Gareth Southgate

So, the England football lads are off to the World Cup, and for once it doesn't feel like an immediate humiliation. It's partly the dire record of the past, which has helped discourage the sillier predictions of the media. It's partly the performances of the team which have - admittedly against some fairly ordinary opposition - produced good results and moments of decent football, accurate passing at pace, along the ground, sometimes resulting in goals.

But a lot of this is down to Gareth Southgate who, in the hardest job in the english-speaking world, seems not to have put a foot wrong. He's set down a way of playing within which his players seemed comfortable. He's taken some tough selection deicsiions, always backing quality against reputation, and often youth against experience. And he's created a sane, communal atmosphere in which the players seems happy and the media have so far failed to wreck. (But give them time, give them time...) So far then, really hopeful, and such a refreshing change from the nonsense of previous years. We might even bear to watch while England are still in with a chance.    

A Very English Scandal

You're never quite sure what they'll do. Even though there's considerable talents involved (Russell T.Davies writing, Stephen Frears directing) big names can still produce turkeys. But not this time. A Very English Scandal has been a total treat.

At first sight, I wasn't sure. Jaunty music, chirpy camerawork, as though the whole thing were a spiffing wheeze, when it's also a dark parable about the corruption of class and power. I needn't have worried. Those aspects were fully, intelligently explored, but with a tone of laughs on the way, and some terrific acting - Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings. All three were given clever things to do and say, so it was always entertaining, but for those of us who remember that time, it was also chillingly recognisable - yes, that's exactly how Thorpe spoke and behaved, that tempting mixture of charm and arrogance. and the level of deceit and self deceit - about homosexuality, and power, and morality - was almost incredible.

Except that - thanks to the cussedness of Tom Mangold, a nosey reporter who didn't accept the Director General's advice that his documentary should be ditched, we have the conclusive evidence of his film, buried at the time because of the surprise acquittal - virtually demanded by the judge - which got Thorpe off and added to the further humiliation of Norman Scott. some things have got better. 

The End of the Road

When I got called in for my knee op on Wednesday (earlier than expected) I was delighted, but worried that I might still be in hospital on the Saturday, and thus miss the Premier rugby final in the afternoon and the European Cup final in the evening. i needn't have worried. I was released, to go back home to the safe luxury of BT sport and wall-to-wall finals.

So many times I've sat down for such events, and it's actually been an anti-climax. Last week's cup Final, for instance, was dire. But that was Jose Mourinho, so often grumpy and defensive, as his team serve up yet another so-so performance. But this is the ebullient Jurgen Klopp, lively, energetic, promising "pressing from another planet". and for twenty minutes it was, Real Madrid in increasing disarray as Liverpool tore round them, got the ball of them, threatened to score a goal.  

Too good to last, alas. Mo Salah off and a wonder goal from Bale, but the difference between the two teams was two goals - and two massive blunders from the Liverpool goalkeeper Karius. He apologises afterwards on social media, because that's what you do, but where is there he can go? Will be play again for Liverpool? Will anyone else want to sign him? Will his name ever come up, without someone saying - "Oh yes, Kiev in May 2018." There is nowhere to hide. 

Manchester Hate

It's a year on from the Manchester bombing, so there'll be some looking back, to see what's happened since. If it's all as good as tonight's documentary, we'll be fine. Most of it was really heartening, with the community determined to hold together, heal the wounds, insist on a multi-cultural community which would not be torn apart by fanatics. The efforts of the police and the imams, often working together (to their own surprise) were heart-warming.

The downside was the gangs of feral kids, some of them 10 or 12, who feel they now have the licence to shout at, spit at and attack anyone who might possibly be Muslim. The problem is taken seriously, and again the police are working their socks off to try to tackle it, but when they get the kids into custody centuries of resentment kick in. "What's your name?" No comment. "Why did you kick her?" No comment. "How do you think she feels?" No comment. it's a pointless, mindless ritual which says "Don't bother. You're not dealing with anything rational here. I just hate them, and I'm not going to change." Huge problem. But a good programme.   

