Private Eye to the point
The contradictions of England Test Cricket. The management consultancy approach
The contradictions of England Test Cricket. The management consultancy approach
England hadn’t won a cricket Test in Australia for 15 years so it might be argued that a 4-1 defeat in the 2025/6 Ashes was a small step forward. Except that for the most part Australia did not field anything like their best possible team.
The lack of success in general can hardly be surprise except for the point that under the current Head Coach Brendan McCullum with the approach the media have termed ‘Bazball’ it was meant to have changed. Initially when McCullum took over in 2022 it did and it needed to. More recently results have been less good.
There are specific issues with the current team and series, including a lack of preparation and the selection of players who fit in with the Bazball ethos whether or not they are really the best available.
McCullum’s approach suggests that he may have other priorities to the ones England cricket fans would hope to see. Indeed his words after the third Ashes Test dwereefeat shall we say, a little surprising. If one takes the analogy of football managers going through a poor set of results (a frequent occurrence) they will express regret to fans, provide explanations and suggest ways they hope to get improvements. Not it seems for McCullum
“It’s a pretty good gig. It’s good fun,” said McCullum. “You travel the world with the lads and try to play some exciting cricket and try to achieve some things
There are wider issues.
A piece in the Cricketer argues that when Rob Key and McCullum took charge of English and Welsh cricket in 2022 they were under pressure to create a more user friendly environment for players, with the threat that some might go to franchises and abandon red ball cricket altogether.
This, the Cricketer piece argues, has led to less emphasis on training and fitness regimes with over time the results we can see. No doubt this view will be disputed.
But the wider point about franchise cricket, the Hundred domestically has seen the County game- the bedrock for Test players- moved to the start and the end of the season. However (see above) there clearly are current England players who at least should be seriously considered for the Test team but aren’t because they don’t fit the Bazball ethos.
Bazball now has the air of a management consultancy that suggests ways to improve which work for a bit until it becomes clear that underlying issues have not really been addressed. At that point the consultants normally move on to their next project
Historian Christopher Hill, an Ashes defeat & The Experience of Defeat
Historian Christopher Hill, an Ashes defeat & The Experience of Defeat
England have lost the latest series of Ashes cricket Tests against Australia 4-1.
Australia had a weakened side throughout but England still failed badly on the pitch but also on occasion off it as well.
Christopher Hill (1912-2003) the Marxist historian of the English Civil War and after, and Master of Balliol College Oxford aspired in his youth to be a first class cricketer. Not for England but for the County of his birth Yorkshire which he saw as a higher honour.
He wrote a book The Experience of Defeat about what happened to those who had supported Cromwell and the Commonwealth after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The defeat was considerably more significant than losing a series of cricket matches but there are some broad parallels..
The restoration saw numbers of those who had signed the death warrant for Charles 1st- regicides- executed. Cromwell who had died in 1858 was dug up and executed in his absence as it were. Censorship of radical ideas was reinstated and those who held such ideas were persecuted.
Hill notes:
we know something of the practical consequences of defeat. After 1660 nearly one in five of the beneficed ministers lost their livings, without even the meagre compensation which the ejected of the 1640s and 1650s had received. Lay dissenters had to endure nearly thirty years (until 1688 KF) of sporadic but often very damaging persecution
Hill was interested in the radicals that had supported the revolution and how they came to terms with events after 1660, in particular the poet and radical activist and thinker Milton.
Even so it’s a reminder that defeats, often very serious ones, happen, but ideas and radical organisation survives. Whether that will be true of Bazball is another matter
A New Year message from a constituent to Justice Secretary David Lammy on hunger strikers
8th January
Palestine Action supporters on remand in prison, some of whom are on hunger strike, should be released on remand. David Lammy is not just the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary but also the MP for Tottenham. Many in his Constituency have a powerful and historically based understanding of the impact of racism, discrimination and prejudice originating from Government level. David Lammy born and brought up in London N17 knows that.
As a former Chair and Secretary of Haringey Trades Union Council I have worked with David Lammy over the years. He has a decent record on core issues in Tottenham such as poverty, housing and jobs as well of course as racism. Disagreements of course there have been, perhaps particularly in recent times over the direction of the Labour Government.
However when it comes to the issue of hunger strikers the New Year message to him must surely be: do better.
I note that John McDonnell has tabled an EDM calling on you to meet the legal representatives of the hunger strikers. I really hope that it is not too late
Keith Flett
Engels at New Year 1870 ‘innumerable guzzlings..wrecking my stomach
Manchester, 9 January 1870
Dear Moor,
A Happy New Year!
I arrived back here at midday on Thursday, after thoroughly
wrecking my stomach in Barmen with innumerable guzzlings
f I hadn’t been so wrecked and, in addition, worried about
Lizzie, whom I left unwell, and from whom I heard nothing all
the time, I would have dropped in on you on the return journey
Engels had travelled to Barmen in late December 1869 officially to see his mother. He returned on 6th January 1870 and wrote to Marx (Moor) on 9th January 1870. Lizzie was Engels partner.
Beyond Bazball. The Ashes bowler with the best ever strike rate…
Source: Crickinfo & The Times
The issue of course lies with team selection and Bazball.
Brydon Carse is a very good bowler with a used ball. He is not an opening bowler but he frequently found himself being one….
From Harold Wilson on Vietnam to Keir Starmer on Venezuela. The tactics & strategy of supporting the US
From Harold Wilson on Vietnam to Keir Starmer on Venezuela: The tactics & strategy of supporting the US.
