It’s Christmas in July as the Northern behemoths head south to upside-down-world and a feast of rugby! With this being the last July tour before the World Cup next year in France, there are markers to be put down, there are points to be made and there are matches to be won! Not the usual ‘development tours’ we see, but full-blooded Tests, with a capital T and an exclamation mark to boot. So who’ll be the turkeys (not Türkiye, as they’re not playing anyway), who’ll get a stuffing and who’ll provide the trimmings and the sauce? A veritable smorgasbord awaits:
Romania v Italy
After slaying the Welsh dragon in February, there’ll be a sprightly step in the Italian dressing room before facing off with a Romanian side that lost its last two matches (narrowly to let’s-replace-Italy-with-Georgia, and more convincingly to Spain) to end a decent five match winning streak prior to that. Solid second tier, but not enough to get past Italy, who broke a 36-match losing streak at the Principality with THAT try. It won’t be a canter, but Italy should start their summer series with a fairly comfortable win: Italy by 15 over Romania
Australia ‘A’ v Samoa
Much talk around the improvement of Australian sides in Super Rugby this year, but frankly I’m not sure where that came from. A couple of wins against Kiwi sides masked the fact that they only got one side in the semis and propped up the bottom of the combined table along with the Samoan and Fijian sides. The Brumbies were the only consistent side in Australia, but they’ll have too much depth anyway to field an ‘A’ side that will see off Samoa easily enough. No idea what to expect from Samoa, or who they’ve selected, but history tells us they’ll be blood and thunder for 60 minutes, whilst still getting the wrong end of the scoreboard and cards, and fade away as the superior conditioning and game plan of the Aussies takes control: Australia ‘A’ by 23
Fiji v Tonga
A spicy affair for sure, although Fiji have emerged as the most consistent of the Pacific Island sides in recent years, combining some electric running from all 15 (or 23) players at times, with brutal defence and a set piece that’s better than most of their neighbours. It’ll be fierce, it’ll be fast, it’ll be fun to watch from afar, but ultimately Fiji will have too much: Fiji by 13
Japan v France
Two of the world’s great cultures and two of the world’s great cuisines. Most recent and next hosts of rugby’s great showpiece. Two sides renowned for silky skills and derring-do with ball in hand, but that’s where it ends, I’m afraid. France are building up a fearsome head of steam in the lead up to their home World Cup and have oodles of talent and power in most positions, led by Dupont and Ntamack at 9 and 10, behind a pack that won’t step back for anyone. Japan have been solid recently, with good wins over second-tier sides and running the likes of Scotland, Australia and Ireland relatively close (bar one blowout against Ireland), so they have the wherewithal to mix it with the big boys. However, this is a France on a mission and they should stroll away with it in the end: France by 33
New Zealand v Ireland
One of the most eagerly awaited July series, with Ireland having got the measure of the Kiwis in recent years. But not in New Zealand. Both sides come into the series with question marks hanging over them – the All Black pack got dusted in Dublin and flayed in France last year and they’ve gone with Scott Barrett at 6 in an effort to bolster the lineout and scrum. Worked a treat in the 2019 Semi against England, didn’t it? Ireland’s Leinster-dominated side has struggled against top packs, but they’ll probably fancy they’ve got the wood on the Kiwis up front. The AB backline has suffered some Covid disruptions, but such is the depth of talent in New Zealand, they’ll be fine there. The noises coming out of New Zealand are ominous and they’ll throw everything at Ireland this week. Perhaps overly generous, but it’s New Zealand by 17
Australia v England
Another hugely anticipated match as Eddie’s eagles got their wings clipped in the 6N, amidst rumblings around his sometimes leftfield selections. Australia have been building quietly under Dave Rennie and demolished a Bok scrum last year thought to be their key weapon. The Aussies always bring that mongrel spirit to matches like this and they won’t back down against England’s forwards. It’s an intriguing match-up with England’s centres – as ever – a topic of debate and the backs in general, from 9 to 15, with the exception perhaps of Marcus Smith being anything but nailed on. Both sides are actually a little unsettled and it could go either way, with the match-up between Smith and Cooper at 10 a key contest. Australia will look to run England around the park, whilst England will look to smother the Aussies before letting loose later on. Could go either way, I’m backing Rennie’s Roos to break some hoodoos: Australia by 2
South Africa v Wales
