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So, what a surprise. Another major trophy won by a member of the Big Four. All the tv experts tried to put forward explanations as to why Chelsea beat Everton in yesterday’s FA Cup Final. But the reason could be put down to one word: Money.

Chelsea’s vastly superior wealth means they can buy the best players-like Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Michael Ballack. Chelsea's side was assembled at a cost of £330m. Everton's cost £90m.

Money Power doesn’t make life more exciting-it does exactly the opposite. It means that all our towns and cities look the same: a Starbucks, Pizza Express or Macdonalds on every corner. It means our leading political parties all have the same pro-capital policies. And the same teams win all the football trophies.

The facts speak for themselves: all but two of the last 18 FA Cup finals have been won by one of the ‘Big Four’. The last five Carling Cup finals have been won by the Big Four and since Middlesbrough won the 2003/4 Carling Cup, only one side from outside the Big Four (Portsmouth) has won a major trophy in England. (correction: two sides from outside the Big Four have won trophies since '04, as Robin Carmody reminds me in the comments section, Tottenham won the '08 Carling Cup).

On the same theme- there’s a great piece by Rod Liddle in today’s Sunday Times, which says it all:

For the first 11 years that I watched the FA Cup final, 11 different teams won the trophy, beginning and ending with those likeable, stalwart also-rans, West Bromwich Albion and Ipswich Town. In the past 14 years a grand total of five different clubs have won the tournament; the interlopers being Portsmouth.

When are football fans- regardless of the teams they support- going to come together and say ‘enough is enough’ of this boring, predictable nonsense?

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Video: thekeogh

I’ve written before of the way neoliberals love to trash 1970s Britain. The reason why of course, is that the decade saw the zenith of progressive politics, not just in Britain but around the world too.

The neoliberals don’t only tell lies about the state of the economy in the 1970s, they trash every aspect of 70s life. Including football. Football back then was nowhere near as good as it is today, according to the manic Thatcherites. It was far too working class (not an executive box in sight)- and it really was quite appalling how little clubs like Notts Forest and QPR and Ipswich could compete for honours with the bigger clubs. That would never do would it? Let‘s change the structure of football so only the very richest clubs can win things. And we’ll change the structure of our economy and society too, to benefit the super-rich.

And that's exactly what the neoliberals did.

I just hope those who trash the 1970s watched ITV’s recent showing of the ’Big Match’ programme of the highlights of the FA Cup final of thirty years ago.

May 1979- a highly significant date as it was then that Mrs Thatcher came to power and British society and economy underwent radical changes. We saw the impact of those changes by watching the match.

First, neither team's shirts carried advertising (or even the players names on the back). There were no players from outside Britain and Ireland on the pitch: football had yet to be globalised. There was the great sportmanship- illustrated by the generous tributes the two managers, Terry Neill and Dave Sexton, paid to each other when interviewed side by side after the game. There was the dress of those in the crowd-while a few supporters wore their teams scarves- none were dressed in replica football jerseys- as most supporters are today.

The programme provided a snapshot of Britain at the end of one era, and at the start of another.

That summer, Liverpool became the first team to have advertising on its shirts.
A couple of years later, the rules were changed so that the home team kept all the gate receipts: the spirit of greed, unleashed by Thatcherism, was entering the sport.

British football, society and economy was never the same after May 1979.

And watching the Big Match video reminds us of the less commercialised, less money-obsessed world we have lost.

Oh, and it was also a classic game of football, with three goals in the last four minutes.

So much for those who say that good football only came to Britain with the advent of the big-bucks Premier League.

Watch and enjoy the incredible climax to the 1979 FA final above, and reflect on the world we lost when ‘Money Power’ and ‘Market Forces’ started to dictate every aspect of our lives.

And another thought: for those who believe that the Premier League has raised standards and improved English clubs chances of winning trophies in Europe, I give you this simple fact:

Number of times English clubs won the European Cup between 1977-84: 7
Number of times English clubs won the European Cup/Champions League since the advent of the Premier League in 1992/3 : er, 2. (er,3- as PJD reminds me in the comments, I forgot Liverpool's win in Istanbul in 2005). But it's still a very poor 17-year haul compared to the period 1977-84.

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This week's winner, from W.H. Doe of Arnold, Notts, appears in today's Daily Mail.

"It shows how bright most of our MPs are- no one put in a claim for a shredder, except Tony Blair."

ps Tony's shredder really did exist, unlike Saddam Hussein's which, like Iraq's WMDs, was a neocon conspiracy theory.

