High Draw Lowers Score

The mid-week round of Premier League fixtures gave us a rare Match Of the Day which featured every team in the division for the first time this season. This meant those at the top of the running order had the potential for big points provided that they did not get involved in a high scoring match and those last on Match of the Day needed a no-score draw to avoid losing points overall.

As it turned out Arsenal and Tottenham blew their chance to improve their Promroiship position with a 4-4 draw which, while appearing first on Match of the Day, only netted the teams 20 points. Compare that to Liverpool and Portsmouth who scored 80 points after the 1-0 victory for the Reds appeared second on MOTD, catapulting Portsmouth into second from eighth and slightly reducing Liverpool's gap at the top mainly due to the fact Pompey have only appeared four times on Match of the Day this season thanks to European commitments. West Ham climbed off the bottom by virture of playing Manchester United and netting 60 points this week. Steve Bruce's problems were magnified as Wigan replaced them at the bottom. Manchester City dropped a massive eleven places after only their second Promroiship appearance this season.

Newcastle and West Brom were last on Match of the Day and got negative points because they played the day before. Detractors of the Promroiship may claim this makes it unfair but I am sure matches on previous days have been intermingled in the past (althought they are very unlikely to appear first). Consider the following: would Manchester United have appeared last if they had played in the only match on the night before?

Promroiship Results October 29th 2008 (Match of the Day Running Order)

Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur......20
Liverpool v Portsmouth...........80
Manchester United v West Ham.....60
Hull City v Chelsea..............40
Aston Villa v Blackburn Rovers...10
Stoke City v Sunderland..........40
Bolton Wanderers v Everton.......30
Middlesbrough v Manchester City..10
Fulham v Wigan Athletic.......... 0
Newcastle United v West Brom....-20

The Promroiship Table after Round 10 (08/9)

Team..................Total...Apps..Average
Liverpool..............336......7....48.0
Portsmouth.............173......4....43.3
Manchester United......233......6....38.8
Hull City..............259......7....37.0
Chelsea................132......4....33.0
Everton................225......7....32.1
Arsenal................285......9....31.7
Stoke City.............179......6....29.8
Sunderland.............237......8....29.6
Fulham.................216......8....27.0
Newcastle United.......178......7....25.4
Bolton Wanderers.......203......8....25.4
Tottenham Hotspur...... 99......4....24.8
Aston Villa............ 96......4....24.0
Blackburn Rovers.......235.....10....23.5
West Ham United........139......6....23.2
Middlesbrough..........227.....10....22.7
Manchester City........ 42......2....21.0
West Bromwich Albion...168......9....18.7
Wigan Athletic......... 98......6....16.3

Hull, United Lose Ground on Leaders

I don't think there could be too many complaints about the Match of the Day Running Order last night. Hull's amazing rise to joint top in the Premier League was followed by title rivals Manchester United dropping points at Everton. The Tyne-Wear derby featured third, which no doubt infuriated those from the North East (except those of course from Hull), with the other match appearing last. Thanks to Europe only four matches participated in the Promroiship this week, undermining the competition as most clubs (except for West Brom) lost points on their average as a result of the low scoring week.

The changes are of course temporary as there are a midweek round of fixtures this week which will feature on a special Wednesday Match of the Day.

Promroiship Results October 26th 2008 (Match of the Day Running Order)

West Bromwich Albion v Hull City...28
Everton v Manchester United........28
Sunderland v Newcastle United......20
Blackburn Rovers v Middlesbrough...20

The Promroiship Table after Round 9 (08/9)

Team..................Total...Apps..Average
Liverpool..............256......6....42.7
Hull City..............219......6....36.5
Manchester United......173......5....34.6
Arsenal................265......8....33.1
Newcastle United.......198......6....33.0
Everton................195......6....32.5
Manchester City........ 32......1....32.0
Portsmouth............. 93......3....31.0
Fulham.................216......7....30.9
Chelsea................ 92......3....30.7
Aston Villa............ 86......3....28.7
Sunderland.............197......7....28.1
Stoke City.............139......5....27.8
Tottenham Hotspur...... 79......3....26.3
Blackburn Rovers.......225......9....25.0
Bolton Wanderers.......173......7....24.7
Middlesbrough..........217......9....24.1
West Bromwich Albion...188......8....23.5
Wigan Athletic......... 98......5....19.6
West Ham United........ 79......5....15.8

Fight Night

It seems local MP John Hemming and my former local councillor Martin Mullaney are having some trouble with the BNP.