Only Connect

It's not a new contrast, but it's still apotent one. On the front page of todays Guardian are two photographs. On the left, a smiling, immaculately groomed Ivanka Trump is opening the new US embassy in Jersualem. On the right, a couple of grubby, desperate Palestinians are carrying yet another victim of Israeli gunfire. Not a new story, but all the more depressing because it's unlikely that the american president makes the connection between the two. Indeed, he's offered himself as a broker, should the two sides wish to get together for a peace deal. He doesn't get it. There is no will among the Israelis in power to make any kind of concession to the people whose land they have stolen. Why should anything in this lousy situation improve? I don't like to be despondent, and I remember the tenacious optimism of Edward Said, but right at the moment chinks of light are hard to find.     

Alfie Evans

Generally, I plan to keep up with the news, but there are some stories i just can't bear to follow. The current one is Alfie Evans, the terminally ill baby whose parents are desperate to keep him alive, against the considered opinion of medical professionals. It's a desperate situation for everyone, but what makes it unbearable is the hysteria of those who seek to exploit it. the Christian missionary Christine Broesamle, for instance, proudly proclaims that "Alder Hey hospital really hates me because I've worked so hard for Alfie's defence." Presumably she thinks that they haven't, that the hospital is part of the attack on Alfie, so the more anger and rage that can be generated against hospital workers, the better it is for Alfie's side. It's so blinkered, intolerant and sure of its own rectitude. I don't know what should happen. But I do know that it's complicated and good people are working hard to try to resolve it. Pretending that it's a kind of Star Wars battle between good and evil isn't any kind of answer. 

Stephen Lawrence

Amazing how some names retain their potency for years. just those two words, and the images flood back - five stroppy youths, looking for a fight with an angry crowd. the three part TV series did a good job of tracking over the ground, and incidentally threw up a wonderful contrast in police attitudes. the hardened professional, who'd worked in the Met for over twenty years, and just knew it wasn't racist - so all that evidence, analysis, and thought just wasted. throw it down the drain. But then there was the real hero of the piece, a slightly fussy, very old-fashioned guy who didn't seem to be anything special but actually made all the difference, by a meticulous search for and analysis of the evidence that the earlier inquiry had so blatantly mishandled. some things do get better, if only a bit at a time. 

The perils of a three-goal lead

Phew! three wonderful nights of football. Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Arsenal all go into their respective games with a three-goal lead. So they think it's all over? Hardly.

Man City totally dominate Liverpool, score an early goal, and then have another wrongly disallowed. You can feel the air oozing out of their ballloon. So I cleverly switch channels, in time to catch Roma conjuring the impossible escape, scoring three goals against Barcelona without reply, so that the magic away goal they scored in losing at Barcelona the previous week becomes the magic key to the semi-finals. On Wednesday it's deja vu all over again, as another cocky favourite, Real Madrid, gradually concede three goals without managing one of their own. they do eventually get a dramatic last-minute penalty, the legendary Buffon is sent off for harassing the ref, and Ronaldo preictably puts the penalty away - but it was close. So what chance Arsenal, my beloved, heart-breaking team, doing things the easy way? Not a hope. They defend disastroulsy, give the ball away, lose endless 50:50 clashes, and only escape by the skin of their teeth. Football can be an amazing game, the away goal rule does have an uncanny kind of magic, and I'm so relieved that I signed up to BT Sport. (Yes, guys. You may use that in the adverts.)  

Litvinenko moment

A nasty little nugget, retrieved from the acres of Skripal coverage. when Litvinenko was murdered in London, his dad Walter was in Italy, furious at the Putin regime which had ordered the killing. But years later Walter's back in Russia, sitting on a sofa in a TV studio with Lugovoi, one of the men responsible. they're chatting amiably, and shaking hands, so that the Russian viewers can clearly see that the whole thing was a nasty plot, made up by the West to smear the motherland. (Remind you of any recent coverage?). So what exactly went on to persuade Walter to change his mind? We may never know, but all the guesses are deeply unpleasant. There are no restrictions or limits to get in the way of the main objective - making Putin look good. 

Russians Again

Pesky lot, the Russians. Just as you're starting to feel some sympathy, they kick you in the teeth. A TV documentary on Putin the other night featured a contrite Jack Straw, saying that the West had misread the risings in Georgia and Ukraine, and contributed to Putin's paranoia by trying to hijack local resistance into an East/West split. Absolutely right, and you can see the defensive "us against the world" syndrome clicking in all the time. On the other hand, the doping stuff is totally unacceptable, and has to be fought every inch of the way. ditto Litvinenko. And ditto - it seems very likely - Sunday's nerve agent attack on Skripal and his daughter. Easy to predict the rhetoric and the outrage. Much harder to say what we'll actually do. Having a few officials not turn up to the world Cup won't make a blind bit of difference. boycotting it - and getting other European nations to do the same - would seriously injure Russian prestige, but it's not going to happen.  

