Tag Archives: budget

How Much Can Leeds Afford? Becchio and Gradel in January Would Seal Promotion – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 28/11/2013 | 47 comments

Gradel & Becchio – dynamic duo

We’ve heard lately about United manager Brian McDermott having “funds” to assist with any player recruitment he might wish to undertake during the forthcoming January transfer window. It’s a pretty vague word, funds. Slightly more specific is the reported “seven-figure sum” invested in the past week or so by Managing Director and prospective Tory MP David Haigh. Again, though, that doesn’t tell us too much, though it is encouraging. We mustn’t get too giddy though. We’re no longer living in the days when a paltry million pounds was quite a lot of money. The one buzz-phrase surprisingly missing from this little shower of clichés is “transfer war chest” – perhaps because what Brian has is not so much of a war chest as a slightly cracked piggy bank. But don’t be surprised if the phrase “war chest” is wheeled out at some point before the new year.

However much we have, or however little – and it’s important to acknowledge the wisdom of not being too specific as to figures because of the inflationary consequences for asking prices – the real burning questions would be: who do we go for? Who, after all, do we need? The team is showing clear signs of increased unity and cohesion under Brian’s benign stewardship, and there must be a certain amount of wariness as to the possibility of rocking the boat too hard. But you can never have enough good players, and for a club with an alarming track record over recent years of getting rid of our best, that maxim has a particular resonance.

Some of those players chucked overboard recently (yes ok, some may possibly have jumped ship) would be welcomed back by many. But, of those, who would really fit in and add something significant to the existing squad? I can think of three – and perhaps two of those might be feasible targets in January if – big if – we were to go down the route of welcoming back old boys. My three would be Snodgrass, Becchio and Gradel. Sadly, Snods is probably beyond us for the moment, although that could and most likely would change in the event of Leeds and Norwich swapping leagues in May (Please, God. Pretty please.) But the other two could just possibly be realistic targets – depending on exactly how much money there is in that piggy bank.

Believe me, I know how that assertion will be received by some. I’ll probably get comments about “never go back”, “unrealistic targets”, “wage structure”, “why would he?” and all the rest. Do save your breath, or your pixels and fonts – I’m aware of all the pitfalls. But maybe if Leeds are taking the view that – hang on, we might actually have a shot at promotion here – there might be a more ambitious attitude to investment to bring about that promotion. I believe that the acquisitions of Becchio and Gradel – with Becchio by far the more likely, but let’s dream a little – would pretty much guarantee a play-off place and could even open the door to the top two. Both would add qualities that we currently just don’t possess.

McCormack has been prolific lately, but he’s a different type of striker to Luciano Becchio – and if Blackstock returns to Forest after his loan spell, we’re still going to need someone as an option for Rossco to play off. And Becchio is a proven scorer at this level. As for Gradel – just look at those clips of him running at defenders in the white shirt. How bloody sexy is that?? He could do a hell of a lot of damage in this league, and he has a goal in him as well. French football and French crowds are pretty insipid by English standards – could Mad Max be tempted home if we had the right kind of attractively juicy carrot to dangle before him? It’s not impossible – though, again, some will say it is. I wish them joy of their gloomy pessimism and inability to dream.

This is very much a what-if scenario. I doubt that, in the real world, we’ll be making the level of investment required for such an audacious double swoop. Becchio on loan, maybe. The lad is plainly deeply unhappy at Norwich, and would probably walk back to Elland Road given the chance. Gradel would be the cherry on the icing on the cake. It’s undeniable that either or both “could do a job”. Can anybody seriously dispute that?

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Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged budget, investment, Leeds United, Luciano Becchio, Max Gradel, norwich city, promotion, resources, transfer window

Gideon’s Bible – The Budget 2013

Posted on 19/03/2013 | Leave a comment

Imagine you’re a talented young TV screenwriter, looking for a smart new idea for a satirical comedy lampooning incompetent and uncaring politicians. You’re looking for a main character, ideally in high office and making decisions on a daily basis that shape policy. You’re probably going to make him a Tory because – let’s face it – that’s where the laughs are at when it comes to making fun of MPs for their comic nastiness value. The best comedy contains a kernel of truth too, so you need to be careful about such matters as your character’s political affiliation, personal background, appearance and history; all of these are potentially rich sources of laughter, whilst at the same time making your audience nod knowingly and say “Yes, I know that guy.” But beware: don’t make your creation too similar to, or identifiable with, any real-life public figure. That’s overkill; and anyway you’re probably better off going for an amalgam of several well-known public figures – more versatility of character there, and so more potential for laughs.