Promroiship Scoring System Vindicated

We have had to wait 27 rounds, but finally we get a week where it is justified to show the top four in the first four matches on the BBC's flagship footie programme - according to the Promroiship scoring system that is.

With the big four being involved in matches containing 4 to 5 goals each, and the rest being goalless draws, all the teams involved in the Promroiship this week got a comparable number of points and the highest scoring match was the first no score draw shown between Fulham and Sunderland. I have said previously that if the big four were as entertaining as the hype that surrounds them (by the objective measurement of number of goals in matches they are involved in), the Promroiship would take this into account and they would be fighting it out with the rest in an open competition (unlike the Premier League). Manchester United dropped a place after their four goal match only featured fourth on MOTD, with Arsenal and Chelsea also losing ground. Wigan managed to get themselves of the bottom leaving West Ham nearly four points adrift. Liverpool continue to lead the table justifiably given their rather exciting comebacks this season. Will this be the year Liverpool win their first Premier League (and Promroiship) title?

Promroiship Results October 18th 2008 (Match of the Day Running Order)

Liverpool v Wigan Athletic...35
Middlesbrough v Chelsea......28
Arsenal v Everton............28
Manchester Utd v West Brom...21
Fulham v Sunderland..........42
Aston Villa v Portsmouth.....35
Blackburn v Bolton...........28

The Promroiship Table after Round 8 (08/9)

Team..................Total...Apps..Average
Liverpool..............256......6....42.7
Hull City..............191......5....38.2
Manchester United......145......4....36.3
Newcastle United.......178......5....35.6
Everton................167......5....33.4
Arsenal................265......8....33.1
Manchester City........ 32......1....32.0
Portsmouth............. 93......3....31.0
Fulham.................216......7....30.9
Chelsea................ 92......3....30.7
Sunderland.............177......6....29.5
Aston Villa............ 86......3....28.7
Stoke City.............139......5....27.8
Tottenham Hotspur...... 79......3....26.3
Blackburn Rovers.......205......8....25.6
Bolton Wanderers.......173......7....24.7
Middlesbrough..........197......8....24.6
West Bromwich Albion...160......7....22.9
Wigan Athletic......... 98......5....19.6
West Ham United........ 79......5....15.8

The Theory of Relativity

When I found out that the topic for Blog Action Day this year was Poverty, I simply could not get out of my mind the debate between relative and absolute poverty.

In politics there are two types of poverty; absolute poverty, the kind preferred by the right, and relative poverty, the kind feted by the left. Absolute poverty is poverty as most people understand the word; starvation, lack of housing and other basic amenities. Basically being classically poor, similar to the characters in the novels Dickens writes. Relative poverty is based on having household earnings of 60% of the median. In Britain, thanks to socialism and the welfare state, absolute poverty of the kind seen in Charles Dickens novels generally does not exist anymore. Leftists now concentrate on alleviating relative poverty by good old fashioned mechanisms like taxing the rich to give to the poor. In other words, wealth redistribution.

