Cuts that are and cuts that aren't

Well we knew whoever won it'd happen: the cuts begin.

And of course the people who did so much to get us into this mess aren't going to admit that, not after the new government has had literally weeks to settle in and sort out the mess.

But I do find Labour's "anger" about the North Tees and Hartlepool hospital almost comical in the hypocrisy stakes. Labour said they would spend £450m on this in an attempt to shore up the vote in the area. (Which didn't fully work. I imagine the new Conservative MP for Stockton South not be best pleased.)

This is an idea. Not a hospital. There are nice pictures drawn by architects but no constructions. It is to replace exisiting hospitals. Cutting it does not affect anyone's health care. Except the little model people who now won't be used in the scale model.

Labour are playing opportunistic opposition. Fair enough but don't expect to convince anyone. Perhaps engagement in the problem might be a better option. If we can't cut something suggest alternatives.

Second round has livened up!

13 goals in 4 games is a very good start to the second round of group games. (I must also apologise to the linesman as the first goal in France v Mexico wasn't a mile offside but probably onside. Good call. Good to see someone older than me scoring too! Is there still hope for me to play international football...?) If France get through I'd be very, very surprised!

Comparing the goals in the various rounds of group games is unenlightening in the most part:

Tournament	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	KO stages	Tournament
SA 2010	1.56	3.25 (4 games)			1.89
Italia '90	2.25	2.17	2.4	2.06	2.21
USA '94	2.5	2.67	2.58	3	2.71
France '98	2.31	2.69	2.88	2.81	2.67
JK '02	2.88	2.19	3.06	1.94	2.52
Germany '06	2.44	2.25	2.63	1.88	2.30

There are no obvious patterns to me since 1990: we usually get most in the final set of group games but don't always. However it is noticeable how much lower the first round this time is.

The tournament needs a good round as the first round has very few goals. Now I'm not someone who can't appreciate a 0-0 draw, but you have to feel someone might actually score. The fact we still haven't had a decent free kick goal says something. Nigeria's effort today hardly counts: it was more about putting the goalkeeper in an impossible situation: a good free kick into the percentage area.

Still the Goalkeepers' union must be pleased that all their predictions of unpredicatble swerve have helped them for once.

More world cup woes: How to decide who to support in a random game

So you have a game, lets say Honduras v Chile. Obviously you'll be watching it because it is on TV/Radio/t'Internet. But who do you support?

You don't have any grandparents from Honduras or Chile. None of your club team play for the countries, and none of their big rivals players do either. You've never visited either, or met anyone as far as you know from the countries. None have a particular history against your first choice nations. You don't have either in the sweepstake, and the match prediction game you entered you are already last in...

so...

My wife suggests

• Whose manager has the worst suit
• The goalkeeper with silliest ("most original") hair (Algeria!) or worst keeper kit (D Seaman for England in the Refresher kit)
• Team whose kit is most like your favourite team's kit
• Team who look most like Harchester Utd
• Players with most/least/biggest/silliest hair
• Best national anthem (I'd say "shortest")
• Team with most players with the same surname (a good way to chose one of the Koreas)

I'd go for the country with most Liberal MPs if I could be bothered to look it up.

Simon Hughes won.

Good show!

World Cup Woes

I'm currently watching Serbia v Ghana. It is 0-0. I've watched a lot of football, and I know most games in the opening days of tournaments are disappointing but...

We've had lots of hype about the ball being a problem for keepers (I guess it must deform in odd ways that interact with the spin) but it has actually been worse for the attackers.

When I agree with the ITV pundits that a free kick that only just missed the target is the best we've seen so far it isn't good!

In the 6 games so far we've had 8 goals, an average of 1.3 per game(see footnote).

In complete tournaments the worst was Italia '90 at 2.2. Almost an extra goal. The first 7 games of that tournament yielded 20 goals, nearly 3 per game. That was helped by two mismatches (Czechoslovakia 5-1 USA and West Germany 4-1 Yugoslavia. Hmmm... only one of those countries exists today.)

