Richard Phillips's Blog, page 6

32) An open letter to the 209 delegates of FIFA.

I wish to announce that I shall be standing to be President of FIFA.

I believe I have all the outstanding qualifications to guide the gravy train  on the next stage of its journey.

To begin with I am English. You might think that given Greg Dyke’s intemperate criticism of Mr.Blatter and the British press’ continuous attempts to show FIFA in the worst possible light, that being English would be a disadvantage. But that would be a serious misjudgement.

Indeed Mr.Dyke’s comments and those of the Prime Minister, and Prince Wiilliam, seem to me to be a betrayal of our great country’s finest traditions; we, after all, are ‘perfidious Albion’, with a centuries old worldwide reputation for shafting our friends when it suits us. This being the case, FIFA ought be a home from home for an Englishman and it certainly would be for me. I would be only too happy to pitch up for those ‘all expenses-paid’ junkets in Geneva whenever the opportunity arose. Very soon you, my esteemed FIFA colleagues, would see my snout wedged firmly in the trough and recognise me as your equal in every way.

In extending my hand to the world – and of course, grasping whatever is put in it – I stand as the continuity candidate.

But in saying that please do not think that I do not  have a strategic vision for the future of FIFA. Quite the reverse. What I am proposing is nothing short of a revolution: the abolition  of FIFA as it stands!

I believe that FIFA should merge with the International Cricket Conference, the ICC. It is a radical plan,I realise, but the two organisations would make a perfect fit. There may be the small problem of football and cricket being different sports, but since when did sporting considerations matter to either FIFA or the ICC? There is an irrefutable logic to their coming together.

Culturally they have so much in common. Indeed, dodgy dealings and backhanders are at least as much a part of cricket as they are of football. (Allegedly.) And geographically they compliment each other perfectly. The sub-continent, the one area in the world where football is weak, is the place where cricket has its most fanatical following. The vastly increased opportunities for palm greasing must be self evident to all.

Of course neither FIFA nor the ICC would be happy to be subordinate to the other so the new organisation would have to be a proper merger and, to symbolise this, the initials of each would have be properly shuffled and mixed together. I would suggest IFFI CAC. (All 209 of you would, of course, be invited to be delegates to the new organization and to attend, all expenses paid, the week long conference at the Eden Roc at Cap Ferrat which will be held to mark the inception of IFFI CAC and where you would find under your personally monogrammed silk pillow, a commemorative Gold Rolex and a plain brown paper envelope.)

I acknowledge there may be some initial resistance to merging the two codes – putting wickets where the goals used to be or vice versa might raise eyebrows, and bowling a googly with the typical World cup ball might be almost as difficult as trying to play football with it, but , let’s face it, ,if you can persuade people to hold a world cup in Qatar in 50 degree Celsius, then insignificant little difficulties like these would be easily overcome.

And of course, the single greatest advantage of all this is that, since FIFA will no longer exist, we can admit to and sincerely apologise for  FIFA’s malfeasance - that is to say heap all the  blame on Blatter and Blazer etc -  whilst asserting the unarguable truth that IFFI CAC is a new and unsullied organization. (A bit like closing the News of the World and starting up The Sun on Sunday.)

Being the architect of IFFI CAC there can be no disputing that I would be the logical choice to lead it and in due course I shall stand for that post too - hopefully without an uppity Jordanian prince running against me. An unopposed ‘coronation’ in the old FIFA tradition would be infinitely preferable.

However, given FIFA’s current difficulties with the Feds, I quite understand that, for the sake of appearances, you will probably want to  follow the process of allowing other candidates to present their cases - to make their ‘technical bids’ if you will. In any event, I am confident this will only be a minor inconvenience. In the best traditions of football administration. I fully expect my appointment to go through on the nod and I look forward to choosing my new limmo in the very near future.

Yours faithlessly,

Toby Kell-Ogg,

PS I would hate you to make a habit of  this kind of thing but, In December 2006, I applied to be Chairman of the BBC. If you want to  see what sort of candidate I would be, please click here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc8xSLXAoX4

If he can wear a logo, why not her?

If he can wear a logo, why not her?

31) If the name fits, wear it.

Today the England cricket team are running about the hallowed green swards  of Lords – or should that be sward in the singular? – with Waitrose emblazoned upon their shirts and sweaters.

Some crusty old fogies, probably most of those who insist on going to the home of cricket in panamas and blazers and those ridiculous MCC pink striped ties,  may feel that this is vulgar commercialisation and the selling out of  our national birthright.  And I, though flatly rejecting all accusations of  crustiness myself,  have some sympathy with this point of view. There’s something so blatant, so unapologetically exploitative about sticking your name on a sportsman’s shirt. Pity the humble fan. You may flatly disapprove of the people who are sponsoring your team, but what choice do you have? You come to support   Arsenal but you find you’re cheering for a team flying the Emirates flag whether you want to or not.  