The right-wing have a lot of problems with this. Firstly, taxing the rich (productive) to give to the poor (lazy) means there is no incentive to work. They point to all those single mothers who live in council houses provided by the state producing babies the rest of them support while a wailout of bankers (that is the official collective term) create wealth in the city funding it (until that is they get greedy for short term game and the state has to bail them out before western civilisation collapses). Secondly, they object to the term poverty. The poor are not starving like the good old days of unregulated Victorian capitalism, they own many mobile phones and wear designer clothes. They are actually rich thanks to western capitalism. The fact that a the child of working class parents has a 1 in 10 chance of getting to University compared to the 8 out of 10 children born to middle-class parents getting to University passes them by. Thirdly, the definition of relative poverty means that if a lot of rich people come to the country, the number of people suffering relative poverty can go up. I have always had a slight problem with this, because I was under the impression that rich people leave this country to live as tax exiles elsewhere, and that the majority of immigrants coming here could not speak English and leeched of the state. If this is true, immigration would reduce relative poverty, not make it worse.

I have mellowed a bit over the years and am not as left-wing as I was in a previous incarnation. I understand the ideas of modern right-wing politics, the theory of incentives and how a well meaning government can actually make things worse. For example, there is an interesting theory that Gordon Brown's disastrous abolition of the 10p tax rate was actually a measure designed to target child poverty. After all, if you raise taxes for the poor, and give money back to those with families, those with children will end up relatively better off than those without. Maybe relative poverty is not such a good definition after all.

It used to infuriate me when the right belittled the idea of relative poverty. After all, most of them had never experienced it. It got me thinking: what is the key problem behind poverty in this country. I decided the problem was the lack of social mobility. It is more true today than any time in post-war Britain that a child will end up in a similar position in society to that of their parents. That is real poverty. The poverty of aspirations amongst the relatively poor.

Of course, we should be glad that we do not suffer the old-fashioned type of poverty much anymore in the West, and that many people in the world famously live on less than one dollar a day (cost of living differences aside). I am proud to live in a city which pioneered the Drop the Debt campaign 10 years ago when the G8 summit came to town.

I hope one day I will see a world with no absolute poverty, and a Birmingham with none, relatively speaking.

Liverpool Top as United Drop

Only four games featured on Match of the Day in the week before the international weekend causing some real problems for the big guns in the Promroiship as a multiplier of 4 leads to weekly points scores well below the season average. As a result, Manchester United relinquish top spot to Liverpool who did not play, and despite featuring first Arsenal's average decreased slightly as well. It was not all bad news though, as Sunderland's appearance in the first match, along with West Brom and Wigan all improved their season averages, presumably because they feature so low on Match of the Day when the fixture list on Saturday is fuller.

Worth pointing out is that after seven rounds of the Promroiship, Manchester City have only featured on Match of the Day once. Unbelievable.

Promroiship Results October 5th 2008 (Match of the Day Running Order)

Sunderland v Arsenal...........32
Blackburn v Manchester United..28
West Brom v Fulham.............28
Wigan v Middlesbrough..........24

The Promroiship Table after Round 7 (08/9)

Team..................Total...Apps..Average
Liverpool..............221......5....44.2
Manchester United......124......3....41.3
Hull City..............191......5....38.2
Newcastle United.......178......5....35.6
Everton................139......4....34.8
Arsenal................237......7....33.9
Chelsea................ 64......2....32.0
Manchester City........ 32......1....32.0
Fulham.................174......6....29.0
Portsmouth............. 58......2....29.0
Stoke City.............139......5....27.8
Sunderland.............135......5....27.0
Tottenham Hotspur...... 79......3....26.3
Aston Villa............ 51......2....25.5
Blackburn Rovers.......177......7....25.3
Bolton Wanderers.......145......6....24.2
Middlesbrough..........169......7....24.1
West Bromwich Albion...139......6....23.2
West Ham United........ 79......5....15.8
Wigan Athletic......... 63......4....15.8

Arsenal Rise After Loss

I am behind on a couple of weeks of the Promroiship due to the Conservative Party Conference posts and being generally busy. We should be back up to date after the international weekend.