Everyone in Wales apparently thinks the Boks will smash Wales. So does everyone here. Except for the people who think it’ll be a tight, ugly affair. Of which I’m one. The Boks are generally slow out of the starting blocks in the international season and are probably most vulnerable in this first Test. That said, it’s a pretty settled squad, with most of the players in their prime, or near enough. They’ve all played together for a few seasons and so should be settled enough. Wales, on the other hand, have come off a horror 6 Nations, only winning one match and losing to Italy in the final match – but they also got three losing bonus points, so three tight defeats. Whatever the missing links are in the Welsh side, it’s not guts and defence and bloody-mindedness. And the matches between Wales and South Africa have been tight in recent years, so I expect another tight affair, with the Boks perhaps easing away at altitude later on: South Africa by 9
Argentina v Scotland
This has all the potential to be a cracker, with Argentina now under the tutelage of Michael Cheika and with some of the Euro-based players back in the fold. Having stunned the ABs in 2020 and played some fabulous rugby in the process, they slipped back badly in 2021, winning only one match, against Italy. Scotland’s all-new, all-singing, all-dancing style fell a bit flat in the 6 Nations after a promising start and the Scots once again failed to live up to expectations. That said, they have some wonderful, athletic forwards and some serious gas out wide that can blitz most defences on its day. This could be a great match. Would back Argentina’s 2020 version, but not the 2021 version, albeit they’ve changed management and got a few players back: Scotland by 5
Merrily foretold by Deebee7
Onna telly this week
Thursday 30th June
| Scotland v Italy (U20s) | 19:00 | YouTube |
| Wales v Georgia (U20s) | 19:00 | YouTube |
Saturday 2nd July
| Japan v France | 07:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| New Zealand v Ireland | 08:00 | Sky Sports Action |
| Australia v England | 10:55 | Sky Sports Action |
| South Africa v Wales | 16:05 | Sky Sports Action |
| Argentina v Scotland | 20:10 | Sky Sports Main Event |
Tuesday 5th July
| France v South Africa (U20s) | 16:00 | YouTube |
| England v Ireland (U20s) | 19:00 | YouTube |
Wednesday 6th July
| Scotland v Georgia (U20s) | 16:00 | YouTube |
| Wales v Italy (U20s) | 19:00 | YouTube |
Ovally Balls 
If anyone’s having rugby withdrawl, this is fun
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Craigs, of course the overall picture is complicated, but the question I was trying to address is why we have people from certain schools and two universities in an overwhelming number of powerful positions and jobs when compared to the number of people who do not come from those privileged backgrounds.
Why is there so much love for the Monarchy? Despite all sorts of lurid stories and despite personal circumstances being shit, the English, and I’m afraid it is the English, do love their Monarchy, and especially the current monarch.
disclaimer – I would wager that if you did a correlation search on Monarchists and Rangers fans in Scotland, you’d get a big overlap. The only thing I’m trying to say with that is that there is a bigger picture within that small picture too.
It should be easy to be a left wing voter if you are working class, it should be more difficult if you are middle class. Anyone looking at the system we have and saying “this is unfair” from a relatively well off point of view deserves credit. The dream/lie they sell you is one of social mobility.
The aristocracy are unfathomable, I worked for a lot of them in my capacity as a fencer for their livestock or building sand schools for their horses, and every one I met was a top bloke/woman, their underlings, their managers, were almost all wankers.
My main point here is that a cabal of useless, lying, stupid, talentless, vain, self-serving, trough-gouging, shameless, corrupt, dishonourable, and I’ll repeat that, dishonourable, because that is one of the great sins in my book, bunch of vacuous halfwits have been allowed to harm the country and enrich their friends, in lieu of themselves getting rich obvs, and the only way they could do that is because there is a thing in this country about “oh well, he’s a character isn’t he?”
That is a quote about a man who has been sacked for lying twice, been proven to be useless at every position he’s held and has been kicked out of office for being caught lying again.
None of these bastards who kicked him out said a word when they thought he would lead them to keeping their seats/snouts in the trough, despite knowing what he is.
and the great British public voted these shits in to office, against their best interests.
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Ok, I’ve just read the Haidt article, and I guess he was asked for a couple of hundred words on the subject and that’s fine, but it’s so lacking in nuance and analysis as to be pretty useless.
