreseen.  There is a road that the buses use to enter and leave the bus station.  Because bus drivers get moaned at by customers and supervisors alike, they used to drive quite quickly into and out of the bus station.  The road they use is on the route between one shopping centre (St. Stephan's) and the Train Station, and the main town centre and the other shopping centre (Princes' Quay).  Not surprisingly, some people are in a rush to get from one side of the road to the other, and there have been many 'near misses' on this road.  The main cause is that people do not wait for the 'green man' before crossing. 
It is thought that people use a 'cost/benefit analysis' when making their decisions.  In this case it would involve and examination of the costs of crossing against the 'green man', and the costs of not crossing against the 'green man, etc.  and all sorts of information goes into the making of a decision.  The Council have decided to add a further piece of information into the 'mix'.  They will install a display, linked to the traffic signals, that displays the amount of time until the next 'green man' indicates that it is safe to cross.  If this displays a significant time until the next 'green man' then this will decrease the benefits of waiting for the next 'green man'.  Obviously a shorter time will decrease the costs of waiting. 
Overall, I would expect it to not influence the amount of 'near misses' on this very busy road, as it will not affect the biggest benefit of crossing against the 'green man', looking 'cool'. 
Personally, I would allow natural selection to have a full influence in the operation of this crossing, and those too stupid or too impatient to wait for the 'green man' to get what is coming to them.  The pity of it is, the poor drivers will probably suffer as well.

'Drivin' along in my automobile'

The latest piece of Government tomfoolery has been announced over the week-end.  The Road Network is going to be privatised.  The reason for this is that the Government do not have enough money to upgrade the road network, so they are going to give the roads to the private sector and they can spend money on the roads, and we shall all benefit.  So, wake up and smell the coffee!
The current situation is that drivers of cars and trucks etc. pay the Government a fee, the Vehicle Excise Duty, to use the roads.  You would think that the Government would us all of this to keep the roads in tip-top condition.  That is not the case at all.  Once the Government get their hands on the driver's money, they can do whatever they like with it.  Build hospitals, schools, give it to the banks etc.
So what are they proposing?  The private sector will upgrade the roads, and on the 'new' roads that they build, they can charge tolls, or they can earn 'shadow tolls' where the private company will be paid according to the number of cars that use the new road from the Vehicle Excise Duty 'pot'.  From this money, they have to keep the roads in good order and pay their share holders a dividend.  Another thing that the private company can do, given that it will have a regular income is to borrow money from the banks, which means that another lice of the money that they Government gives them will be paid to the banks as repayments and interest.  So once again we have the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, a kind of anti-Robin Hood.
The most obvious solution is to create an organisation that acts 'at arms length' from the Government that will have the responsibility for the roads, and will have income from the Vehicle Excise Duty money that is collected.  This organisation will have strict accounting oversight so that a) it does not run out of money and b) the money that is is given is spent efficiently.  Is that too much to ask?

Dr. Rowan Williams

Well, Dr. Williams has stood down from the position  of the Archbishop of Canterbury after 10 years in the post.  I do not mean to be overly critical, but he never seemed to have the force of character to carry off the role.  An interesting comment that he made was that he said that no matter how much he worked at some problems, they never seemed to improve.  Also many commentators say that there will be a schism in the Anglican communion.  For me this will be a great pity, as what I consider the greatest strength of the Church is it's diversity.  This diversity embraces those that are at the 'Catholic' end of the spectrum, those at the 'Evangelical' end, and those who describe themselves as 'Charimatics'.  Having this diversity also means that people will disagree, if you have lived in a large family you will know what I mean, but most families keep in contact despite the problems.
What 'problems' are there that threaten the cohesion of the Anglican Church? 
One problem is the ordination of women bishops.  This problem was predictable, as after ordaining women as priests, it would have been obvious to many that women bishops would be the next step.
Another problem is that of openly gay clergy.  Clergy that remain 'in the closet' are not a problem, however.  That is a hypocritical stance, and one that is not worthy of the Church. 
Another comment that could be made is that 'society has moved on' with regard to the role of women and homosexuality, but the Church has not. 
It is incredibly sad, but unless someone can come up with a solution to these problems the Anglican Communion will probably split, and will be weakened as a result.

North and 'Sarf'

Today we have another suggestion allegedly going to appear in the Budget in a few days time.  The Right Honourable George Osbourne, the Chancellor of the is Exchequer, is going to introduce regional variations into public sector pay.  On the face of it, this appears very fair.  After all, why should a Staff Nurse in Hull have a better quality of life than a Staff Nurse in London? Why should a Teacher have a worse quality of life in London than Hull?  However, there are other things that vary throughout the different regions of the U.K.  I am sure that inhabitants of the Hebrides would like to fill up their cars for the same costs as in the South of England.  Another regional variation is the number of applicants per vacancy.  In Hull it is over 30 per job, and much lower in London and the South East.  This high ratio of applicants per job has the overall effect of lowering wages, and vice versa.  So when you look at the differences in Public Sector vs. Private Sector for the regions, you could argue that it is not the Public Sector pay being too high, but Private Sector pay being too low.
The Government are going to achieve these regional differentials in pay is by 'freezing' Public Sector pay until Private Sector pay catches up.  The long term effect will be to take money out of the regional economies.  Assuming that the numbers of Public and Private Sector employees in Hull and surrounding areas are equal.  Then there will be a 6.5% reduction in the amount of money circulating in the local economy, whereas the figure for Surrey will be 0.25%. The regional impact will be another thing that varies.
For the regions outside of the South East of England to come out of the current recession, choking off the flow of money will also choke off the chance of recovery.   George Osbourne is showing his true colours: anti-North, anti Public Sector, and pro-the Rich!