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This article of mine appears in the Morning Star. It also appears on the website of the Campaign for Public Ownership.
It was written before the MPs expenses scandal broke- it seems that a large proportion of ‘Honourable Members’- regardless of party affiliation- are also fans of the Gospel according to Gordon Gekko.

With Conservative Party riding high in the opinion polls, the fanatically neoliberal "there is no such thing as society" brigade are becoming less reticent about voicing their obnoxious opinions in public.

Take Fraser Nelson, writing in the Spectator magazine.

Nelson argues that, while the 1980s mantra "greed is good" has become unfashionable, it is still true. We have, it seems, forgotten that wealth generates revenue, while high taxes - Nelson, like fellow neoliberals is incensed by the new 50 per cent top rate of tax for high earners - "crush prosperity and pauperise nations."

Instead of being regarded as a villain, Gordon Gekko, the ultra-selfish trader played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street, should be regarded as a wealth-creating hero.

What utter claptrap.

Nothing has done more to destroy British society and its economy than the naked greed and cult of selfishness unleashed by the Thatcherites in the '80s. To argue that the solution to our current ills is even more greed is like a politician in the devastated and defeated Germany of 1945 calling for more nazism.

As for the claim that high taxes crush prosperity and pauperise nations, Nelson has clearly never visited Norway.

The northern European country did exactly the opposite to what Thatcherites like Nelson were advocating in the 1980s.

Instead of privatising its oil industry, it nationalised it and set up a State Petroleum Fund. And it used high taxes in order to redistribute wealth and extend a welfare state where all citizens are cared for from the cradle to the grave. The result of these socialist policies is that Norway is now the third richest country in the world.

Aren't we lucky in Britain that we were rescued from going down the same path by Margaret Thatcher.


One cut they won't make

THE next Conservative government will, according to David Cameron, be a "government of thrift."

I've no doubt that spending on the NHS, state education and welfare provision will be slashed if the strong neoliberal faction within the party gets its way. But there's one cost-saving measure I'm fairly sure Dave and his chums won't introduce.

Renationalising British transport would save the country a fortune. Britain's railways companies receive over four times more in taxpayers subsidy than the much-maligned British Rail did in the last years of its existence. It's a similar story of government extravagance when it comes to subsiding private bus companies, which received £2.5bn from the public purse last year.

So, when a Tory or, indeed, a Labour or Lib Dem canvasser next comes to your door asking for your support, ask them why, if the public finances really are in such a bad shape, their parties refuse to advocate such a sensible, cost-saving measure.


A ticket to profits

THE year 1969. A man landed on the moon, Swindon stunned Arsenal in the League Cup final and Charles de Gaulle stepped down as president of France. It was also the year that Harold Wilson's Labour government set up the National Bus Company.
Established by the Transport Act a year earlier, the National Bus Company brought together all the state's bus interests in one company.

The way the system worked was simple. Buses were run locally by subsidiaries such as Midland Red or Southern Vectis while intercity coaches operated under the National Express banner.

There was even a national holiday company offering cheap coach holidays to different parts of the country.

This co-ordinated and efficient system was destroyed when the National Bus Company was broken up and privatised by the Thatcher government in the 1980s. We were told that privatising and deregulating bus transport would lead to greater competition and lower prices.

Instead, we have a situation where cash-strapped local authorities are effectively blackmailed by private operators into handing over ever more money in order to maintain services.

The Morning Star has already reported on the obscene case of fat-cat Go Ahead group chief executive Keith Ludeman, whose salary last year topped £910,000 and whose company has received millions of pounds in public subsidies, expressing his displeasure that Britain's pensioners, after a lifetime of work, have the benefit of free travel on buses. "Pensioners cannot be given a blank cheque," Ludeman complained.

But if anyone has been given a blank cheque these past 20 years it has been the profiteering private bus operators, which have made a fortune from the British taxpayer since Thatcher's destruction of the National Bus Company.

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Today would have been the 85th birthday of one of my British political heroes: the late Labour MP Peter Shore.

I corresponded with Shore when I was working abroad, teaching Economics in the early-mid 1990s. He sent me copies of the debates on the Maastricht Treaty from Hansard and then, most kindly, a copy of his book 'Leading the Left'. I was not a constituent of Shore's- yet still he replied to my requests- and could not have been more helpful.

I don’t agree with all the policy stances he took later on his life, but certainly agreed with his line on the EEC/EU and on economic policy- and in particular his views on the importance of public ownership. Shore always maintained that it was dishonest to talk about achieving greater equality without also extending public ownership. I used to be a member of the Labour Party, but left when Blair ditched Clause Four. For me, Clause Four is the very definition of socialism.
Once Labour ditched it, it could no longer have any claims to be a socialist party.

