UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Хahar 🤔]

I realize I'm someone from the Continent who just doesn't understand cricket and that the biggest cricket nations are non-white, but there's something (everything, really) about that sport that just screams 19th century. Which is why I'm not surprised it's now embroiled in a pretty serious racism scandal.

Particularly interesting when you consider the demographics of most cricket clubs in England...

[Blair]

I realize I'm someone from the Continent who just doesn't understand cricket and that the biggest cricket nations are non-white, but there's something (everything, really) about that sport that just screams 19th century. Which is why I'm not surprised it's now embroiled in a pretty serious racism scandal.

Yes I’d say that’s fair. It’s a big problem.

It might be my own biases but a large part of the bad practice comes also from the fact that first class cricket (the name for the domestic game) is a game that is largely played by those who went to feepaying schools. It’s an extremely elitist sport in parts- the kit to play even as a teenager cost around £150 quid even with the cheapest stuff.

The problems around diversity have actually got worse largely due to the fact that a lot of second-generation West Indians would have played cricket due to their parents- this is the reason why the 90s and early 2000s saw a large increase- since then we have gone backwards.

There was a very good documentary on sky during the summer which featured a lot of testimony from black cricketers in the 1990s and early 2000s who had suffered abuse and discrimination in various forms.

There is clearly a particular issue with Yorkshire which ties into the wider cultural problems in the sense of Yorkshire as a cricket club. They largely see themselves as independent of any of the other counties and believe they could get away with it, and now appear too stubborn to admit they’ve handled it awfully.

Plus the structures in cricket makes the Premier League look rather efficient.

There have been stories ranging from a county where the secretary was able to literally write out checks to themselves from the clubs bank account, to quite serious cases of sexual assault by players being ignored. Along with the issue of taking a lot of rather questionable financing in the mid 2000s from Allen Stanford, a man currently in prison for various financial crimes.

[Blair]

I should add that I’m not sure how long the point about fee paying schools has been true. For my parents generation I would say a large percentage of people who went to either grammar schools or state comprehensive schools would’ve played cricket whereas for my generation I only know a handful of those who play haven’t gone to a fee paying school.

Its role in the popular imagination is best expressed by the fact that John Major talked about playing village cricket on green fields in the 1990s in a way that a Conservative prime minister just wouldn’t these days,

[Filuwaúrdjan]

At the same time the sport has always had a substantial working class following, particularly in the Pennine mill towns on both sides of the Lancashire/Yorkshire border and in most of the old coalfields. Whereas some sports in England with serious class issues ended up running parallel systems often using alternative codes (the most famous example of which is rugby), class divisions in cricket were expressed and imposed within the sport: a rigid distinction was drawn between Gentlemen Amateurs (predominantly batsmen) and Professionals (largely bowlers). In practice the former tended to earn more from the game. Long ago and far away now, but always useful to remember. It is rather grim to note that as elite cricket has become more socially elite over the past couple of decades - after the ECB decided to allow a really excellent grassroots training strategy to wither away for no good reason whatsoever - the principle exception has been... bowlers.

As for Yorkshire CCC specifically, there have been issues there for decades. The club used to be notorious for imposing a rule specifying that only players born in the county were allowed to play for it and this insular mentality spilled over into other areas - there was for a long time a suspicion that it operated an unofficial colour bar, and after that period ended there were question marks about the willingness of the club to recruit from the (mostly cricket-mad) Asian populations that had grown up in the West Riding since the 1960s. Since the 1980s there have been cricket leagues specifically for local Asian teams in the county which may or may not tell you a few things.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It's worth noting there's an unofficial rule that the England captain has to be a batsman. Officially this is because of the need to rotate bowlers to avoid injury, but if you believe that then I have a bridge to sell you.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Weird in Singapore cricket is mainly a sport followed by immigrants with a very strong ethenic divide, you've got all Indian teams and you've got anglo teams with almost no mixing despite all the infrastructure being shared. The native fanbase is negleible.

[afleitch]

Never understood cricket.

[Conservatopia]

This government has once again done what it does best.  U-turned.

They've backed down on their ridiculous new standards procedures but it isn't clear what the alternative arrangements will be.

I'm sympathetic with the charge that the existing arrangements aren't fit for purpose - taking ages on enquiries being the biggest shortcoming.  But this isn't the way to fix it.