Arsenal's loss to Hull City may not have done their Premier League hopes any good, but it gave the match first spot in the Match of the Day running order on 27th September moving them from tenth to sixth in the table. In a week with a near maximum eight matches, West Ham had another miserly haul of points after the London derby between them and Fulham was deemed only to be worth penultimate place on MOTD. The Merseyside derby appeared third, perhaps surprisingly behind Newcastle's loss to Blackburn which keeps moves the former to fourth. Manchester United continue to lead the table despite appearing fourth in only their second appearance on Match of the Day, but Liverpool have closed the gap on their great northern rivals.

Promroiship Results September 27th 2008 (Match of the Day Running Order)

Arsenal v Hull City..........56
Newcastle v Blackburn........48
Everton v Liverpool..........48
Manchester United v Bolton...40
Stoke City v Chelsea.........32
Aston Villa v Sunderland.....16
Fulham v West Ham United..... 8
Middlesbrough v West Brom....16


The Promroiship Table after Round 6 (08/9)

Team..................Total...Apps..Average
Manchester United...... 96......2....48.0
Liverpool..............221......5....44.2
Hull City..............191......5....38.2
Newcastle United.......178......5....35.6
Everton................139......4....34.8
Arsenal................205......6....34.2
Chelsea................ 64......2....32.0
Manchester City........ 32......1....32.0
Fulham.................146......5....29.2
Portsmouth............. 58......2....29.0
Stoke City.............139......5....27.8
Tottenham Hotspur...... 79......3....26.3
Sunderland.............103......4....25.8
Aston Villa............ 51......2....25.5
Blackburn Rovers.......149......6....24.8
Bolton Wanderers.......145......6....24.2
Middlesbrough..........145......6....24.2
West Bromwich Albion...111......5....22.2
West Ham United........ 79......5....15.8
Wigan Athletic......... 39......3....13.0

The Challenge for Cameron

As the dust settles on the 2008 Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, our final in a series of guest posts from Conservative Bloggers is from West Brom Blogger, that rare breed of a Sandwell-based Tory. He takes a look at what challenges Cameron has faced and still needs to face in preparation for forming a future government.

New Labour! New Britain! New Labour! New Britain! That was the cry back in 1994 as Tony Blair proclaimed, “the whole ideology of conservatism has failed”.
After more than a decade of failed social democratic experiments and an economy in the grip of its worst crisis in 60 years; the same could probably be said today of Labour’s “third way”. The grand coalition of working and middle class voters that swept New Labour to power in 1997 is preparing to sweep it back out again. If the polls are to believed, the Tories will form the next government; Mr Cameron will be our next Prime Minister.

For over a decade, a broken Tory party—stuck with its core vote in the polls ever since ERM —has been the central fact of British politics, enabling New Labour to dominate the centre ground unchallenged. But it was the arrival in 2005 of a relative unknown in the form of David Cameron as Conservative leader that changed all this. Cameron reckoned that the central debate of politics had changed. “The great challenge of the 1970s and 1980s was economic revival. The great challenge in this decade and the next is social revival.”

Cameron recognised the need to reposition the party; to decontaminate a brand that was still suffering from the fallout of the 1990’s. Just as New Labour appeared to publicly swallow de-regulation and free markets, Cameron forced the Tories to swallow Labours commitments on public service reform and social liberalism. He brought the parties less obvious support for tackling climate change (it was actually Mrs Thatcher that was the first global leader to recognise the threat of a changing climate) to the fore, and spent an enormous amount of time talking about marriage, families and children. He has promised to fix “a broken society”, with plans for new workfare schemes and a Swedish style voucher system for schools. Cameron has positioned the Tories as the party of society, while presenting Labour as the party of the top down mechanistic state.

Some of this has been famously transparent (remember the huskies?) he has been accused of putting spin before substance, and up to a point his critics have had a point.
Cameron has presented a narrative rather than a clear policy portfolio. Up until now, that has been understandable, Labour has a habit of nicking the best ideas, but the rude interruption of a global economic crisis causes Cameron a dilemma as well as an opportunity. Cameron may have expected that as PM his task would be to do something about our frayed social fabric but if he wins the next election he will take the helm of a nation in economic trauma. And here lies the rub of the problem for Dave, trust. Just before the last general election, Labour led on trust to run the economy by 22%; at the start of the summer we were ahead by 12 points. Then came Black Monday and the near collapse of HBOS, now the polls suggest Gordon Brown is ahead on trust. We may be beginning to reclaim the ground that once looked as impregnable as it was vital but we have not yet convinced enough voters that we would be better at running the economy.