Notwithstanding these misgivings, I think the England cricket team seems like the perfect choice for Waitrose.  These days cricket is not for the masses and neither is Waitrose. But I wonder if Waitrose is a perfect choice for English cricket? Does it really want an image of comfortable  middle-classness?  What about the workers? Have the people who run cricket given up on them entirely?

Waitrose, of course, is the food arm of the John Lewis Partnership.  And being a partnership – and thus supposedly  more employee friendly than your usual business giant – John Lewis is often held up to be the model of capitalist egalitarianism, if there can be such a thing.  That’s why, I think, the name ‘John Lewis’ seems  a fraction less middle class than ‘Waitrose’. And that  is probably why Chuka Umanna felt able to say  that if Labour wants to win again it must get the ‘John Lewis vote.’ He was derided  in some Lefty quarters for saying that but imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d said that what Labour needed was the ‘Waitrose vote’.  He’d have been laughed out of  the party. The difference between one set of brand values and another can be surprisingly subtle.  

Anyway, all this has led me to wonder who might sponsor who, if sponsorship spread from sport to politics. (It seems unlikely perhaps, but even thirty years ago who would thought that Manchester United would have Nike all over their shirts?) With the Labour Leadership election under way and likely to be in the news for several months, this is an obvious opportunity  for sponsors to get some valuable publicity.

If you’re wondering where you would put the sponsor’s name, you could make the politicians wear baseball caps like  golfers and tennis players, or you could embroider it on their clothes like they do on snooker players’ waistcoats. Undignified? Possibly. But not as undignified as having to  wipe egg off your face - sometimes literally - or squirm before Jeremy Paxman.

With Chuka no longer in the frame, I suspect John  Lewis might go for Yvette Cooper.  Just the fact of being a woman makes her quite zeitgeisty – always an attraction for a sponsor – and she has more name recognition than Mary Creagh or Liz Kendall. Not only that but she’s such a good fit for them. She looks exactly like the sort of person you see in John Lewis all the time; quite respectable and rather dull.  Ultimately that might make her a winner – it worked for John Major.

For Mary Creagh I have a couple of suggestions. One would be ‘Weightwatchers’. She seems, from the little I’ve seen of her, to be quite trim so she would  project all the right brand values for them. And it solves the ‘how do you find one answer that works for the rabid Scots, Ukippy Northerners and  selfish Southerners?’ problem. There are fat people everywhere so ‘Weightwatchers’ would  appeal - or not appeal - equally to deep fried Mars bar scoffers, chip butty addicts, and the Brie and Cabernet brigade.

However,  one of Ms.Creagh’s problems is lack of name recognition and that is made  worse by the fact that the unfamiliar spelling of her name leaves you slightly uncertain about how to pronounce it. That cries out for something that rhymes. (Creagh, if you didn’t know, is not pronounced as a gutteral  ‘creeachh’  as you might expect, but rhymes with the letter A, as in Cray fish.)

So how about Nescafé sponsors Mary Creagh? It’s consumed more or less universally so shouldn’t be a problem anywhere; although I suppose  it is possible some of those Ukip-prone northerners are averse to pronouncing it in the French way, in which case the rhyming wouldn’t help. Still, they probably think Nescafé is dangerously European so it wouldn’t cut any ice with them anyway.  

For Liz Kendall, I’m toying with the idea of a beer. I think the choice of a beer for a woman would be very modern. It’s radical and, by traditional standards, counter intuitive. And isn’t that exactly what Labour needs at the moment? The problem is that it that needs to be a proper British beer – lager is just too German – and there is nothing I can find that fits the bill. Instead, I think Liz should have three separate beers for three different areas. ‘Directors Best’ from Courage in Staines, for the affluent South; a beer from the Barnsley Brewing Company called ‘Shut thi Gob’ to appeal to the Northern voters who’ve switched to Ukip; and for Scotland, something called ‘Sheep Shaggers’ which is brewed in Aviemore.

Finally, we come to Andy Burnham and he, of course, already has a sponsor: Len McCluskey. My strong advice to Andy would be to find a clause in that contract that allows him to break it immediately. (Remember what Len did for dear departed Ed.)  It might not do Andy any damage in the Leadership vote, but come the next general election,  Len McCluskey’s name on his baseball cap will be the kiss of death.

One of the original Roberts Radios on which I used to listen to...

One of the original Roberts Radios on which I used to listen to the cricket from Australia.

30) Cooking, voting and KP.

Last week, I spent election night glued to the radio app on my i-phone in my bedroom in a Tuscan country villa.  I was staying there whilst on a cookery course with ‘Baking with Maria’. (Google her and book up: she’s brilliant.)