Making the Case

Sir Martin Donnelly, once Liam Fox's chief civil servant, has described leaving the EU as "like swapping a three-course meal for crisps." Fox is not impressed, dismissing Donnelly for sticking to the patterns of the past. and what does the future look like, in Fox's view? "Confidence, optimism and vision will always deliver more than pessimism or self-doubt." Whether or not that's true, Fox would have benefitted from attending an Arvon writing course, which would have taught him that a snappy concerete image will always beat a string of abstract nouns. 

Russian doping

Well, why not? Might as well call a spade a spade. I'd had a sense of Russia getting away with stuff on the doping front, slightly reinforced by odd asides as part of the Winter Olympics coverage. But now the scales have fallen from my eyes, and the whole picture is dazzlingly clear.

And what makes the difference? Watching the Netflix documentary Icarus, that's what. It's one of those quirky autobiographical documentaries which starts as as something completely different, but then becomes rivetting as a whole new story unravels before your disbelieving eyes. Ryan Gilbey is a keen amateur cyclist and film-maker, who gets intrigued by the possibility of training himself in the illegal use of drugs to improve his performance - if he can do it, starting from scratch, then surely anyone can. First he gets an American expert to help him, who then gets second thoughts, because this might harm his professional profile, but as a parting gift he puts Ryan in touch with Grigory Rodchenko...

Who just happens to be the mastermind behind Russian Olympic doping. They develop an odd kind of jokey friendship, until things start to unravel. WADA is looking into doping, and seriously investigating what the Russians do. Rodchenko is under pressure, but also scared that he may get ditched as a scapegoat (it has happened before. He got locked up in an asylum, and was only released because Putin's mate needed him to come out and run the programmme. So maybe it's safer to go to the Us...but should he help prosecute the Russians, or try to protect himself by going to the press? It's confused, fascinating and scary, but on the way it provides absolutely total proof that this was a watertight, state-approved programme of deceit, on a massive scale. anyone who thinks that the Russians are the victims of political pressure, or have suddenly cleaned up their act with miraculous precision, is kidding themselves.    

Plastic Progress?

There was a day when May got the headlines for an environmental initiative - yes, we were going to clean up plastics by...what was it...2040? Well, good for her. Yes, it's important. Something needs doing. Right to make it an issue, though it would be good to see a bit more urgency, direct application of government will.

But gradually, bit by bit, the full story starts to emerge. Compared with other countries, our record on clean energy is atrocious. After Cameron's brief flirtation with greenness, Osborne killed solar energy in the UK, and now May's doing something similar to wind power. You don't have to be nastily destructive - just fail to see the opportunity, and reduce the incentives for firms to invest in the future.

Even worse, when initiatives come up which include a chance of collaboration, countries actually working together for a cleaner planet, we're in there, diluting the rules, changing the message, making sure that the change is as minimal as possible. The price of Brexit, apparently, is that we shall find as many ways as possible of humiliating ourselves in the eyes of the world.  

Hope for the Future?

Yes, a politician with whom I'm impressed, because she has a vision for the future. It's maybe a sign of the times that she's a conservative, but these days we get our inspiration wherever it occurs. I am increasingly impressed by Justine Greening.

That's right. the one who got sacked. Went to a comprehensive, wasn't keen on grammar schools, had a halfway realistic approach to the teaching unions. so she had to go. Was offered something else, but turned it down. a bit like Jeremy Hunt, except that she didn't stay put where she was, while also picking up another department. But she did at least go with dignity.

But not to sulk. She's in the news today for talking about Brexit. And what she's saying is - if young people think it's a rubbish move, in the end they'll work to reverse it. Has anyone else in any kid of position said this? Actually thought about how the current pantomime looks to people under 30, and what might happen as a result? I'd have her in as PM tomorrow, but what do I know? She is at least trying, and trying to be constructive. she'll get a lot of flak for it, but she looks to me like the sort of MP we need.    

