This week has seen the shocking death of a national icon, and our heartfelt condolences go out to family, friends, former sparring partners, and the general public who will miss one of those who best understood the subtle nuances of international debate, and who intoned those nuances in the most mellifluous of voices.
Eddie Butler – we raise a glass to ye. You entertained us and, most importantly, you told us what was going on with the minimum of bias.
For anyone who’d like a trip down memory lane with FakeEddie, feast on this.
But Eddie would not want us to forget about the rugby that’s on this weekend. (It’s always convenient to assign our own wishes to the departed, but I suspect this is actually true.)
Deebee7 is really excited about the URC kicking off, although he’s picked some strange teams to obsess about. Me, I’m looking forward to Cardiff v Munster (although I bet the mister isn’t) and Ulster v Connacht (often our Nemesis – hopefully not this time).
Meanwhile, most of the English Premiership matches aren’t on normal channels again, although you can watch Evil Quins v Evil Sarries if you subscribe to BT Sport, or Bankrupts v Exeter on Sunday.
There is also some Rugby Championship and Top14 action.
Onna telly this week
Friday 16th September
| Treviso 33 – 11 Glasgow | 17:30 | Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 17th September
| Zebre v Leinster | 13:00 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Harlequins v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Cardiff v Munster | 15;05 | BBC2 Wales / RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Lions v Bulls | 15:05 | FreeSports |
| Scarlets v Ospreys | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Connacht | 19:35 | BBC2 NI / TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh v Dragons | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 2 |
| Argentina v South Africa | 20:10 | Sky Sports Main Event |
Sunday 18th September
| Worcester v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Toulon v Clermont | 20:05 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Refit – the only quibble I have with that map is that I can’t see as many orange seats in NI. I’m also not sure that Scotland would see any additional Labour seats, especially after Starmer’s remarks at Conference.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That poll and map is quite obviously bollox. It reckons Upminster would elect a Labour MP. There is no chance on earth of a Starmer Labour Party getting elected. Their only chance might be if Rylan Clark stands but I expect he’s got better stuff to do.
LikeLike
OT – the YouGov polls have proven to be pretty accurate* over the last few elections. Perhaps an awful lot of Tory voters in Upminster might just stay at home (rather than switching)?
*At least for England, which – let’s face it – is the one that matters when it comes to numbers.
LikeLike
Or perhaps we should base our election predictions on PopularityOfKrikit = ToryWin. Seems justifiable.
LikeLike
Yeah, it’s based on an overall increase across the board. Still nice to imagine the Tories getting absolutely fucked though.
LikeLike
It’s almost in ‘Tories not even the official opposition’ territory.
The only downside is that the Labour right wing will claim this as credit to themselves rather than the Tories making cataclysmically bad choices. But far better Starmer than this lot for the country.
LikeLike
There will be an awful lot of rich people in Upminster happy to pay less tax. And plenty of people in Upminster who work for the likes of Schroders, Blackrock, L&G etc who have mismanaged the institutional pension schemes and just been bailed out by the rest of us with no penalties for themselves.
LikeLike
If BBC presenters are talking back, then the Tories really are in the shit.
LikeLiked by 2 people
OT, I just had a look and Hornchurch has been a bit of a swing seat in the past, more recently it was won by Labour in 1997 and held in 2001.
People will have seen their pension pots having to be bailed out this week, the mortgage situation is going to hack away at their property price nest egg, even for purely selfish reasons they will think twice about back this government
You’ll still get the most fevered kipper readers swallowing the government line that the run on the pound and everything from track and trace shambles to HS2 is due to woke remainers, but they would vote for a budgie in a blue rosette. My bet is thst even some of them will stay at home ratjer than support Truss at a GE
LikeLike
Ticht, one of my clients is a large* law firm in the UK and I chat to some of the partners on a fairly regular basis. It usually involves a bit of gentle ribbing about the politics in our respective countries, but one thing which has amused and alarmed me at the same time, is the absolute blind faith some of them have in the Tories:
“Cameron is the best man for the job. The referendum will sort out the backbenchers once and for all.” Cue Dave’s Disaster.
“Theresa (yes first name) is absolutely the best person to lead us through this disaster of Dave’s (ditto). Solid and sensible. Just what we need right now.” That went well.
“Boris is a man of action, understands history and how we need to progress. He’ll right the ship, get what we need from the EU on this exit.” Haven’t had the nerve to bring it up since he bombed out and Liz Truss-deficit and her Kwarsi-economics arrived on the scene!