It took me back to the dark winter mornings of the distant past when, as a boy, I used to lie under my bedclothes at half past five in the morning with my red Roberts Radio, listening to Test Matches being broadcast from Australia. Complete with intermittent whistling effects  the commentary faded in and out as it travelled down the below-the-ocean cable – this was pre-satellite – that linked the Antipodes with the motherland. (At least, I presume that was how it was done.)

There was an electric  heater on my bedroom wall, with two wire elements glowing red hot – no central heating either. They were, however, so ineffective that there was ice on the inside of the single glazed Crittall windows. But it was so unbearably tense waiting between the whistles and the static for news of whether the next ball from Truman or Statham  had got through the defences of Harvey or O’Neill, or been carted over square leg, that I don’t remember it ever being that chilly. (Mind you, the striped winceyette pyjamas may have had something to do with that.)

It was a good deal more comfortable on a balmy May night in Tuscany but before 11pm (an hour ahead in continental Europe, remember) no less nerve racking. Then the news broke of the exit poll, and  I was as thrilled as I might have been in 1960 if Lord Ted had scored a hundred at the MCG.

And then the actual result turned out to be even better than the exit poll predicted. It was a “and Dexter reaches his double century with an effortless straight drive for six” kind of  a night.

Actually maybe better. Because a Test match defeat, though temporarily distressing, would not have robbed me of a penny of my pocket money, whereas the Labour government I was fearing would, I am fairly certain, have cost me a lot more than the price of a Sherbert Dab and a Beano.

Of course not everyone was as pleased as I was with the Conservative win. Prior to the result I had predicted how the other people on the cookery course would have voted. (See post 29.) As it turned out I was about as accurate as the pollsters were in predicting the national result. I got six out of seven of them wrong in one way or the other, and the seventh may have been wrong too, but she clung doggedly to her ancient and inalienable right to keep her vote secret.

Owen Jones, baby faced – why does that irritate me? - arch lefty columnist of The Guardian was particularly disappointed. He wrote:

“For us (the left), the starting point is, people’s lot in life is improved by making common cause with those with similar problems, hopes and ambitions. Our power is greater combined than when we are alone..”

When he wrote ‘people’s lot in life’  (ungrammatically I thought) I presume he meant ‘one’s lot in life.’ This distinction isn’t just a pedantic niggle; it helps explain the point I want to make, which is that, like me, Owen Jones believes self-interest – one’s interest - rules, even though he would flatly deny that.

‘One’s lot in life is improved by making common cause with those with similar problems.’  His intention I think, was to make the case for the collective rather than the individual. But in fact, he concedes that the appeal of the collective lies in what it does for the individual. At bottom, it’s all about self-interest. Owen Jones and I might argue about what is in one’s self-interest, but, as he shows, self-interest is the driver. ”Our power is greater than when we are alone.” Again, the motivation is that individual benefit is increased by being part of the collective. This is the appeal that trade unions make to would-be members. ‘You will be personally  - individually – better off  if you throw in your lot with us.’ Why else would anyone ever join if that weren’t the case?

It isn’t a matter of selfless sacrifice to a cause, as the left often seems to claim. It is all about the interest of oneself. It seems to me unarguable and totally logical: a sort of social Darwinism.

The question one has to answer – and which one does answer in the solitary  quiet of the voting booth – is what is one’s self interest?

I believe in voting out of enlightened self–interest. That doesn’t necessarily mean voting for short term economic gain; you might for instance be so concerned about global warming that you thought it was in your enlightened self-interest to vote Green, no matter what you thought was in your short-term economic self-interest. What’s the point of a bigger, more energy-consuming house and jetting off on a foreign holiday if you think greenhouse gasses are going to finish you off unless radical measures are taken? Or  you might lie at wake every night worrying about the people who have to go to food banks. In that case, in order to sleep easily, it probably would be in your enlightened self interest to vote for a party that vowed to put an end to food banks.

In fact, I did – briefly - consider voting for the LibDem candidate in my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, Maajid Nawaz. He is the ex-Muslim radical turned moderate head of the Quilliam foundation, often seen talking very good sense on Newsnight and suchlike. I think he is an  impressive guy and there  would be a lot to be said for having  such a  compelling advocate of Muslim moderation in parliament. In other words, given the danger of terrorist crime in London,  I could see that it might be well be in my enlightened self interest to have him as an MP.

Still, I put that idea out of my mind reasonably quickly. As usual, it was ‘the economy, stupid’ that was the critical factor. And I was so certain there would be a costly downside – for me - to an Ed and Ed government, I decided that self interest demanded I put my X against the Conservatives. I only hope it turns out to have been an enlightened choice.

And whilst on the subject of  self interest and the collective, and coming back to cricket, what about KP, the ultimate individualist and the collective interests of the England cricket team?

What indeed.