He talks about benefit cheats being an easy target for the Right, but he doesn’t mention tax cheats being ignored by the media, I know this is a ten year old article, but it’s always the case, as it is right now, that wage negotiations are portrayed as being inflationary, whereas in fact there have been no real wage increases for several years in eg the railway or nursing profession, yet here we are with spiralling inflation – how the fuck can no wage increases be the cause of current inflation?
Another thing, and this is particular to the US, is the gun laws and the desire for a smaller state intervention in to personal lives blah blah, well they’ve pretty much blown that up with the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Really, when you have a country where their laws allow someone to buy a weapon that can obliterate a child’s body so such an extent, that she had to be identified by the shoes she was wearing… and this happened in a school
The only thing they have to teach anyone else is how not to do something
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Also, Brewdog Lost Lager is quite good
in large doses
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Also, in this country the majority of benefits claimants are in work.
Where is the outrage at the fact that wages are so low that people have to work two jobs and or claim benefits, whilst corporate profits are doing quite well, thank you.
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I would wager that if you did a correlation search on Monarchists and Rangers fans in Scotland, you’d get a big overlap
But my guess would be it’s because the “other crowd” are/were anti-monarchist ( and to an extent thats reflexive)
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@ticht
I think Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey have done a great job getting this very simple message across recently. Unfortunately the Labour Party has disappeared up its own arse too far to notice.
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Ticht – apologies if i missed the main thrust of your post. I certainly don’t disagree with your assessment if the Tory party or the aristocracy in general. Synts, all of them. And I agree with your point about honour (I recommend you read Why Honor Matters if this floats your boat and you haven’t already).
I just get uneasy when we make generalisations about who people should vote for based in who they are. Take another group. Hispanic voters in the US actually voted for Trump more in 2020 than in 2016. Especially recent migrants. Surprised? I was. But that’s probably a misunderstanding on my part rather than something strange about the voters themselves.
It should be easy to be a left wing voter if you are working class, it should be more difficult if you are middle class.
Fine in principle but I actually think the reverse is true at the moment.
It would be interesting to see if the underlying values of Scottish and English voters differ across issues. I haven’t seen any surveys conducted but they probably exist. I disagree that the English working class defer to their ‘betters’ but maybe I’m wrong.
Haidt’s argument is that people vote right wing for the moral message and left wing for the expanded welfare is a tad simplistic because (to my mind at least) the expanded welfare IS the moral thing to do. Like you said he only had a few hundred words.
After 2019 I think the left needs to do some introspection about how they lost to BoJo and and, to my mind, get better at communicating a clear and positive message to people* which was lacking previously (or not, ive said this before and annoyed a few of you but that’s how it appeared). I think working class people would vote for that. I haven’t seen that from Keir et al.
*It might not be necessary though. The Tories have really fucked it recently.
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On the topic, I agree with every word of this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/rebecca-long-bailey-calls-for-labour-to-drop-cautious-approach-to-economy
I didn’t vote for RLB as leader because I thought she’s not cut out for that sort of role. But she’d make an excellent policy wonk, with perhaps Rayner as leader. Starmer needs to go.
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The centrist view (Starmer et al) is that all the systems currently in place are fine, they just need to be tweaked and massaged into working properly. The will never stop and consider that something different might be better,
Oh, and anyone that does suggest a change to the current system (even as minor as what Miliband suggested) MUST be crushed to maintain the status quo.
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This way lies the planet frying, serious food shortages, millions if not billions of refugees, and all that fun.
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Yes, but have you considered the bottom line?
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@Refit – And that’s why Starmer et al can’t say anything sensible about the rail strikes as anyone who should really belong in the Labour Party would agree at least to some extent with what the RMT are saying and it seems that despite the promises made when he stood for leader they don’t.
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CMW – I seriously despise the man. Not supporting Trades Unions? A LABOUR leader? Fuck off.
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You’ll love this then Thaum
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“It would be interesting to see if the underlying values of Scottish and English voters differ across issues. I haven’t seen any surveys conducted but they probably exist. I disagree that the English working class defer to their ‘betters’ but maybe I’m wrong.”
Craigs, on the above point I’ve had such surveys presented to me in discussions about Scottish independence, the surveys showed that respondents to the survey were very similar from all parts of the UK.
The thing is, the questions asked were along the lines of, “Do you think the NHS is a good thing?” or “Do you think honesty is important in public and private life?”. They might as well have asked, “Do you think your mum is a good person?” Of course respondents are going to answer in a similar fashion to such questions.