*Global.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thauma, searched the whole Internet trying to find a clip of Big Vic clobbering someone, but couldn’t. So thought I’d post this instead:
LikeLike
@ticht
If someone chameleon-like such as Blair was leader that might happen but Starmer isn’t the type to overturn a 23k majority in a place like this (70% voted to Leave, for example). I don’t get a sense of enormous dissatisfaction at all. It’s such a cosy place it makes me laugh.
Massive contrast to 80s and 90s Oldham when people used to froth at the mouth about the government.
LikeLike
OT, I think Starmer is playing a blinder, he frustrates the left of the Labour Party and the Tories alike. He has given the media absolutely nothing to hang him with, although to be fair to the kipper they did have a go this week, saying that last Friday’s announcements made a Starmer government more likely and that is what spooked the markets – the self-delusion acrobatics needed to come out with that deserves some admiration of sorts.
My next point includes reference to what Debbie was saying, the Tories have mistakenly had a reputation of being responsible when it comes to the the economy, I’ve always thought that was a lie, prior to the pandemic our national debt continued to grow both in real terms and as a percentage of GDP (with a few fluctuations) from 2010 to 2020, that was despite huge cuts in services under the banner of “Austerity”. That money went somewhere, it certainly didn’t go to the economy on the ground where it gets reinvested and spent locally, as opposed to being syphoned off when it goes to the wealthier individuals and corporations – the UK tax payer more or less pay oil companies to get their products out of the North Sea, ffs.
The Tories’ veil has dropped, this bunch of dregs have shown that the Tories are completely inept on every subject, the ones who we might have had a discussion with in order to find common ground have been purged from the Tory party, they’ve been replaced at the top with manikins who answer to the ERG and some extreme right wing “Think Tanks”, I don’t mean racist extreme, I mean monetary extremists, but they are coming after the Post War Consensus too.
I’m not saying that Labour will win in Hornchurch and Upminster, but they don’t really have to, they need to win across England, as Thaum said.
I think they are still tainted in Scotland, where, if anything, the SNP will probably increase their number of seats
LikeLiked by 3 people
Agree with Ticht. Best to say nothing at this point. Let the Tories fuck themselves*.
* although, I have to admit to being extremely happy with a certain aspect of the mini budget.
LikeLike
Deebs – thanks for the heads up. Another cooking show to watch. The American BBQ Showdown is good on Netflix if you have it. They do spend quite a bit of time telling a recent heart attack victim to put more salt and sugar in his food though.
Also, I quite like Meat Eater. There is some ‘acquisition’ of the food first which might not quite be to everyone’s taste but he then cooks it in some abandoned fisherman’s hut in Alaska which I always think is pretty cool.
LikeLike
Craigs, did you see the Netflix mini series Salt Fat Acid Heat?
It’s a couple of years old now, but I enjoyed it. The grill in the kitchen she learned to cook in was fantastic – just a grill on a stand over an open log fire, you regulate the temperature by moving the grill in and out
LikeLiked by 2 people
Just had a conversation with one of our resident Torykippers. Asked him what he thought of the Tories now.
“Well, this week has been a bit of mess, but I don’t think Labour would do any better.”
There you have it.
Ticht
I think Starmer is playing a blinder
Absolutely cannot agree with you there.
LikeLike
Thaum, Starmer has led Labour to a 35 point lead in the polls. The last leader of the party to achieve this was Blair before ’97.
Starmer’s job is to get Labour into No 10, that is the measure of how successful he is or not.
You may not agree, or vigorously disagree, with his policies, but I don’t understand how it can be argued that he is not being effective in his task.
England is a conservative country, the left wing of the party has never had a prime minister.
One of the most depressing things I ever heard was an account of a conversation Blair had with Michael Heseltine in the early 90s.
Blair was seemingly despondent about Labour’s performances at general elections and Heseltine said, “Labour will win when it wants to”
It’s depressing, but also one of the most pin point accurate pieces of political analysis I’ve heard.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Starmer seems a bit like the rugby player who’s injured whose stocks rise and rise the worse the side plays, on the basis of not being in the side. Objectively, we don’t know if he’ll be any good in office, but set against the backdrop of this Tory mob, he’s already Dan Carter to the Truss’s Andy Goode.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Starmer has been *allowed* to get a huge poll lead, by not presenting any policies that would make any fundamental changes to British society. In fact, he has very publicly scrapped all the remotely ‘progressive’ ideas he got appointed on, and no-one (with any power) has batted an eyelid.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very unfair on Andy Goode, just couldn’t think of a worse England 10 from recent history.