Peter Shore could have become Labour leader had he not been such a man of principle. In 1980, he seemed a strong candidate to take over from Jim Callaghan, but
his opposition to unilateral nuclear disarmament meant that many on the left preferred to support Michael Foot in the contest with Denis Healey. Had Foot not been persuaded to stand, Shore would very likely have won, but it was not to be.

Shore was simply too left-wing for the right-wing of the party (on the economy, nationalisation and the EEC/EU) and too right-wing (on issues such as defence, Northern Ireland) for the left. It's a great pity that Shore never became Labour leader as I'm sure he would have proved a formidable adversary for Margaret Thatcher. He was a great public speaker and a man of great personal charm.

Perhaps if he had become leader we would never have had to endure New Labour.

Peter Shore: an Old Labour great. May he rest in peace

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What do you think of the senior US politician who said of Israel:

"We should go to Tel Aviv and we should have a Japanese-German style occupation of that country"

What a disgusting Judeophobic, fascist scumbag, eh?

Except the politician in question, US Vice President Joe Biden didn’t say those things about Israel, but about Serbia. As I highlighted in a Guardian article here, Serb-bashing is one of the last acceptable forms of racism in the world today. If Biden had made his comments about having a 'Japanese-German style occupation' of Israel, or indeed any other country, he would not only not be US Vice-President, he’d probably be in prison for race-hate crimes. But he said them about Serbia, and so he gets to be appointed the second most powerful man in the most powerful country in the world.

Today, Biden visits Serbia- to try to bully the government there to accept an ‘independent’ (ie US vassal state) Kosovo and to support the failed US puppet state of Bosnia. Let’s hope this loathsome racist gets the reception he deserves.
(Svetlana has more details on the protests planned by Serbs at the racist's visit.)

UPDATE: I have amended this post due to not being able to find 100% authentication of other anti-Serb quotes ascribed to Biden. If anyone can send in links to the primary sources where Biden made the alleged comments: "Serbs are illiterate degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists" and "all Serbs should be put in Nazi-style concentration camps", please let me know and I will reinsert the quotes and amend the piece again. Many thanks. In any case, Biden's disgusting remarks about a 'Japanese-German style occupation' of Serbia are damning enough, especially given the horrors that the Serbs experienced during the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia in World War Two.

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I've always maintained that neoconservatism should not be seen as a genuine political philosophy, but merely as a smokescreen for old fashioned pillage and plunder. Greed is the driving force behind neoconservatism- a theory hardly disproved by the behaviour of most of the MPs who have signed up to the principles of the Henry Jackson Society.

First, there was Michael 'Flipper' Gove. Then David 'The Minister who can't change a light bulb' Willetts. Then Stephen Crabb. Then Michael Ancram. Then Chris Bryant. Then the unlovely, self-adoring Denis Macshane, a man who loves to see his name in the papers but probably wasn't too happy to see this article. And now Ed Vaizey.

Have a look at the stories regarding these dishonourable members. They claim to be 'democrats'- well, let's hope the British public give them the Order of the Boot at the next election; that's if their party leaders don't derail them first.

UPDATE: Now here's a funny thing. Attempts to add details of Dennis Macshame's abuse of taxpayers money have been deleted from his wikipedia page, apparently because they were not sourced. I wonder if our friend Philip Cross, the diligent wikipedia editor could help out here? Philip is so quick off the mark when it comes to editing my page- why, a certain little neo-con blogger with an obsession with trying to smear me, only has to make an attack post on me on his blog and up goes Philip, or his little pal '212.135.157.237'. to add a reference to it on my wikipedia page. But Philip doesn't seem to be quite so keen on adding a reference to the Daily Mail story on Denis Macshane's page. That's strange, because he's shown a great interest in editing Macshane's page in the past. And also, the page of Macshane's former wife, the late newsreader Carol Barnes. In fact so incensed was 'Philip' when I once referred to McShane by his original name 'Denis Matyjaszek' that he darted over to my wikipedia page to insert the maiden name of my wife, failing to see the difference between a woman who takes her husband's surname on marriage, with a careerist politician who hypocritically berates the British for not being 'pro-European' enough, while changing his original Polish surname.

Come on Philip, anyone would think you that instead of being an 'impartial' wikipedia editor, you were somehow heavily biased towards Mr Macshane. To prove them wrong, here's a little test for you. Simply go to McShane's wikipedia page and add a reference to the Daily Mail story. Here is the link. It's an approved source, so no problems on that ground. We'll be watching the page on a daily basis to see if you put it up.

Oh, and by the way, I'm really looking forward to meeting you at the 2010 Wikimania conference. We've got so much to talk about.

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