Oh dear. Having set sail under a strong wind in the group stage, the good ship World Cup has been dashed onto the rocks by a combination of player cynicism and referee incompetence. The last sixteen was a rather disappointing round, with too many games decided by the officials. The final game of the lot - Spain versus France - provided the bulk of the good football all by itself. Let's see how my predictions turned out: Germany v Sweden, 16:00 The hosts are hitting form, with both their ...
With the combative attitude of the prop forward he once was, my Irish history teacher Mr. Armstrong was the perfect debating opponent. As he guided us through the dramatic years from 1912-23 which led to the formation of the two Irish states, he constantly challenged the assumptions of the only nationalist in the class - me. Davie (as we called him behind his back) took the revisionist view, holding up the well-worn myths of Irish history to the cold light of his Ulster scepticism. On the...
We’ve reached the halfway point of the 2006 World Cup and half of the 32 teams in this year’s competition are making their way home. So what have we learnt from the group stage of the world’s greatest sporting spectacle? The first thing to say is that, as ever, some groups have been tougher than others. Those who have successfully navigated groups C, E and F can consider themselves well-tested. Those who have come through groups A, B, D, G and H will face considerably sterner tests in the...
We're almost half-way through the group stage of the planet's greatest sporting spectacle so I thought I would offer these thoughts on World Cup 2006 to date: * First off, just how good are Argentina? Serbia and Montenegro have (had?) one of Europe's best defences, but Crespo and co battered them yesterday 6-0. Tevez and Messi can't even get in the starting eleven which tells its own story. The second goal yesterday, consisting of no fewer than 24 pases, must go straight in to the top five...
In Irish politics it is known as a stroke - an act of bare-faced hypocrisy which wrong-foots your opponent. As strokes go, the Ulster Unionist Party’s decision to cosy up to the Progressive Unionist Party in order to deny an executive seat to Sinn Fein takes some beating. Adding former Ulster Volunteer Force bomber David Ervine to the UUP’s 24 MLAs elected by Northern Ireland’s "decent people" gives unionists an extra seat in any future executive at the expense of SF, which also has 24 assemb...
My condolences to the family of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) who died peacefully in her sleep this week. I never supported the Coalition myself but neither did I bear it any ill will. A the time of its passing, it seems right to find a few nice words to say about the deceased. To me, the Coalition symbolises a more optimistic time, when lasting peace and local self-rule seemed possible. The NIWC was formed in the run-up to the negotiation elections of 1996 to give voice t...
As the years progress I find myself less able to summon up the fury which once propelled me. I have become afflicted by the disease of on-the-one-handism whereby I feel inclined to see things from other people’s point of view and accept that they may have a point. I am indebted then to the Church of England for causing me to swear at the TV for the first time in many months. Yesterday the 26 bishops and arch-bishops who sit in the House of Lords helped vote down a bill which would have al...
Slowly but surely the war drums beat louder between the US and Iran. Last weekend the celebrated American journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the US had drawn up plans to attack the Islamic Republic's with nuclear bunker-buster weapons. Iran has been refered to the UN Security Council for "defiance" of its international obligations not to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows no sign of backing down in this stand-off, calling for the destruction of Israel and r...
Last week saw the fulfilment of a lifetime’s ambition as I attended a picket in the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. From the perspective of the grubby-fingered trader in human misery I am becoming, Barnsley Town Hall 2006 was not Orgreave 1984. There were no cavalry charges to spice up my copy, just half a dozen strikers offering tea and gentle teasing. Nevertheless, more people downed tools last Tuesday than during the miners strike two decades ago. In fact last week’s stoppage was...
Only in England could a leader be in danger of losing power because he sold admission to an exclusive club to those with the money to pay for it (the word ‘allegedly’ apologises for its absence from this sentence). This week’s scandal enveloping Tony Blair’s government concerns ‘cash for peerages’. Facing a financial crunch in the run-up to last year’s general election, the Labour party accepted several anonymous seven-figure loans from rich businessmen. Shortly afterwards, some of these ...
This week was one of those rare occasions when I felt sorry for the British prime minister. The media furore over Tony Blair’s remarks about God on the Parkinson show has been unfair. It is simply wrong to insinuate, as some papers did yesterday, that the PM said that his disastrous Middle Eastern adventure had been endorsed by the Big Guy. He said no such thing. After some prompting, Blair actually said that God would judge him for the decision to invade Iraq. This is the biggest non-sto...
What is it with New Labour and money? For years senior government ministers have seemed obsessed with hoarding personal wealth. First there was Peter Mandelson who used a millionaire snake to climb the property ladder. Then there was David Blunkett doing a bit of consultancy during his gap year. Now it’s Tessa Jowell’s many mortgages. The common thread here is of eminently comfortable upper middle-class people aspiring to the lifestyles of the super-rich - the Berlusconis, Murdochs an...
For those of us who lived through the Drumcree stand-offs of the 1990s, along with the fear and the tension of those days, there was also the base comedy of it all, the sheer ridiculousness of a society brought to a standstill by this little local difficulty. Much of the mirth stemmed from the obvious mismatch between the slick PR of republicans against the clumsy, inarticulate bumbling of the Orange order. More than anything, Drumcree demonstrated the order’s pig-headed determination to ...
Absent from most of the coverage of the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election result was any analysis of what it meant for Britain’s newest political leader, David Cameron of the Conservative party. Here in the UK, Mr Cameron’s every utterance and gesture is greeted by gushing press coverage from a media infatuated with its latest plaything. Aged just 39 and presentable enough, Dave, as his followers know him, seems to lead a Conservative party finally able to win back power so decisively ...
A few months back an English newspaper published a cartoon showing the president of the United States of America buggering a camel. Now I fully accept that some people may find such a drawing offensive - to camels. However, political cartoons sometimes have to be blunt, crude even, to get their point across. It’s the nature of the medium. A few of the now infamous Danish Dozen cartoons about the Prophet Mohammad are about as subtle as the camel drawing, but most of them are not nearly as...