The vote yesterday was interesting.  The Tory rebels included MPs from all wings of the party not just the usual suspects.

[CumbrianLefty]

Never understood cricket.

If anything, its becoming increasingly popular in Scotland.

Time to find out more?

[YL]

Well, the Paterson affair has turned rather amusing today.

(Unlike the Yorkshire CCC racism affair, which, speaking as someone from Yorkshire who likes cricket, is about as depressing as imaginable.  There's clearly more to come out, too.)

[Blair]

What a day.

Saves his colleagues from having to vote to boot him out.

Easily one of the worst handling of something by No.10 for a very long time.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Even The Times was scathing today. It's a long time since I've seen The Times scathing of the Conservative Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The moral of the story? Do not heed the advice of Charles Moore.

[Blair]

The moral of the story? Do not heed the advice of Charles Moore.

It was blatant how organised this campaign was- if this was some random 2019 intake it wouldn’t have happened.

Of course it didn’t help that Paterson blew it up by giving an extremely tone deaf interview on Wednesday night when he said he would do it all again. Paid lobbying is the one standards issue that the public actually get really annoyed about.

They can at least thank him for quitting- it would have been hilarious to see which MPs flipped and would have been an awful week of stories in the run up to the next vote.

Nothing will change though in the Tory Party!

[Blair]

I see FBPE Twitter has decided the real enemy is the Labour Party for not standing aside in the by election.

It was a bit blunted by their claims that John Bercow should be the anti sleaze candidate, despite err defending Paterson this week.

[CumbrianLefty]

A "unity" candidate was a non-runner as soon as Paterson announced he wouldn't be standing in any byelection, simple as. But of course #FBPEers have history for this sort of thing - hence all the weird and wonderful "National" governments proposed in the spring/summer of 2019.

[Conservatopia]

A "unity" candidate was a non-runner as soon as Paterson announced he wouldn't be standing in any byelection, simple as. But of course #FBPEers have history for this sort of thing - hence all the weird and wonderful "National" governments proposed in the spring/summer of 2019.

Goodness that brings back memories.  Remember the all-woman cabinet?  Or the ones with Ken Clarke and Jeremy Corbyn leading the country together? Or Heidi Allen one? Fun times indeed.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

A "unity" candidate was a non-runner as soon as Paterson announced he wouldn't be standing in any byelection, simple as. But of course #FBPEers have history for this sort of thing - hence all the weird and wonderful "National" governments proposed in the spring/summer of 2019.

Goodness that brings back memories.  Remember the all-woman cabinet? 

The proposal involving Caroline Lucas - which was explicitly argued for on the grounds that "Brexit would be solved with a woman in charge" - was wheatfield gold.

[YL]

The usual 5 November fun in Lewes last night:

https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1456724514763591686

[CumbrianLefty]

Some of the gammon brigade on Twitter not happy about this - denouncing it as a "wokeness festival" (not always a usual critique of the Lewes bonfire in previous years)

"WhErE's ClAuDiA wEbBe??!!!!111!!!???" was one complaint.

Because of course, an obscure one term Labour backbencher is as worthy of this treatment as DC who was recently one of the most powerful people in the country. But at least he's not a brown person eh.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean she's dreadful and ghastly, but how many people have actually heard of her? But members of the informal Cummings fan club (which is a real thing, somehow) are amongst the most sensitive people on British Political Twitter which is saying a lot.

[Geoffrey Howe]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59188972

John Major scathing - the Johnson government is "perhaps politically corrupt." He also says that he tried to tackle the 1990s cash-for-questions/"sleaze" where Johnson is trying to defend this.

[Silent Hunter]

In the 1990s, Labour was in a much better position though to capitalise on all this.

[Blair]

Boris’s approval at the lowest (-20) according to a new poll in the Observer.

Also down to a 1 point Tor lead on voter intention, and only 2% lead on best PM.

While the last few days haven’t helped I actually think some of this is the Budget and Energy price rise creeping up. With COVID and Brexit both decreasing as a political dividing line people are going to start to expect actual problems to get fixed.

[Blair]

In the 1990s, Labour was in a much better position though to capitalise on all this.

The strongest way to capitalise now is to keep saying ‘11 years in government… instead of fixing x they’re protecting their rich mates’.