Bojo would be Owen Farrell, just without the talent but with the thuggish tackle technique.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“England is a conservative country,”
Sorry, this is bollocks. The people in power are conservative and will do all they can to hold on to that power. Look at any progressive policy (health, climate change, LGBTQ rights), the public is generally in favour of positive change, but they are told “these are bad things” and convinced otherwise, in enough numbers to prevent anything actually happening.
LikeLike
@Deebee – Goode is a r-w Brexiter, no need to apologise.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe Starmer is the Rassie Erasmus of UK politics: hailed as a saviour, with each passing day the Boks play one-dimensional rugby, but in truth not adding anything new to the mix, just tinkering at the edges of the established way.
And his ban is over. Rassie’s, not Sir Keir’s.
LikeLike
Refit, I think that people in England (since that’s what determines who is in power) are like most others in that they’re liberal enough with things that don’t affect them directly, but quick to jerk the knee when it does, or when there is a perception that it does. That became very clear with Brexit and now with the global economy struggling, it’s reinforced the trench warfare hunkering down.
That said, how much longer the generals in London can keep sending them over the top is now the only real debate.
LikeLike
Refit, the social direction of travel is positive and progressive, as it is in the vast majority of countries across the word, but I see no other explanation of why the Tories win general elections so often than the observation that England (because it’s England’s electorate that decides elections in the UK) rejects the left wing of the Labour Party at every opportunity.
Ramsay MacDonald came from the right of the Liberals, Attlee will always be rightly admired because of the NHS and Welfare State, but there are those who would argue that he was not of the Left at the time, he oversaw wage cuts and austerity measures in the late 40s.
Wilson, Callaghan and Blair were certainly from the right of the party.
Brown had a brief tenure of course, but he was defeated in the first election he faced as leader and he was hardly a left wing firebrand.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ticht – did you not notice the campaign against Corbyn & Labour at the last election? We were apparently about to elect someone who was more anti-Semitic than Hitler. Even the Graun were in on the action.
It’s not like he was the second coming of Mao, he just thought, maybe the worse off and might be treated a little better 🤷♂️
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thaum, Starmer has led Labour to a 35 point lead in the polls.
No, Johnson and now Truss have led to the 35-point lead.
Corbyn would almost certainly have won in 2017 if his own damn party hadn’t been sabotaging his campaign.
LikeLike
Refit, oh I remember it well, I was called anti-Semitic on here by Chek.
When you have the Telegraph urging its readership to join the Labour Party for a quid and vote for Corbyn as leader, you have to acknowledge that Labour are going to get the full machine working against it.
Any Labour leader is going to get it, Miliband got it, he got some terribly anti-Semitic tropes played against both him and his father, the same media which did this were the ones throwing dung at Corbyn.
Thaum, Labour has had an approximate 17 point lead for a long time now, the jump came after last Friday and this week, sure, but Starmer is deliberately playing cards close to his chest.
The choice at the next election will be Labour led by Starmer or Tories led by whoever picks up the dead carcass of the Tories after Truss gets booted.
If someone doesn’t want to participate in the next election in terms of voting then that is their prerogative, but abstentions are meaningless under our current system.
LikeLike
“The 2017 general election: not that close after all”
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-2017-general-election-not-that-close-after-all/
LikeLike
By the way, I’m in no way saying that I approve of the machine undermining Corbyn.
I approved of the manifesto, it wasn’t revolution, but it was a decent foundation.
full disclosure – I was against Corbyn’s leadership because I thought from the start he was an easy target for the machine to discredit.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ticht – at the risk of opening a small can of worms, maybe it’s not the people who are conservative, but the left of Labour who don’t know how to reach them? I think I’ve hinted at this before, but often the reaction (from very public lefties anyway) to the left not getting elected or Brexit happening is to respond by saying that the people are conservative, racist, gammons when a little self-reflection might be more helpful.
FWIW – most people are left of centre in England imo.
Lastly – (opens bigger can of worms) the SNP are fairly centrist when you look at their policies rather than the way they present themselves.
LikeLike
“I was against Corbyn’s leadership because I thought from the start he was an easy target for the machine to discredit.”
I mean… that does say a lot really…
LikeLike
“respond by saying that the people are conservative, racist, gammons when a little self-reflection might be more helpful.”
I refute that, “conservative” in this instance in no way means the same as the insults contained in the other terms.
I mean conservative in believing in small government and low taxation, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps kind of thing.
One nation conservatism, if you like.
Thatcherism was the beginning of the end of that as a political force, but I think it’s still prevalent in the thoughts of the electorate, even if the current Tories are a long way from that home, Toto.
Maybe I should have been more specific and say that I’m talking mainly about the shires and rural England, the metropolitan areas of England are very different.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Craigs,
Why elect a party leader, with such as Seamus Milne a close influence, who is unelectable as potential Prime Minister. Easy targets for right-wing media.