Gideon Oliver Osborne

Until relatively recently, you could have done a lot worse than adopt the following pattern: your fictional man is pictured (right) – note the superficial resemblance to Rowan Atkinson’s “Mr Bean” character; the rubber-faced grin, the eyes that appear to betray barely a glimmer of intelligence. Perfect. This would not be a cuddly, genial chap though – he’d be an heir to some minor aristocratic title and the beneficiary of inherited wealth. He’d have been born with a silly name, which he’d later change for something he felt sounded more straightforward. His socialist mother would agree with him about this, if not about much else. Educated at a public school, he’d have progressed to Oxford, and followed the well-trodden path to power familiar to many Tories born to privilege and destined to inherit a fortune through no effort on their own part. Despite these advantages he would be an outspoken critic of what, with no apparent sense of irony, he’d term “a something for nothing culture”. On being handed control of the country’s purse strings, he’d set about tackling national debt by cutting everything in sight that benefits the poor and vulnerable, whilst ensuring that his banker mates in the City should continue to enjoy seven-figure bonuses and a reduced rate of tax for the highest earners. Lots and lots of scope for poking fun at clueless, selfish, old-school-tie politicians there.

Well – forget it. Think again. Back to the drawing board. Your ideal, fictional, made-up Tory Twit is a non-starter – because sadly he’s all too real. And really, it was looking so good – the model outlined above seems too stereo-typically an example of Tory Boy grown up and wreaking havoc for there to be any real risk of him actually existing. But step forward Gideon Oliver Osborne, who decided at the age of 13 to be George after his war-hero grandfather. Whether he considered ridding himself of the initials GOO is not recorded, but in keeping with its stance on authenticity and veracity, this blog will refer to Mr O. as Gideon – besides which, he just looks like a Gideon – there’s not any real bluff, honest George quality there.

Gideon is due to present his latest budget tomorrow and you can bet any last few coins you might have left – if you’re a victim of Tory/Coalition policies since 2010 – that there won’t be any good news for those of us “all in it together” at the bottom of the economic pile. On the other hand, you might like to wager a goodly chunk of your forthcoming £100,000 a year tax-cut – if you’re one of those “all in it together” in the million-a-year bracket – that you and your kind will be protected from the chill wind of austerity blowing through the real-life parts of our nation.

Gideon’s actions might confuse those who expect their politicians to practice what they preach (i.e. “The Gullible”). He stands four-square behind his opposition to those who have to live on benefit having a spare bedroom – even if, for reasons of disability, there are sound reasons why two adults might not be able to share a room. Gideon feels that this is an unfair burden on the tax purse, and he displays a characteristic insouciance about the bulk of evidence which points to devastating effects on the lives of those affected. Yet strangely, his attitude to his own housing situation displays rather less regard for the nation’s tax-payers than it does for the wealth and comfort of one Gideon Oliver Osborne Esq. His actions in respect of “flipping” his second home allowance onto a constituency property with an increased mortgage attracted some criticism, which must have been very hurtful for not-so-poor Gideon. This property was later sold for an estimated £400,000 profit. Very nice, squire, very nice indeed.

Gideon may not look too clever in his picture, but he’s certainly managed to do alright for himself since leaving Oxford. There were brief forays into the world of employment during which he acted as a data entry clerk, putting the details of the recently-deceased onto an NHS database, and he also worked for a week at Selfridges, during which he was responsible for folding some towels. Perhaps the seeds of future greatness were sown at the NHS, and indeed Gideon has continued to make his contribution to death statistics via his enlightened policies in respect of public expenditure cuts. Some say that it was in his towel-folding retail days that he truly found his métier, there being comparatively little scope for screwing up. For someone who has recently been reported as telling colleagues that his main aim is “to avoid fucking up the Budget”, towel-folding would seem a comparatively safe occupation – for himself and, indeed, for the rest of us.

So, what is my final advice to you, the aspirant TV writer? Well, I’d be tempted to wait a while yet, and see what else Gideon gets up to before putting pen to paper. It’d be a pity after all to fall prey to criticism that the fiction has failed to live up to the fact, and there may well be depths of ridiculous and callous policy-making that our esteemed Chancellor has yet to plumb whilst continuing, somehow, to make sure that his own inherited nest remains nicely feathered.

Watch this space.

Fox In The Running?

Posted on 12/03/2013 | Leave a comment

Q: When is a Fox not a fox?