Ofsted

Further to my post yesterday about The Honourable Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, it transpires that political interference in education continues.  Up until recently, primary education was trumpted as the success story in British education.  However, that seems to have changed as it now transpires that the children leaving primary education with the expected grade of Level 4, 45% of them do not get the bench-mark 5 A-C G.C.S.E. passes, whereas obvioulsy 55% of children do.  Is it fair to point the finger at Primary Schools for this 'failing'?  It shows that G.C.S.E.'s are doing their job!  Separating the academic children from those that would be better suited to folowing a more vocational path.  (It is not quite as simple as that, however).
However, this post is about one of the tools that the Government use in their interference in the British Education system.  My wife's youngest daughter works in a Primary School in London.  75% of children do not have English as their first language.  She has told me how many Nationalities are at her scholl, but increasing age means that I have forgotten.  They had OFSTED this week and the school was rated as 'Good'.  The Head Teacher, however, was not pleased.  An I.C.T. lesson that was observed would have got an 'outstanding' but for the fact that the children 'swivelled' on the chairs in the Computer Room.  As someone mentioned to me: "swivel chairs were useful in a Computer Room so that the children can turn round and look at the teacher as they explain something on the board".  Not so, these items of educational distraction cost that teacher an outstanding grade.  There were other examples where teachers were marked down, but I think you are get my point.  OFSTED seemed to be looking for excuses NOT to give an outstanding, even if it appeared to be justified.
All this is sounding very familiar, and it seems that political interference will continue, at least for the life of this Parliamnet, and Britian will continue to fall down the Global Educational League Tables.  Someone else has said that there seems to be a negative correlation between Governmental Interference and Educational Standards.

Michael Gove - Social Engineer

 So Michael Gove has been meddling in the education of our young people.  His latest idea is to remove the effect social deprivation has on the targets that young people are set.  I cannot quote any relevant research to you, but is it not a well known fact that children from council estates do not do as well as children from leafy suburbs?  This is a massive generalisation, but you get my point.  What might a possible outcome be?  The children from council estates will not make their targets, which will chip away at their confidence and enthusiasm for education.  On the other hand, the children from the leafy suburbs will probably meet or exceed their targets which will give them more confidence in their abilities.  Over time this will mean a separation of the middle and upper classes from the lower classes, and a reduction in social mobility, which is already very low in this country compared to others.  Isn't 'keeping the poor in their place' one of the main policies of the Conservative Party's?  Well done Michael Gove for bring Tory Nirvana that much closer.

Carlos Tevez

So, Carlos Tevez is nearing full match fitness and may return for the match between Manchester City and Chelsea F.C.  You can only guess at what has gone through Tevez's mind recently.  He was accused of refusing to warm up for a European Cup game in Germany, in September of 2011.  He was disciplined for this and then took the mature step of 'spitting his dummy out' and went home to Argentina to'sulk'.  The whole process has cost Tevez an estimated £10 million.  I hope he thinks it was worth it.
Since his return to Manchester City, he has been supported by many of the players.  Micah Richards said in the press recently that Tevez 'carried' the team.  This may give the reason for him being so well liked by the playing staff at Man. City.  He hides their blushes and turns games that they would have lost/drawn into wins, so they all get their win bonus.
However, as cynical as I am about professional footballers, there is no doubt that Tevez is a fine player, and has the ability to 'carry' a team filled with stars such as Man. City.  Other clubs recognised the quality of Tevez while he was on strike in Argentina, and some tried to buy him.  The problems were that none reached Man. City's valuation of Carlos Tevez and then there was his wages.  He is reportedly earning £250,000 per week at Man. City, which other teams will struggle to match.

In these days of player power, it is heartening to see a situation where a payer, even of Tezez's quality, was 'brought to heel' by the owners and managers of the club that paid his wages.  It would be good if this was a Universal faced by all professional footballers.