I hope it catches fire soon but I'm pessimistic.

In other news ITV's apology for making HD viewers (of which I am not one) miss England's opening goal was pathetic. Not good enough. Much in line with the rest of their football coverage.

Footnote: I know it is 1 1/3 or 1.3333333.... but meh.

Breaking the Mould?

I have just got back from the Hay Festival, which was an outing of stereotypical Guardian readers to a field in Wales. Good fun but rather depressing in some ways. Sadly I will be back at some point.

I will write about some of the sessions I attended at some point, especially when I've finished reading the books that go with them.

However I did sneak into the second hand bookshops and pick up a few books to add to my backlog of unread books.

One that jumped out at me cost the princely sum of £1.50 and is pictured right. It was written in 1981 and outlines from a broadly sympathetic (I think) position the reasons for the creation of the SDP and what might happen. Ian Bradley went on to different things than you might expect (and yes it is the same person!)

Overall the book reads easily and, at only 161pp, quickly. Ian Bradley is a lively writer. I think his sections on polls had all the health warnings, but the conclusions don't seem to include them. However his final conclusions are interesting:

If the SDP does well at the next election [1983], it will almost certainly help the party which it has broken away from [...]

To be fair to Ian Bradley he couldn't have foreseen the Falklands.

He seems more prescient in the next sentence:

The effect of it's arrival may well be to help the Liberals [...] It is not difficult to imagine after the next election a victorious alliance contingence of MPs which consists of only a handful of Social Democrats, perhaps just 3 or 4 of the exisiting MPs, and a substantial number -- perhaps fifty or more -- of Liberals.

The Liberals did remain the senior grouping in 1983 (17 against 6) and 1987 (17 against 5). But never matched poll levels. Predicting a level of 50 for the Liberal (Democrat) parliamentary party seems reasonable now, but would have been unheard of in the 1980s.

In chapter 2 he gives an overview of new parties. He says that they need 20-30 years to enter government, or vanish in about 5-10 years. The SDP may be unique in doing both: it took 16 years for New Labour to emerge as an arguably Social Democratic government (albeit a bureaucratic centralising one), or 29 years for the LibDems to enter the coalition, but the SDP as a real force vanished in the merger after only 6 years.

Well worth a read if you can find a copy. Which looks easy enough. I may track down a copy of his Strange Rebirth of Liberal England when I've read more of the backlog.

Been a while hasn't it...

Well the election happened in my absence. I was somewhat busy campaigning and didn't write much. In the parliamentary campaigns I was involved in (to various extents) the news was mixed but on balance disappointing. A win, a good loss (as it were) and three disappointing defeats.

Some questions I may rant about arising from the election are...

• Why is it we keep believing good opinion polls and ignore the bad ones?
• Why do we lose in three way marginals?
• How do we chose target seats so badly?
• Why are we disappointed with our best ever total vote as LibDems?

Some have easier answers than others...

However for now I think things have moved on enough to ignore these and instead move on to issues that don't concern me.

Things That Don't Concern Me 1: The Deputy Leadership

I had no idea the membership didn't vote for the deputy leader of the party. Mind you I ought to have done the '06 and '03 elections were done the same way and I was a member for both.

So we have two candidates:

Tim Farron backed publicly by Ming, Tessa Munt and Chris Huhne.
Simon Hughes backed publicly by Beith, Vince and Sarah.

See the list on LD Voice for current state of play.

In my opinion Hughes must win. His speech at the special conference was superb. He is a voice from the outside of the coalition. He is a liberal fighting against Labour by being better than them at fighting for social justice.

So I hope my MP votes for Hughes, and I hope he wins. Then we have a strong, experienced voice critical of the coalition within it. Hooray!

Things that don't concern me 2: Which Milliband

I really don't care. Balls would be less of a disaster for Labour than some people seem to think. People say they dislike combative opposition but the mud will stick. Milliband E and D are interchangable.