A: When it’s a sacrificial lamb.

Liam Fox

The Fox in question – Liam of that ilk – is due to make a speech containing radical proposals exceeding in scope and intent anything the Coalition Government has so far contemplated. His true motives for this are unclear. He may just possibly be unaware of his potential status as patsy-in-waiting for the Tory Party’s increasingly Machiavellian convolutions, as it attempts to portray itself as a party of government beyond the next election. Then again, perhaps the cunning Fox genuinely feels that he really can rally the Conservative right wing with a view to becoming the anointed leader if and when David Cameron falls on his sword, or is stabbed in the back by the Men in Grey Suits, depending on how the last scene of the Coalition melodrama plays out.

Whatever the case, the scenario of an increasingly unpopular political party showing determination to plough its chosen furrow – despite a radical call-to-arms from the loony fringes – is hardly new. Labour gave us a glimpse of a few left-wing skeletons in their briefly-opened closet of horrors in the early eighties, and some feel that this paved the way for that party’s subsequent re-branding of itself as New Labour and the eventual Blair-Brown axis. Liam Fox might of course be entirely serious about making an early move to be seen as prospective leader material – if the reaction of the Tories, post coalition break-up, were to be a lurch to the Right. But it’s also tiresomely probable that he’s simply providing the necessary scare story, which can then be shot down by the incumbent PM, so that Cameron’s rigid position on his chosen course of austerity might be seen as more palatable relative to What Might Have Been.

Fox has in fact found it necessary to push back the boundaries of what is really credible, in his attempts to find depths of draconian savagery which even the Tory party might not plumb. Against a background of the demonisation of a whole sector of society – encompassing the poor, low-paid workers and the disabled – with swingeing cuts to the disposable income of all these people justified by portraying them as society-sapping freeloaders, it’s not easy to contemplate even more vindictive measures. Add to that the fact that tax changes in April will see a group of previously impoverished millionaires benefiting from tax reductions of £100,000 a year, and one can easily understand how difficult it is these days to appear truly loony in the context of all things Conservative. But Liam, bless him, appears to have managed it.

In point of fact, Mr Fox’s speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs next Monday is likely to break new ground right in the heart of right wing Tory dreamland “Rob the Poor to Feed the Rich” territory. Voicing what other extreme Conservatives hardly dare think – save only in their most secret and grandiose fantasies – Fox is tipped to call for a five year freeze on public spending, with no protective ring-fencing for schools, foreign aid or the NHS. That’s the poor robbed, but on an even more lavish scale than the current government are managing. And Fox will, according to the Times, also propose that there should be a thorough rethink of earnings and savings taxation, including a Capital Gains Tax holiday “to breathe life into the ailing economy”. The Times also reports that the former Defence secretary will say:

“I believe that in leaving money in people’s pockets, economic activity will follow. People will buy houses, invest for their future or just go shopping.

“Whichever is the case, it’s creating a society that is sustainable for the future in the way that our current – welfare-dependent and debt-ridden – economy is not.

“We should gradually move towards the reduction – or even abolition – of the taxes where the state not only taxes the same money on multiple occasions but discourages the very behaviour that would lead to a more responsible society.”

So that’s the rich fed, and there is likely to be much salivating in the Tory Shires at the prospect – however unlikely it is to actually materialise – of such a juicy package. It is of course a fact that, in order to leave money in people’s pockets, that money has to be there in the first place. But the poor are incidental to this speech, whether it’s a serious attempt to influence policy, or just a scare tactic to deflect criticism of the current programme. The poor are unlikely to vote Tory (although it’s increasingly probable they might vote UKIP), and they are perceived, as a body, to be more of an unwanted expense than any potential source of economic growth. It is the already rich to whom Liam Fox is seeking to appeal; those on the right of the parliamentary party and of the Conservative movement nationally. It is there that he will find his natural support if any ambitions of leadership are ever to come to fruition.

Whatever the thinking behind Fox’s forthcoming speech, he is not the only predatory scavenger circling the beleaguered Prime Minister. MP Sarah Wollaston has warned the Premier, in a series of tweets, about the need to tackle problems with his inner circle of immediate colleagues, consisting as it does of the “posh, male & white”. Wollaston is a known Cameron acolyte, but her words will be encouraging to Home Secretary Theresa May, who has recently broken cover with her own finely-drafted proposals covering a number of governmental departments, and – again – tailored to appeal to the Tory right.