The England Job

What a mess!  The F.A. have said after Fabio Capello walked out that it was time to have another England Manager that was born in England.  That's fine, but most of the managers in the Premiership are not English, bar  Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson, and Terry Connor of Wolves (I think).  Terry Connors can be discounted as he does not have enough managerial experience.  English managers that are not in the Premiership is a very restricted list of one - Steve MacLaren (tried it before and got sacked).  The F.A. have also stated that they do not want to disrupt any club's season.  All the likely candidates are gainfully employed by clubs, and the season still has a number of weeks to run.
The current incumbent, Stewart Pierce, has changed the plans put forward by Fabio Capello, to put his own in place, and the obvious question is Why?  He has already stated that he would be prepared to continue into the role through the European Championships, that is unless the F.A. 'parachute in' the permanent replacement.
Harry Redknapp has come out and said that he is currently unsure if he would take on the England job.  He is probably the most successful club manager that was born in England around at the moment.  He also enjoys a lot of support from the players (see previous posts about player power - it is not always a good thing)
Roy Hodgson has probably the most managerial experience as he has already experienced managing a national team with managing Switzerland.
So what would be the ideal solution?  The honest answer is that the F.A. have seriously mucked the situation up for an ideal solution to be impossible, or at the very best, extremely difficult.  Surely, the manager, whoever they are, cannot be expected to take over the reins at the end of a season,  with a short time to go before we enter an important competition.  How are the F.A. going to fix this mess that they have created?  The press were hopping up and down at the way that the Wolves owners dealt with the sacking of Mick McCarthy, surely the F.A. have done the same thing?  Should they be trusted with the management of the National Game?  Only time will tell.

P.S. Sorry about the time lapse since my last post.

"We are all in this together"

I do not profess to be an expert, but I would like to tell you my view of the causes of the current financial situation her in the U.K.  When I was young, there was a common saying, and it was: "America sneezes, Europe catches the cold". 
This is relevant as I think the roots of the problem started in the U.S.A.  Do you all remember the term 'sub-prime mortgages'?  These were mortgages sold to individuals who little or no chance of paying the loan back.  Why were these sold?  The reason was greed, the salesmen would be paid commission for every loan that they wrote up.  These mortgages were then combined together in such a complicated way that even some individual banks financial experts did not understand how they worked, and the were then traded around the world.  When the people that owed the money on the mortgage defaulted, the financial products lost value, and the banks that bought them lost money.  Some banks around the world lost so much money that they folded.  In the U.K. these banks were bailed out by the Government.  The idea of giving the banks money was so that they could lend it to small businesses and therefore stimulate the economy, instead they 'sat on it' and re-capitalised .  Gordon Brown got this so drastically wrong that he lost the next election.  Consequently, there was not much money to pay for things and things had to be cut back, and the current Government have to be watched like the proverbial hawk so that they do not sneak any of their more 'hair-brained ideas' under the radar.
That, as I understand it, is how we came to be in such a mess.  My wife's job has gone, but she has got another one, and my job will end in July, for a number of other reasons (see later postings).  So things in the Ryan household will have to change.

The Auld Firm

Today's topic of conversation is Glasgow Rangers Football club and the fact that the are likely to go out of business, at least that is the current thinking.  As a general point, why is it that rich individuals, who have succeeded in business, do not follow the same methods when they take over a football club?
Anyway, the point.  I have read a lot of comments by people who seem, on the face of it, to be absolutely delighted that Rangers are at risk of going bust.  My response would be to say 'Be careful of what you wish for.'  The current deal with Sky has four Old Firm derbies at the core , presumably because these are the most watched games North of the Border.  If these matches did not take place, what would Sky T.V.'s reaction be?
The other point is what would the effect be on Glasgow Celtic.  Not having a close competitor will mean that Celtic will not have to play at a high standard week in week out.  Then, when they get to European games, they will be on the losing side as they do not have the necessary skills to complete on the same level as the European clubs.  On solution would be for Celtic to petition to join the English League.  The easiest way for this to happen is to buy a current club, there are many that would welcome the influx of cash and players that would result from being taken over by Glasgow Celtic.

Anyway, that's all for today.  More tomorrow!

Part deux

Well today I have been thinking about Chelsea Football club.  What has been going on there?  On Sunday they sacked one of the most promising mangers in Europe 8 months into a 3 year deal.  Results have not been good, but apparently there was unrest in the dressing room.  Normally, when a manger comes in the players all try to impress, the so-called 'manger-effect'.  This did not seem to be the case at Chelsea, in fact it could be argued that the players played worse.  What would make a professional footballer do that?  Obviously they must have thought themselves pretty 'bomb-proof'.  Roberto di Matteo is now in charge and for the moment has a 100% win record, but it is rumoured that some of the Senior Players do not like him.  Is this a case of highly paid employees thinking that they know better than the employer?  Anyway, does anyone know what Abramovich is thinking?  As far as I can tell, he plays his cards pretty close to his chest, but surely employees claiming they have influence over the employer is not a healthy situation and is something that all Chelsea fans (I, alas, do not support them) should be very concerned about.

Thank you for reading so far.

The First Post.

Greetings!
I shall use this blog to write about 'burning issues' of the day that I think are important, for a diverse variety of reasons.
This morning I had a conversation with someone that knew an awful lot more about the issue that I raised than I did.  I started a discussion about 'gay marriage' thinking that it was a simple issue.  It was pointed out to me that the word 'marriage' was a sacrament in the eyes of many religions and to use this word may be an insult to those people.  Gay people can currently have a 'civil partnership' which is not the same thing as a 'marriage', how, I do not know.  A simple solution then seems to be to make a 'civil partnership' the same as a marriage but continue to call it a 'partnership' which is what a marriage is.  However, I do believe that there will be people that do not agree with my analysis or conclusion.