Saturday, November 03, 2007

Business as usual


I’m maybe a bit naïve when it comes to politics. In spite of all the evidence that politicians are a bunch of grubby, venal, self-serving tossers, I try to maintain faith in the oppositeview, that they are public servants inspired with zeal to make the world a better place for the downtrodden and disenfranchised. I’ve never subscribed to the facile cliché that 'they’re all the same anyway’, with its ridiculous suggestion that Denis Skinner and David Cameron are interchangeable replicants.

Then someone goes and makes a statement that leaves you no option but to accept that politicians will always side with big business rather than the punters on the shop floor. In this instance, that someone is the top man himself, Gordon Brown, who has rushed to distance himself from the musings of his sports minister on the way obscene money is disfiguring the beautiful game.

Not so, says Mr Brown, clearly not wanting to ruffle the feathers of anyone who might be in a position to help his election campaign whenever he plucks up the courage to actually call one. When I saw Gerry Sutcliffe’s comments on Friday morning I can’t have been alone in thinking 'about time too', finally a politician willing to go further than mealy-mouthed muttering, and actually say what everyone thinks. How disappointing then that his boss should come out and slate him for his comments and by doing so reveal exactly whose pocket he’s kept in.

Not that Brown came out and slated Sutcliffe himself. That would be far too honourable. No, instead he opted for the craven politicians favourite gambit of anonymous briefing, and by doing so lost the respect of this particular voter for good. Brown wasn’t alone in rubbishing Sutcliffe’s comments of course. Gill and co trotted out the usual spiel, though we already knew his soul was hollowed out the minute Glazer set up camp in the boardroom. More amusingly, Fergie revisited his infamous ‘fuck off and watch Chelsea’ strop, by suggesting that Sutcliffe should go and join ‘that mob who watch United FC’, reminding us all how far that particular Union firebrand has travelled from his socialist roots.

If I wasn’t so naïve about politicians maybe I wouldn’t be so surprised or bothered by any of this, but that’s just the way I’m built. Anyway, here’s to Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo carving up Arsenal this lunchtime…