Most worrying of all perhaps, is a vote of confidence from Baroness Warsi, who stated that Cameron has the support of “large parts” of his party, and that “he is doing a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances.” Such a very qualified endorsement is likely to be cold comfort to the Prime Minister as he studies the minute details of the Liam Fox speech, and Cameron may well reflect on the experience of football managers since time immemorial; that the vote of confidence is frequently a precursor to a frogmarch up the scaffold steps and the ceremonial fall of the axe. Unless, of course, friend Liam does the merciful thing, and slides the knife into his ribs before any organised coup.

Et tu, Foxy.

Ferkin-Scheidt Speaks Out On “Dining Room Tax”

Posted on 11/03/2013 | Leave a comment

In the wake of revelations that Local Authorities will be allowed to classify dining rooms as “bedrooms” for the purposes of the so-called “Bedroom Tax”, the Coalition has moved to clarify the position still further.

A Government spokesman who wished to remain anonymous, but who is in fact Iain Ferkin-Scheidt (pictured below) was quoted today as saying:

Iain Ferkin-Scheidt yesterday

“Social housing tenants need to be clear about this. Any room that can be deemed superfluous to the requirements of a Housing Benefit claimant should be counted as a “bedroom” for these purposes – for example a dining-room, conservatory and so forth. I believe that some of you people still have what they used to call “parlours” – and yes, they can be defined as bedrooms too. This will be a matter for Local Authorities’ discretion, but they will need to justify their decisions to High Command.” Going a little purple around the jowls, Mr Ferkin-Scheidt went on: “We have to be very, very careful about terminology here. This is not a “bedroom tax”, it is a Spare Room Subsidy. The Prime Minister himself, long may he reign, has stated this. We want to make it quite clear that this is a measure aimed at shirkers, not workers. Lame excuses such as disability – if you’ll pardon the pun – simply will not wash; much as is the case with most of the frightful common types we’re aiming at here.”

When asked about the fact that many Housing Benefit claimants are actually workers in low-paid employment, Mr Ferkin-Scheidt remained bullish in his defence of policy. “It’s quite simple,” he explained kindly. “Those people on Housing Benefit cannot expect the rest of us to subsidise luxuries for them such as spare bedrooms and parlours and dining rooms or what-have-you, out of our taxes – particularly as many of us will actually be paying up to £100,000 a year less tax from April. As you can see from that figure alone, the country simply cannot sustain extravagance on this scale.

“Those who have failed to provide for themselves and their families, by obtaining only part-time or low-paid employment will have to accept that they are not deserving of the same privileges as good, honest, hard-working, tax-evading, Tory-voting people who bought their own Council Houses in the 80’s when St Margaret was Queen. We shall be taking further measures to ensure that this distinction is recognised, and to remove the burden of financial responsibility from the over-stretched rich. The fact is that the poor, the disabled and the long-term sick have had it easy for far, far too long now. I am currently studying proposals for what some are already calling a “Hot Tap Tax”, although it is in fact a heated water subsidy. Some of us feel – in all compassion and sincerity – that it is an unconscionable luxury for the Shirking Classes to have hot water on tap, and it may well be that Housing Benefit claimants who live in homes with hot running water, showers, flush toilets and so on and so forth, will at some point in the future be subjected to a further cut of 30% in their Benefit, unless they take up the option of moving to a smaller property, with a stand-pipe, and outdoor privy and a well. We are determined to bring the good old days back to this great country.”

Pressed further on the matter of future proposals along these lines, Mr Ferkin-Scheidt refused to reveal any more concrete details, but promised a fuller statement after the second reading of the new “Workhouses & Treadmills Bill” currently proceeding through the House of Lords.

“This Government is pledged to firm, decisive action,” he confirmed. “Did your great-great-great grandmother have hot running water? No, of course she didn’t, and neither did mine – although she did have staff to carry heated water up eight flights of stairs for her – but that’s to become tied up in detail. There’s fridges, too, and all those nasty wide-screen TV’s. Did Sir Winston’s mother have a fridge? Or a 42” LCD TV? And, look – let’s be totally honest here. Ice can be chipped from a frozen well, and allowed to melt. Cold water can then be heated for all the simpler needs of the sub-strata of society, and a short walk down the street to a shared privy never killed anybody, except a few disease-ridden ne’er-do-wells who were never going to become economically productive units anyway. Hot water and indoor flush toilets are privileges, not rights – and we are determined that the Party of Privilege shall live up to its traditions and ensure that people are once again well aware of their place in life.”

Mr. Ferkin-Scheidt is 104.