Hostile Environment

I've been following this one for a while. When I first used it in poems, people were sure i'd made it up. but no,. Home Secretary Theresa May really did have a sub-committee working under this title, whose job it was to make life unpleasant for people from abroad. At some point it all seemed to go quiet, maybe because PM Cameron didn't think it was a good look, given that he's a caring sort of guy. But once he's gone, and May's back in charge, the policy and the slogan go full steam ahead - she uses it proudly, confident that the Brexit vote gives the Home Office a mandate to persecute anyone who wasn't actually born here. 

But now, finally, there are signs that these assumptions are being questioned. The Home Affairs select committee slams the failure of the Home Office to base immigration policy on any serious analysis, and goes through the appalling record of victimisation and incompetence over the past few years. " We believe people should be working together to build consensus on the benefits and address concerns about problems on immigration." Wow. If that approach is maintained, there'll be a lot of changes in how the Home Office operates, and it's not before time. 

Royal Wedding

It was fairly predictable that a Windsor councillor would at some point complain about the homeless littering the streets, and try to ensure that they are bulldozed or hosed off the pavements before Harry and Meghan's big day. What's gratifying is the speed and confidence with which this proposal has been resisted. The police are quick to point out that this isn't a simple matter of people wandering on to the wrong patch. People are homeless for a reason, and for lack of alternatives, and simply wiping them out of the immediate line of sight isn't a solution to anything. Which is a relief, because everything we hear about Harry and Meghan suggests that they'd be appalled to be used as the reason for brutal social engineering.   

Tax Cuts

And yes, it's Trump again, bu what else can you do, when he's determined to hog the agenda? That's what you get when you vote for a volatile narcissist to be the most powerful person in the world. He's celebrating today, because he's got his tax cuts through, and is triumphantly signing them the day before Christmas. He said he'#d do it and he has, and his supporters line the steps, looking wonderfully, smugly happy. I don't think this is because the move will bring employment or a rise in living standards for their constituents. It's about profits, and rich people making more money than they were before. If ever you wanted a demonstration of why it isn't enough to see if business is happy, this is it. The Dow Jones loves it, but the prospects for most Americans are bleaker than ever before.  

We are taking names.

So says Nikki Haley, threatening the UN like an old style primary school teacher. Amazingly, it didn't work. "We're Bolivia. Make sure you get that down. We want to be top of the list", says the Bolivian representative as they go ahead anyway, and vote in condemnation of Trump's endorsement of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

It won't help in Jerusalem, of course. And the UN may well end up weaker, and poorer, as a result. But once you instal Trump as US president then there are a lot of things that are going to get worse. the Middle East situation will certainly deteriorate, but it's better that Trump's bullying is defied rather than letting it be indulged. Nikki Haley doesn't look that good, either, unless you look long-term through a narrow US lens - American journalists are saying this boosts her chances for a later Presidential run. God help us all.      

Let's do it all again...

Or maybe not. The Labour Party are saying they don't want to rerun the Brexit vote, and I'm mightily relieved. Was the first round a deceitful fiasco? Certainly was. Was the result dangerously close and secretly influenced by foreign groups? Yes indeed. Would the future of this country be more secure if we decided to stay in after all? Absolutely.

But I don't want another vote, because I don't want another campaign. Also in today's paper is an article by Dominic Grieve headed "Rational debate is drowned out in this climate of Brexit vitriol." The abuse and threats that he and others have received would have been unthinkable ten years ago. It's common to hear "Do you want what Jo Cox got?" as if this were a predictable part of the business of politics. The campaign we had last time was appalling, and the media was totally ill-equipped to cope. I don't see any evidence that things have substantially improved. If anything's going to rescue us from this it'll have to be the intelligence and conscience of MPs. Yeah, I know. but it's all we have.   

Staying Put

Ok, so this is two posts running about Home Office harassment, but I'm not apologising for that. the Sheila Hale case was a bad joke. Paulette Wilson's is much more serious. Came here 50 years ago, aged 10. lived and worked here, now a grandmother, no other home. Two weeks ago they picked her up, took her to detention near the airport, and without her MP's intervention she'd have been on her way. Staying Put was a wonderful poetry and music concert, put on in Wolverhampton by the great Steve Pottinger, to highlight Paulette's case and raise money in her support. It was a fabulous night - ten minutes each of eight poets, and a ukulele band which also featured sax and bass guitar. Best of all, Paulette came and really enjoyed herself. All she needs now is some common sense and decency from the Home Office, but if your main mission is to create a hostile environment, then those are in short supply.