The difference I see is in how people vote, I’m going to way over-simplify for brevity’s sake, but the Left is the wing of the NHS and care, the Right is the wing of business and “self” (I don’t mean selfishness by that)
I was painting with too broad a brush regarding England, the large urban areas have not been bastions of the Right, perhaps I should have made that distinction.
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Refit – WTAF?
He’s got to go. Now.
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I quite liked Miliband, ironically, he was subjected to some bad anti-Semitic crap from the print media when he was leader.
I had nothing against Corbyn, but as soon as I saw the Telegraph urging its readers to join Labour for a quid and vote for him I knew he was never going to be allowed to win.
I was hoping that Starmer is playing a long game, we’ve been here before, my next door neighbour and I were talking on a Tuesday back in 1997, he said, “Blair wins on a moderate ticket on Thursday and the Revolution begins on Monday”
It didn’t really work out that way.
A Labour leader has to attract the swing vote, Labour has its “dyed-in-the-wool” voters just like the Tories do, and for many the leadership will never be Leftist enough, I’m probably one of them.
I have some sympathy with Starmer, even when Johnson knew his game was up he had a swipe at Starmer saying, “This is the man who supported Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to be Prime Minister of this country”
I feel that not enough people on the left realise how much of a trigger this is for a great many voters, the Tory strategists seem to think it’s a winner. I don’t know if they are correct or not.
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Ticht
“Do you think your mum is a good person?”
No. (But I get your point!)
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I quite liked Miliband, ironically, he was subjected to some bad anti-Semitic crap from the print media when he was leader.
Me too, he was miles better than his horrible brother. Also ironically, most of the recorded anti-Semitism in the Labour Party took place under his leadership.
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I’m in a fortunate position that I can vote without holding my nose, Caroline Lucas is my MP and I’m happy to continue to support her.
I don’t think it’s telling tales out of school to say that my children were in the same year in the same school as hers. Whenever there was a party when the kids were around the 16/17 year old mark, she was ultra strict on “no drinking”
I wouldn’t put it past the tabloids to have had photographers outside the house
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By the way I don’t necessarily expect the Labour Party to support the RMT’s pay claims or even support them in general (they’re not affiliated and are not necessarily popular with at least one of the Labour Party’s biggest contributors). What I do expect them to do is support their points about the way the industry operates with profits being creamed off right left and centre by companies who add little or no value. I also expect them to at least generally support the notion of proper T&Cs and workers’ pay keeping up with inflation over the long term. There are great opportunities at the moment to make sensible and convincing arguments about how to change aspects of life in this country that could get a lot of people on board – the ‘cost of living crisis’, the pandemic, the rail situation etc and I’m not seeing anything meaningful.
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@CMW – I would also expect the LOTO’s office *not* to ban front benchers from attending picket lines.
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I think Labour should get involved in the philosophy behind supporting workers pay claims, I don’t mean going back to Marx or Methodism, I mean telling the voters how the public sector underwrites the private sector in its entirety, the public sector educates the workers in the private sector, it heals them when they need it, it builds roads and infrastructure needed to transport goods, it passes and enforces laws to protect those goods, services and copyright, it provides extreme protection when needed in the form of police and the armed services and it will come and put out your fire.
The private sector can only exist because of the public sector
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Oh, and another thing, it’s not those Captains of Industry, the industrialists or the media barons who create wealth, it’s the people who pay for the products and services that create the wealth of a company, again they are entirely dependent on normal working people, or on organisations like the NHS who buy goods and services on the behalf of the people of the UK
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I wouldn’t put it past the tabloids to have had photographers outside the house
That right there (and the fear that someone might discover my super-secret internet identity and a few drunken posts) is why I’ll never run for office.
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Ticht – your last post is on point.
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Ok the post at 22:07
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And the one after is also good.
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Maybe we should also talk about how we do actually have state-owned transport and energy providers in the UK, only the states are Germany, France and Italy – companies who have large stakes in the UK are partly state-owned in those countries
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FWIW, I’m not entirely sure how you can ban mps from protesting. Very un freedom of speech ey.
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Ticht – the energy ‘policy’ is so fucked. But then I also think we should build quite a few more nuclear power stations.
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@Ticht – Yes, essentially why does our state not get a stake in these sorts of things for our money. Recent events suggest we could certainly do with one in quite a few different areas.
Agree that we need to go back to the basic arguments as you outline. There is so much recent evidence of what is wrong that could be used to illuminate them.
