United over reliant on Rooney

Well at least they have correctly identified one of last seasons deficiencies, the failiure to replace Ronaldo and Tevez adequately. The latest rumour has been that we were were after Anelka. If we do manage to find a top striker, with whatever money we have available, a big if, would they be happy playing second fiddle to Rooney though. And it would surely mean saying, thank you but goodbye to Owen or Berbatov, as you can only have so many forwards on your books.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/14/sir-alex-ferguson-wayne-rooney

Scholes asked Fergies advice over world cup recall.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/14/paul-scholes-england-call-up-ferguson

Fergie is keen to sign Rodwell from Everton to keep a British core at the heart of the future of the United squad. I'm glad to hear that, it would be nice if some ot the young Mancunian talent in the youth set up can force their way into those plans. Of course we have Cleverley coming into the first team picture as well next season. It's a pity things didn't go as well for Cathcart i thought he looked as good as Evans when i watched him play for the youth team. We have had some talent come through at centre half when you look at the players plying their trade in the football leagues now. Pique, Evans, Shawcross, McShane and who knows who else to come.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7127162.ece

Yet another club in financial difficulties, this time it's Preston.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/p/preston/8683899.stm

John Denham, a labour MP and thinker i have a lot of time for states the case for serius rethink of Labour's policies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/13/labour-fairness-denham-election
As one of the few Labour ministers to resign his seat over the Iraq war, he is always worth listening to.

Stephanie Flanders on the economic give and take inherent in the Lib Con coalition
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/05/give_and_take.html

Left foot forward asks if the Cable and Osborne show can last
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/05/the-george-and-vince-show-may-get-ugly/

Jeremy Warner on how the Greek crisis changed Europe and the implication for both Europe and for our new coalition of europhobes and europhiles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/7725915/The-face-of-Europe-is-now-changed-for-ever.html
I would class myself as europhile but not a fan of a monetarist Eurozone. So this will have to be watched closely.

I'm going lessen the politics on this blog for a bit now the election is done and dusted. As to the events of the last week, it wasn't what i expected or wanted. But i voted Liberal Democrat and i fully subscribe to their programme of constitutional reform, proportional representation and a more European system of government. So, once the conservatives offered the Lib dems the chance to form a coalition and dropped most, if not all of their nuttier and meaner manifesto policies, then i don't think the party had much option but to make the most of it.
Especially so, when as soon as the cat was let out of the bag, that there had been talks between Labour and the liberals, the old labour tribalists came out against a coalition. Whether it was because they can't abide PR and the idea of not governing alone, the dilution of Labour's socialistic aims( joke) or the more realistic assertion that the they had lost the election and the numbers weren't there anyway, for once, they were right. But you have the feeling if they'd have had the seats that the tories had got that they would have still come on and said no deal. I get the feeling that the Guardianista dream of a progressive calition isn't going to happen any time soon
The option of a minority government held out no prospects for Liberal policies seeing the light of day any time soon, which left a coalition as being the best result for anyone on the centre left despite the histrionic and absurd claims of betrayal from some of what are supposedly rational voices of the left in the press. At least we won't get a proper Tory minority government for a year and then another election at which they would have been the only party able to afford it.
The Liberals have undoubtedly done the Labour party a favour if it can bring itself to take it, one that they don't deserve after 13 years of massive disappointment for anybody on the centre left. As John Denham says in that article above they have to take their time, learn the lessons of where they went wrong in office and make the neccessary policy reform. Which to me would be almost precisly the opposite of what they followed in office. More intervention by the state over the economy, meaning a root and branch reappraisal of the role of the city and the financial system. And far, far less intervention by the state in basically everything else. But as we saw on Tuesday night when Abbott, Reid et al popped up on our screens you are reminded that the labour party have never really been able to see a bigger picture so i'm not expecting them to take it. They seem to have reverted into it will be our turn next mode again when history should tell them that Blair aside, that has rarely been the case.
As for the Liberal Democrats, yes they have took a massive risk, but it was a once in a lifetime chance to attempt meaningful reform. Still it's galling to watch the way Clegg seems so comfortable around tories, he was always too right wing for me. I was going to write during the campaign that i could see him in a tory government one day if they weren't as Europhobic as they are.
I'm not sure AV is worth a referendum unless it is to try to lead the debate towards getting the electorate to see the iniquites of the present system. But fixed term parliaments are definitely the way to go. I saw somebody arguing that this was a nonesense because a government could still be brought down by a vote of no confidence. What crap, of course a goverment can still be brought down like that, and rightly so, but a government would no longer be able to call an election on the whim that it will win it, as at present. How Brown must wish he had gone to the country in 2007, but would that that have been democracy. As Henry Porter has said we will hopefully now have a full programme of measures to reverse the erosion of civil liberties that are as much of a stain on the Labour years as Iraq and the lies that led us down the path into that war.
It is going to be interesting to watch the Tories relationship with Europe as it seems that one of it's first acts has been to repeat Blair in reaffirming the " special relationship ". But of course the US administration usually like us to be constructively engaged in Europe. How do they square that with its overwhelmingly Europhobic activist base wishes. Then again the way Cameron seems to be trying to hog the centre ground it seems to me the right of the party may be in for a bit of a nasty shock as we seem like we may well get a entente cordiale with our European partners. At least compared to what we may have expected to get.
Of course that is if the Tory right don't rebel against the leadership, there seems to be some debate how strong the true Thatcherite believers still are. That is going to be fascinating to watch, because if they did it will probably make Major's troubles at the hands of the "bastards" look like a picnic. Because at the moment Cameron seems to be going to the left of Heath in Tory terms, and the right will not like that. From a left of centre perspective you can only hope that this would take at least tow to three years to happen. Maybe that would give the Lib Dems time to get some worthwhile reform through parliament. And the electorate would like what they see and see that Liberal reforms would be a better way for the country to go than a hard nosed resurgent Tory right. That would have at least given the Labour party time to have sorted itself out, hopefully for the better.
All of that may well be bollocks of course and Cameron may be the right winger some have taken him for and he will destroy the Lib Dems before defeating a Labout party that won't regain the middle clas vote at the next election. I don't believe that though, anyway, i have been reading quite a lot of British 18th and 19th history recently and the lesson from that is reform only comes along sporadically and often not when expected. So here's hoping.

Armando Ianucci's take on the last weeks events, he's covered all the bases.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/armando-iannucci-fear-and-loathing-have-mixed-with-a-yearning-optimism-1973937.html

Toots and the maytals