Looking from the outside in, I am sure that England is a small ‘c’ conservative populace, easily spooked by a generally right-wing media highlighting/inventing/distorting ‘Labour’s loonie lefties’.
Starmer is still the leader of an opposition facing a Government with approx. 80 majority.
I think that over all he has played his hand well, presenting a steady leader of a steady party with a comparatively powerful shadow cabinet, who are electable and acceptable to a majority.
He has been obliged to play a long game, judging that the Govt. will self-immolate – and it has, big time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Corbyn was originally nominated as leader, as basically a joke candidate. No-one in Labour (MPs, officials etc) actually thought he’d be elected. When he was, they collectively shat themselves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anyway – RUGBY
Exeter’s team to face Sale (who include ex Exeter players J. Hill, S Hill and O’Flaherty:
Hogg, O’Loughlin, Slade, Whitten, Woodburn
Skinner, Townsend
Hepburn, LC-D, Williams
Dunne, Jenkins
Kirsten, Vermeulen, Simmonds
Yeandle, Iosepha-Scott, Schickerling, van Heerden, Capstick, Maunder, Simmonds, Kata
I anticipate a rough old game
Baxter / Hepher still testing the newbies mettle
Bench is strong.
Will do well to win.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ticht
They were certainly very reckless with our manufacturing industries in the 1980s. Despite what they say now about that time, destroying those more or less permanently was never a conscious aim of those policies. They always believed market forces would make them re-emerge in a more efficient form, but that didn’t happen as we know. They took huge risks which didn’t pay off, and certain people paid the price.
I don’t know where the reputation of being responsible comes from but I reckon it was just an invention of the Murdoch press in the 80s and 80s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Well, this is lovely
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Corbyn was originally nominated as leader, as basically a joke candidate. No-one in Labour (MPs, officials etc) actually thought he’d be elected. When he was, they collectively shat themselves.”
My memory of it is slightly different, Corbyn was put on the ballot because it was thought the electorate should have as wide a field as possible to choose from.
IIRC Andy Burnham was expected to win.
LikeLike
Refit, that is such a great film.
LikeLike
@Craigs – “but the left of Labour who don’t know how to reach them? I think I’ve hinted at this before, but often the reaction (from very public lefties anyway) to the left not getting elected or Brexit happening is to respond by saying that the people are conservative, racist, gammons ”
To some extent maybe though a lot of that is internet chat and it’s hard to say how important that really is. I do think conflating the 2019 defeat with Brexit in this way is misleading on this front. The people most horrified by Brexit are after all to a large extent the right of Labour, Liberals and ‘centrist’ Tories and these types seem to me to be every bit as up for insulting Brexit voters as anyone on the (economic) left if not more so.
LikeLike
Burnham and Yvette Cooper were the main contenders. Burnham had seemed pretty weak up to then and some people (OT, cough) find his cartoon northerner schtick irritating and/or insulting. Cooper seemed to me quite a bit stronger, but very much involved in some of the worst aspects of Labour’s backing of austerity, ill-treatment of the disabled etc. Neither appeared to have anything at all to offer on the policy front and did not seem to think they needed to.
I don’t think I’m that unusual in that I accept Ticht’s assessment of what happened to Corbyn being entirely predictable, but was prepared to vote for him anyway to get some sort of proper Labour policy platform back. I hoped he’d stand aside after a couple of years for someone younger who was less of an easy target, but of course that never happened, we got elections and the referendum piled up one after the other etc.
LikeLike
CMW – they go on TV as well. Write books etc.
LikeLike
“Write books”
I’m sure these reach a lot of people.
Regardless I’m not convinced that those doing the greater part of the belittling of Brexit voters match up that well to the left of the Labour Party let alone ‘The Left’ in general.
Perhaps my difficulties with the notion stem from the pub I used to go in after work regularly having a copy of ‘The New European’ lying around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Remember me saying that Bundee Aki is a penalty machine?
LikeLike
Thaum, that was a text book case of the sort of clear out the game is trying to get rid of.
The fact Aki then went ballistic at the ref shows, to me at least, that the coaches are not getting the message across, whether it’s by design KI have no way of knowing.
Aki should have realised that possession was lost and you try to secure it on the next phase, not blooter into the head of an opponent with your shoulder.
LikeLike
Well, hopefully McCloskey will get his chance for Ireland.
LikeLike
There have been a few good autocorrects from me today.
Debbie for Deebee might be the best one, though.
Soz Debbie
Bulls in for their fourth try v Wesht
LikeLike