BUSHELL ON THE BLOG
July 6. What a match! That was one of the best England performances I’ve ever seen. It had everything – drama, commitment, wonderful goals, Bellingham at his best, a red card, and England, down to ten men, winning against the odds, the altitude and the passionate home crowd. Mexico hadn’t lost at the Azteca since 2013. We’re going to need all of that lionheart spirit to send Norway rowing home in their longboats.
I just re-read my July 4 entry and kicked myself for not including Sinatra, the Godfather, James Brown, Buddy Holly and Robin Williams. I’d love to spend a year just travelling around the States like Jack Reacher, soaking up the sights and the culture. First stop would be Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta, where Highway 61 meets Highway 49 and where Robert Johnson is reputed to have sold his soul to Satan in return for the secrets of the blues. Clarksdale was a cotton town; the golden buckle of the cotton belt. Plantations were in constant need of labourers, and men who worked as sharecroppers included Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Pinetop Perkins, Son House and Houston Stackhouse. Delta Blues royalty. Popular music and especially rock music owes everything to Clarksdale. Out of that came rock ‘n’ roll, hard rock, Chicago Blues, R&B and heavy metal. No Clarksdale, no Stones. And no Sweet Honey Hole by Blind Boy Fuller.
July 5. It’s a 1am kick-off for tonight’s England game against Mexico and the pubs are staying open. They think you’ll fall over? You will now.
July 4. Happy Independence Day to all my mates in the United States. It’s a land I love – critically – from a distance. A land of energy and enterprise, self-belief and hope. A land of possibility, positivity, creativity and aspiration. A land of free speech, increasingly under threat here. And yes, of course the USA has flaws the size of the Grand Canyon, but from California to the New York island, and from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters (thanks Woody), the land of the free works for me.
The Top 30 reasons I love America: Motown, the Marx Brothers, Raymond Chandler, Steinbeck, Star Trek, jazz and soul, rock’n’roll, Elvis, Aretha, Mel Brooks, Eddie Murphy, Marvel and DC, Miles Davis, Springsteen, Smokey, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Hollywood, hamburgers, Hemingway, Daisy Duke, Dolly Parton, bourbon, Bob Dylan, the Ramones, Tom Wolfe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the MC5. Which might be 31, and I could easily and very willingly go on. For a sense of balance, the down side: the pox of credit cards, political correctness, influencers, reality TV, modern art, the KKK, disastrous ill-considered wars… (continued McSorley’s Old Ale Bar).
July 3. If Andy Burnham sticks to his word and doesn’t cut welfare or ditch the pension triple lock, how will he afford to implement his reheated plans? The only way he could pay for huge projects like renationalisation and a council house-building spree would be to impose higher taxes and higher business rates, and by loading tax relief on pensions with conditions. Which will collectively generate growth… but only in the national debt and unemployment. The imposition of a property tax would be particularly spiteful as many a modest detached house in the capital is valued at £1.5m or more. Hardly a mansion. A real radical would ditch the old failed Labour tax-and-spend compulsion and their bigger state approach and think laterally. Abolish stamp duty on house purchases and shares, simplify our bloated tax system, stop punishing the animal spirits who make the economy work, and realise that pushing taxes up always and without exception results in plummeting returns. But in fairness, I don’t suppose he learnt any of that when he was studying English Lit at Cambridge. The whole Burnham project is fatally flawed. He’s a Labour lifer bereft of vision and real-world experience. All he wants to do is bring back yesterday’s rejected policies (regionalisation, nationalisation) and yesterday’s men (Balls, Purnell, Cooper, two bloody Milibands). No wonder he refuses to discuss any of his policies in detail. Burnham is being spun as a new broom. But in reality, he’s a man with no mandate and no plan. And a hypocrite who dismisses the “neo-liberalism” of British governments this century even though he was in two of them. He’s another Nowhere Man, a vacuum who dresses down for publicity shots and bottles out of incisive interviews. Although he will answer questions on Reddit (almost). It took two years for Starmer to bite the dust. How long should we give Andy Crapp?
July 2. World Cup joys: Kane, Messi, Mbappe, Haaland etc. World Cup irritations: hydration breaks in sealed, air-conditioned stadiums presumably to give US TV extra ad breaks, and the continued use of God Save The King as the England squad’s official song. It isn’t about England; it’s the national anthem of the United Kingdon. So why are we lumbered with it? The Scots have their turgid Flower Of Scotland (harking back to the 14th century Battle of Bannockburn – no mention of Flodden or Culloden) and the Welsh the stirring and heart-lifting Land Of My Fathers. We need our own song, one that captures the hope and positivity of the English. Jerusalem would be splendid, but I’d settle for Three Lions or Cock Sparrer’s England Belong To Me. Let’s kick the national anthem into touch.
July 1st. The Number 10 of the North? Give me strength. This is Burnham playing to anti-southern prejudice. It would take years to happen, and cost millions. Besides Manchester isn’t really the north. It’s just a little over halfway between London and the Scottish borders. The true north is Cumbria, Northumberland, County Durham and North Yorkshire. Classic misdirection.
There’s an interview online with Merseyside-born Burnham from around 2010 when he shows his true colours, going out of his way to avoid saying he’s English and stating that he wants to carve England into regions (the old EU dream). He also supported the creation of a British football team. Burnham’s political opinions might well cynically mutate to suit his career but his views on England, not expected to be publicised, seem likely to be his core beliefs. Like many Labour politicians, he is uncomfortable with the idea of Englishness and sees English taxpayers as a cash cow to sustain unchecked government spending in Scotland, to win voters back from the nationalists. He would sustain the Barnett formula (which protects Scotland from budget cuts at English taxpayers’ expense) and he will allow Scottish MPs to have a say in English affairs while denying English MPs the same rights. Just 5.5 million people live in Scotland out of a total UK population of 69 million. They have a parliament to decide on Scottish questions – why do they have a say in English legislation too? Scottish MPs voted to curtail the right to jury trials in England and Wales in March. Don’t expect any change to this perverse set-up under our two-dimensional Andy Crapp.