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Craigs, until we get to point where renewables are able to provide 100% of all energy needs, we should use nuclear, though we’ve missed the boat, or nearly so because the lag time in the planning and building is so long.
There was a technology gaining some ground whereby spent fuel rods were reused multiple times before being reaching the end of their usefulness. The estimate was that on current use we had enough fuel rods in our possession to meet our needs for something like a couple of hundred years ( I actually think it was much more but I’m working from memory here), and we didn’t need to make any new fuel rods.
The other bonus was that when they were spent, the rods were almost completely safe, they only had a couple of decades left of being toxic, compared to thousands of years.
Bill Clinton pulled the plug on the programme.
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CMW, our state does seem to be involved, iirc from a Mark Thomas thing, we underwrite the loss-making part of the railways (There was something about the track and how the carriages are financed and leased), but the profit-making part is the bit that is sold off.
That is supposed to be economic competence, ffs.
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Ticht – I live relatively close* to a nuclear plant so I feel quite safe in agreeing with you that the boat was missed. But at the same time, if we started now we could ensure that energy is cheap(er) in the future.
It feels like a relatively simple calculation tbh.
*Dungeness
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BTW, if anyone wants to go to an ‘other wordly lunar scape’ in autumn, then the dunge is quite the place.
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No way should we build any more nuclear plants. As you say, it takes about ten years to get them up and running, and we should be self-sufficient on renewables by then – and could have been by now if the will was there.
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I built Torness nuclear power station with my bare hands.
Well, I put up a few metres of heating and ventilation ducting in my six months there.
Hated it, I was more at home working in a field.
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@Ticht – We’re also happy to pick up the bill when the companies that seem to bring nothing to the table other than an ability to win contracts overstretch themselves and go under eg Carillion. What’s the justification for that and what has been done to stop it happening again?
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The not-so-subtle thin end of the wedge: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/charge-patients-for-hospital-stays-to-help-fund-nhs-says-report
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I always happier to find that we were dealing with the likes of Siemens and Alstom who at least very obviously had something worthwhile to bring to the table on the technology front. Not that it really made any great difference to anything I’d be doing myself, but still.
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Thaum, anyone with a pet will see where that path leads, when our dog went into vet hospital we had a premium rate insurance policy, one operation to remove a bit of stick that the eedgit hound had swallowed and was stuck in her stomach, two nights stay and the bill came in at £7500.
The insurance coughed up for half of it.
The itemised bill was like a comedy, it was printed out in one long continuous sheet – it folded out and the fell to the floor with me still holding the top part
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Thaum – realistically though…
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@thauma
How would you generate the baseload?
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Ticht – having lived in the US, some of that time without insurance, I can well remember not bothering to go to the doctor for minor things like a broken foot.
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Long-Bailey said her contract would include changing the Companies Act to make directors have a legal duty to employees as well as shareholders, and the ringfencing of part of profits for wage increases. The package would aim to restructure the UK economy to redress the balance towards workers.
I’ve long advocated for this (albeit less eloquently) here in South Africa, where we continue to have a stand-off between the unions and owners of most sectors of the economy. Employees are generally seen as a line item in the balance sheet, to be cut or increased based on the overall health of the company, which is often outside of their control. This is especially true in the mining sector, where jobs are cut when commodity price slump, but dividends are huge when prices surge. There must be a way of creating a balancing act whereby a sovereign wealth fund of sorts could be established to soften the blow when prices are low (and hence reducing the need to cut jobs) by ringfencing super-profits when commodity prices surge above and beyond expected levels.
It can’t be that tricky to work out where these points are: everyone has a rough idea of the cost of extraction of minerals and the shares of the various input costs (labour, electricity, water, yellow goods etc) so having a flexible range around these would be relatively easy to work out. I am not in any way suggesting that this should be the thin end of the wedge of nationalising the mines because in SA state owned enterprises are almost uniformly corrupt and useless and drain anything of value, but there must be a balance between the R300 million bonus one mining exec just got, versus the layoffs at his company six months prior to ‘create shareholder value’.
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Tonga complete the line up for Pool B:
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” self sufficient on renewables in ten years”?
Wow. Seriously doubt any country can achieve that, even those who enjoy far more sun than the UK and have much higher mountains to generate electricity from dams. How do you save energy generated by wind?
Am afraid nuclear power is the least worst option.
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