Not exactly rocket science

8:12am

Yesterday we learned that Labour's youth crime policies have been a costly failure:

Richard Garside, the director of the CCJS, summed up the research: “The Government’s decade-long youth justice experiment was a bold attempt to deploy the full force of the youth justice system to tackle problematic and disruptive behaviour by young people. This new research suggests that the experiment has largely failed, if reported youth offending is the measure of success."

The timing is aposite. Last night, tens of thousands of Chelsea and Manchester United fans arrived at and then left the Moscow ground with barely a trace of hooliganism. Not so in West London, however:

In West London, police in riot gear clashed with scores of Chelsea fans near the club's Stamford Bridge ground. One witness claimed the trouble started after an unmarked police car collided with a fan as it tried to make its was through a crowd of drunken supporters near Fulham Broadway underground station. "Suddenly about 50 of them just attacked the police car, they were trying to rip the lights off and get inside," the witness said. "It was terrifying. Then it all kicked off into a riot. There were about 800 Chelsea fans and only about 50 police. I saw them firing tear gas into the crowd, then the police charged at them with batons."

Gangs of thugs, including a several young women, hurled glasses, bottles and even metal dustbins in ugly scenes around Fulham Broadway Station. Several officers were seen retreating with blood pouring from their faces after receiving blows, and at least a dozen Chelsea supporters, both male and female, were being treated by paramedics on the pavement.  
 

It doesn't take a genius to work out why there was next to no trouble in Moscow, but riots here (and, of course, in Manchester last week). It's very simple. The fans in Moscow were, to be blunt, scared sh*tless that if they put a foot out of line they'd end up in a Russian hell hole. The fans in Britain knew that even if they used a pint glass as a weapon, they'd get a slapped wrist and maybe a few days in a prison barely a step below some bed and breakfasts.

And yet no one in power ever seems to draw the appropriate conclusion.  

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The long road to nowhere.

7:49am

I bought a Chelsea tea set this morning but I had to send it back. It didn't have any cups.

Haha.

I got home in time for the shoot out, and it was pure joy to watch that thug John Terry miss. I just hope it doesn't pray on his mind for long. Not.

All we need now is to wait for Abramovich to give up his toy and watch Chelsea implode.

(To my Chelsea supporting friends - you have to forgive a Spurs fan deriving what pleasure he can from yesterday!) 

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Labour's death march

12:59pm

Comment Central has a fascinating graph, which plots the current Government's poll ratings since the election in 2005 and matches it with the Major Government's ratings from the election in 1992.
Here's the key - and, when you look at it, obvious - conclusion:

Labour is on the same path as the Tories in the run up to their spectacular defeat in 1997.

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Odds

11:28am

On the basis that bookies' odds and weight of money combined tend to get these things right, you might like to know that this morning Betfair's odds against a Labour victory tomorrow are 17 to 1. And I touted for odds of 200/1 and have just been offered £5.

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Come on Man U!

9:33am

Months ago, I agreed to take part in a Question Panel tonight. I gave no particular thought to what else might be scheduled for the same night.

I wish I could pretend all snootily that I have no interest in the result of the Champions' League Final, and couldn't care less that I'll be missing it. Man U v Chelsea - ugh!

Truth is, I'd love to have been able to see it. Everyone I know (except Mrs P!) appears to be excited about it and doing something fun to watch it.

The same thing happened in 1999 when I had said I'd go to a dinner in Whitehall without realising what else would be happening that night. I recorded the game and thought I'd find a way of getting home without hearing the result. What an idiot. No sooner had I stepped out of the building than I saw delirious Man U fans in the fountain at Trafalgar Square.

So I won't try to escape the news tonight. I'll just hope that Man U win. (And - aren't football fans horrid?! - just to rub it in, wouldn't it be lovely if Chelsea lose on penalties, the most heart breaking way of losing as exists?)

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If only

9:25am

Well,quite.

(Mind you, even with its limitations, the Tories' schools policy is, of itself, sufficient reason to vote Conservative at the next election.)

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Malign

8:45am

It's an unworthy thought, but the news about Edward Kennedy reminded me of Evelyn Waugh's diary entry on hearing that surgeons had removed a benign tumour from Randolph Churchill:

A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.

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Come off it, Tom

9:14am

Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson has this post on his blog:

Strong leadership, wise decision, savvy PR. I’m admire this guy.

Come off it. I thought. Even Gordon Brown's plotter-in-chief couldn't try to spin his hero's past week as demonstrating strength, wisdom and savviness.

Nah. He's talking about Willie Walsh (mind you, even making that case is surely a stretch too far).

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My own anti-Americanism

8:42am

There's a fascinating comment thread after this post by Iain Dale, fascinating because it shows how widespread anti-Americanism now is. The post is about an incident on a tube:

 Ugh – just had the worst experience on the tube – some dumb liberal heard me speaking with a friend and deliberately started talking in a loud voice about the American Gov’t staging 9/11. I asked her to take her offensive views out of my earshot. Of course the whole carriage started making anti-american remarks and then some Asian girl challenged me to a fight – said I didn’t know anything about the sufferings of her people. It escalated and she spat in my face at Charing Cross. The staff called police – they were really nice and said that since her DNA was all over me they would gladly take her in but I told them I didn’t want to tie them up for 7 hours with paperwork but just to escort her out.

I have my own take on this. I make a point, as my friends will attest, of wearing a pair of stars and srtripes cufflinks. It might be slightly pathetic, but I want to demonstrate my solidarity with the nation leading the fight against barbarism.

Understandably, when strangers see but don't hear me, some jump to the conclusion that I am American. And it's instructive to see how some people behave when they see the cuffs. 

On countless occasions I have been sneered at, sworn at and, twice, spat at. I would say - my memory is impressionistic on this - that by far the most common insult is a muttered "F*c*ing American". And I cannot recall such behaviour from anyone who looked older than 40ish.

Not being American, for me this is simply useful in seeing how common such prejudice is. Of course, just because it is only the under 40s who are vocal, it does not follow that others do not share their views.  

It's not that usual to hear people give voice to their anti-semitic or anti-black bigotry. But in my experience, there is one prejudice which is now entirely acceptable: anti-Americanism.

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What a disgrace!

4:18pm

I'm with Stephen Brook: 

What is wrong with Britain? The trains don't run on time, you can't keep your GP when you move, to get a washing machine delivered you have to stay home all day and Doctor Who NEVER starts at the same time each Saturday evening.

And now this.

This being the heresy of moving The Apprentice next week to Tuesday. For one week.

Oh, the disgrace of it. Bring back the stocks for the idiots behind the move.

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