If I try really hard to get over my dislike of ballads (yes all ballads), and that he’s singing in foreign, I can see that this one is superior to the usual dross (although he does get rather carried away towards the end). As Eurovision goes, this is a superior entry and a worthy winner. Our entry was a bit ordinary.
With Manchester United in Moscow for some football final or other it’s inevitable that the city’s pubs are overflowing.
Here in Exchange Square, Manchester’s living room (some people pause here to watch Eastenders) the big screen is blank at the request of a lazy police force after far fewer than one in a thousand Glasgow Rangers fans kicked off last week.
Such a move would be a calamity for Manchester Withington’s Lib Dem MP John Leech, who was largely swept in on a wave of anti-war sentiment and NHS scaremongering. John continues to spit feathers at any suggestion that a vote for him is a vote for the Tories, so I couldn’t resist engaging him in a little banter. He claims the Telegraph have made the whole thing up and would regard Labour’s use of the ‘vote John Leech, get a Tory government’ line as an attempt ‘to con people’.
Add to that that talk of backing the Tories is nothing new – someone gave the FT the same story back in February – and it looks more likely that John Leech is out of the loop and the FT and Telegraph are best informed. And so ‘vote John Leech for a Tory government’ is a fair summary of the situation.
Manchester United fans are to pay the price for the Glasgow Rangers riot, which took place here in Piccadilly Gardens not two days ago. The Champions League final will not shown in the city and there will be no victory parade should they win.
That there was trouble is disappointing and that a copper got a kicking from a mob is terrible.
But despite it all, a couple of hundred idiots out of a crowd of a couple of hundred thousand should not have been allowed to define what was actually a great day for anyone who was in Manchester. No lasting harm was done and the city, while never as litter free as it could be, was cleaned up smartish.
Punishing Manchester United fans by denying them a deserved celebration only conspires to make the world a less happy place.
Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s diary of sorts
Ex-punk Loyd Grossman certainly makes a superior pasta sauce. It may cost a few pennies more, but it’s worth it. (The Co-operative’s Truly Irresistable offers a contrast and is pretty good too.)
And stand out product in the range is the Tomato & Red Wine. Seeing it promoted as a seasonal, has tempted me to stock up a little in the past.
But it’s been on Sainsbury’s shelves for at least eighteen months by my reckoning. Perhaps climate change is responsible for extending the season.
Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s diary of sorts
The good news for London is that Ken Livingstone shows no sign of retiring and will continue to act a focal point for progressive politics in the capital. He’s already outlined his ambitions to build on an emerging progressive alliance, which has already gone so far as to see a formal agreement for Labour and the Greens to call for second preference votes to go to each other in London elections. The Lib Dems could have had some of that, but chose to stand alone and paid a price, seeing their London Assembly representation fall.
Livingstone’s alliance draws from people with something in common. People who believe in the need to change society in ways that favour the less well off while respecting the environment and, perhaps most importantly, recognise the role a strong state must play to bring that about. This is a campaigning alliance, with members expected to work hard for a joint victory.
In contrast, Brown’s GOATs were almost certainly as surprised as anyone to be invited into government. Bringing Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre in as censor of government secrets from the Thatcher years has won no favours.
GOATs like Sir Digby Jones have not fought for their position, will not be particularly emotionally involved and will feel no sense of comradery. Sir Digby Jones may be an effective and talented man, but he’s a walking time bomb whose views on trade unions and lobbying against the minimum wage show that he follows an ideology alien to progressive politics. Few can really doubt that he’s merely biding his time and will stab Brown in the back when he feels the time is right.
The point is that big tents and consensus politics are all very well; but you still need the vision thing to pull it off.
It was great to spend a little time wandering around Manchester city centre earlier this evening to witness Glasgow Rangers invasion of the city.
A better party atmosphere would be hard to find anywhere, the crowd, estimated at 100,000 in all, most pleasantly drunk. (Those pesky rules that stop you drinking in the street are not being enforced, so everyone can relax.)
The city is set to make £25 million. I reckon we should host one of these every week.
Apparently, Manchester’s twinned with St. Petersburg who’ve sent 14,000 fans, so we should be cheering them on, but I don’t care either way. Football bores me, but it would be sad to see the Rangers fans go home deflated.
Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s diary of sorts
Mansour Ossanlu’s crime is to be an effective trade unionist. Achievements of his unrecognised Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company include a $50 per month pay rise for bus drivers, contracts for temporary workers and childcare allowances for women workers. Ossanlu has been beaten and tortured in prison. His tongue was cut as a warning not to speak so freely on behalf of his fellow workers.
To learn more about the work of Mansour Ossanlu and his comrades watch the video below. And don’t forget to lodge your protest with the Iranian authorities; it’s your chance to make a difference and only takes a few mouse clicks.
Once again Gordon Brown’s friendship with Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has won him no favours. As the population continues to age, so the cost of caring for the elderly will increase. The Daily Mail complains of a new tax, while admitting a 2006 report on the cost of caring for the aged, ‘estimated that an extra £10billion is needed to make the care system work properly. But there was only a token £31million of new money on offer yesterday.’
Luckily for the Daily Mail, it falls to government to find a way to fund that gap.
But what’s always stuck in the Daily Mail’s craw is that those with savings are, and may continue to be, expected to fund their own accommodation and so deny their adult sons and daughters an inheritance. Surely adults should stand on their own two feet with an inheritance – by definition unearned income – a nice to have rather than one of life’s essentials. That’s why inheritance tax is the fairest tax of all.
The Daily Mail’s own summary of the current system implies no impact on the elderly themselves, who end up in a care home either way. Those with savings will almost certainly end up somewhere nicer than those without, but that’s no different to the better off choosing to live in nicer homes.
It’s the lazy middle class who lose out; those who depend on inheritance because they’ve failed to generate enough wealth by their own endeavours.
‘I’ve never been a heavy drinker, but I changed my lifestyle drastically eight years ago and stopped drinking for seven years. Now I’m able to have a wee glass of champagne.’
– Patsy Kensit
And to think that when I was an adolescent, Patsy Kensit was quite a fantasy figure. She had that girl next door thing going on and being just a year older seemed somehow attainable. Now she’s better known for marrying rock and pop stars, plastic surgery (she’d be happy to look like Sharon Osbourne). Oh and: ‘I would like to be pale and interesting, but I have to use a fake tan.’
But at least we know she has never had a drink problem and that, thanks to all the work she’s put in with her personal trainer, she’s now able to have a small glass of champagne. (Note to publicist: be sure to read between the lines of Patsy’s newspaper quiz answers.)
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