Cameron and Osborne have been understandably cautious. Osborne has seen fit to develop Labour's approach rather than break with it; tweaks rather than an overhaul. But with the current economic crisis being likened to the great crash of 1929, that’s not good enough. It won’t be the crash that causes the long term problems but the flawed policy responses that follow it. What we need now is a clear break, a clear alternative to Gordon Brown’s financial mismanagement.

One thing Cameron is not short of is ammunition; Brown's much-touted economic stability was built on the rickety foundations of a credit and house-price boom. Cameron will need to push home the fact that while Gordon talks about the need for more "transparency in the city" he engages in 'off the balance sheet' PFI accounting practices which would have corporate executives brought before a court of law. That while Brown now criticises the "irresponsible behaviour" in they city, he didn’t care about the debt or the "irresponsible behaviour" when it actually mattered, he didn’t care about the house price bubble; he just reaped in the extra taxes.

But its not enough just to find fault with Labour. If we are to look like the government-in-waiting, then Cameron will need to appear statesman like. A crisis presents politicians with an opportunity; Cameron must seize the one presented by the current financial turbulence to espouse the sort of tough medicine, good house keeping economic policy reminiscent of the Thatcher years. We have to use our spot in the lime light to spell out how we would handle the crisis.

Cameron needs to make clear that the Tories don’t stand for nationalising banks or subsidising failure. While we want innocent savers to be protected we wont stand for the poorest in society being forced to bail out the mistakes of the some of the wealthiest; that we don’t stand for socialised fat cats.

Andrew Allison has already made the case for lower taxation. Public mood on tax is on our side; a recent poll for the Telegraph suggested that the public is far more concerned about the overall tax burden than than it is fearful of the consequences of spending cuts. The Lib Dems have already proven that they understand this, Cameron must not ignore the issue.

This conference is vitally important for the Conservative Party. David Cameron has already done the hard work of ‘de-toxing’ the Tory brand, but the party cannot hope to ride to victory by simply standing on the sidelines as the Government flails. By the end of this conference the public must understand the alternative on offer.

Planning For Change, Working Together

The third in our series of guest posts during the Conservative Party Conference comes from fellow BlogPower member ThunderDragon, a prospective Conservative councillor for the Three Rivers District Council. He casts an eye over the proceedings and background of the Conservative Party Conference.

The tagline of this years Conservative Conference is “Plan For Change”. Change, moving forward, a new start. That is what this conference was meant to show – the Conservative's setting out their plan for their future government. However, events have rather overtaken them.

They have set out several policies and points of principle, such as:

Freezing council tax;
Giving schools budget freedom;
Scrapping authoritarian child databases;
Not releasing prisoners early just because;
Pledging to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; and, quite possibly most importantly
Not matching Labour's spending plans if the country can't afford it.

But this has been totally overtaken by world events: the economic crisis caused by Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. And so the mantra of the Conservatives yesterday has been less “plan for change” and more “let's work together”, by not “playing politics” with the economy.

This is an immeasurably responsible response in this economic climate. Any other response would have been extremely irresponsible. Yet it does rather undermine the “plan for change” motto, and rather allow the Conservatives to be associated with “more of the same”.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives, their conference has been overcome by the crisis, meaning that the plans for change that they have put forward have failed to dominate the headlines like they otherwise would have. However, they are out there, just not anywhere near as highly publicised in the media. What this will do is mean that the impression that the Conservatives are policy-lite will continue, and unfairly.

Publish Post

The Conservatives are planning for change, but able to work with other parties when necessary for the good of the country.