The US has been involved in an act of piracy in helping US forces seize a Russian flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic. US planes took off from joint UK/US bases in England and the RAF was involved in providing cover. As the Defence Secretary Healey noted the US and UK military work very closely together. Indeed but as with Trump saying the quiet bit out loud is not often the best political strategy.
What that altogether more wily politician Harold Wilson did on Vietnam might provide a lesson for Keir Starmer.
Unlike Australia and New Zealand, Britain did not commit forces to US efforts to prop up the corrupt Diem regime in South Vietnam from 1962-1975.
If Britain did not commit front line troops in Vietnam, British Government support for American action was largely unwavering. In March 1965 Harold Wilson told the Commons that the Government fully supported ‘the action of the United States in resisting aggression in Vietnam’.
He was echoing a line developed by the Tory PM before him Alec Douglas Home and backed by the Tory PM after him, Heath, as well.
What did this full support mean?
While no troops were officially committed, the SAS fought in Vietnam under the banner of the Australasian forces. Other troops were seconded to the US and fought under that auspices.
These were not rank and file soldiers but specialists and experts in jungle warfare.
Indeed Britain trained US, Vietnamese and Thai troops in its Malaysian facilities in the late 1960s.
It was not just training and expertise that was provided.
The British monitoring station at Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong was used by the Americans to help them target bombing raids on North Vietnam.
All that said Wilson also resisted considerable pressure for Democratic President Johnson to publicly back the US with troops. He resisted, perhaps because he recognised the potential political consequences and that may well have been related to the strength of opposition to the Vietnam War in the UK.
Wilson also, at least up to the Tet Offensive in Spring 1968 when it became clear that the US was in any case losing the war, associated himself very closely with international negotiations to secure a ceasefire and peace in Vietnam, albeit essentially on US terms.
As ever, protest and survive
Day 56 of allegations Farage made racist & anti-Semitic comments when at Dulwich College. More witnesses come forward
Day 56 of allegations Farage made racist & anti-Semitic comments when at Dulwich College. After he claimed they are ‘made up’ more witnesses have come forward.
Alastair Campbell was said to have a rule that if a story about someone ran for more than 12 days they were in trouble. Stories about what Nigel Farage was alleged to have said and done while at Dulwich College in the 1970s first surfaced on November 18th.
On 28th December the Guardian ran an exclusive story concerning a former Dulwich College teacher Chloe Deakin. Ms Deakin had become so concerned about reports of Farage’s behaviour that she wrote the Head to state her opposition to Farage becoming a prefect.
He was appointed anyway which may explain why the current Head of Dulwich College felt the need to speak out before Christmas to underline that it is not like that anymore.
So far aside from varying degrees of bluster Farage has made no apology for his alleged remarks and behaviour. The fact that Ms Deakin’s letter was considered rather than dismissed as unreliable suggests that Dulwich College knew perfectly well what Farage was up to….
At a press conference on 7th January, Farage was asked by an ITV reporter if he was going to apologise. He now claims, the latest line, that the allegations are ‘made up’.
At another press conference on 12th January where Farage introduced Nadhim Zahawi as a Reform supporter he made light of the allegations again
Farage’s latest attemptsto bluster his way out has had an immediate effect as more witnesses of his behaviour at Dulwich College have come forward
No doubt it does no harm in respect of Farage’s core base but the impact on a wider layer who might consider voting for Reform may be another matter
Pubs do need saving from global drinks companies & Nigel Farage
Pubs do need saving from global drinks companies & Nigel Farage
The Government is consulting on new measures designed to reduce drink driving. Statistics of course can back any case but driving after a drink is not a good idea.
I have never driven a car and back in the day when my employer offered me, free, the chance to learn to drive and take a test I declined. I knew perfectly well that the temptation to drink and drive would at some point occur and the result might not be a happy one for myself and others.
Of course some are not bothered including inevitably Farage (quoted in the Telegraph 7th January)although I suspect the issue is whether his chauffeur likes a drink.
There are reasons for having a car in London, if you have kids or problems getting around, but otherwise public transport works fine. That is not the case in many other and particularly rural areas.
The pub should be the hub of the community and an important way of addressing that is to make sure there is transport to get to and from it.
There is also of course the designated driver, perhaps someone who like the pub but alcohol for one reason or another less so. Low and No alcohol drinks are also much improved. Full credit to Wetherspoons for featuring a range in their January sale. Some other pubs might take note.
The Telegraph campaign makes some reasonable points. The business rates debacle does need to be addressed and the Government appears to be at least thinking about that. The duty paid on alcohol in pubs needs to be standardised with supermarkets (a favourite campaign of Tim Martin) and a lot more needs to be done about global beer and drinks companies who put their own profits above the need of pubs to make a normal profit (i.e. enough to live on).
Of course with the Telegraph right-wing politics is never far off. The increase in the minimum wage, in the sense that a rising tide floats all boats, should give at least some a bit more to spend in the pub. It’s a good not a bad thing.
As for banning Labour MPs from pubs, it’s a strange business that decides it doesn’t want customers because of their opinions (obviously there might be an exception for those with a toothbrush moustache).
So yes the pub does need saving. Far more are closing than are opening (that does happen btw but is little reported). And yes all should be welcome in the pub, Tories, Trots and anyone else..
The Telegraph campaign deserves critical support (as above) but really the Campaign for Real Ale has been and still is on the job and, while the Telegraph doesn’t say so, it deserves both your support and where appropriate your membership
View more by category: Uncategorized (14,096). .
