United sign homeless Bebe

United sign Portugese youngster Bebe for £7 million. At first sight i thought much the same as everyone else, why the hell do we need another centre forward, but the independent report that he can play attacking midfield as well. Seeing as though that is a position we are definitely short on, i hope that turns out to be his true position.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/united-snap-up-portuguese-rising-star-bebe-for-1637m-2050279.html
The cynic in me has to say, before he is sold to Real Madrid, Glazer debt an' all.

Gill admits Bebe came from nowhere, they had been watching him but after talking to people they went ahead and signed him this week. He admits that he is hopefully one for the future.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/7941474/Manchester-United-chief-executive-David-Gill-admits-Bebe-has-come-from-nowhere.html

Cleverley thinks that the success of the under 21's the other night and the fact that Wilshere and Gibbs were promoted to the senior team and both were given their debut's as substitute shows that there is young talent out there. He is delighted he will be staying at United and just wants to learn and show what he can do. I'm pretty certain he will get his chance, maybe more than he thinks. I notice Giggs mentioned the fact that Cleverley had been oustanding on the tour of North America last week. He aint a bad judge and we know Fergie listens to him.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/cleverley-backs-english-youngsters-to-come-good-2050006.html

Welbeck finally seals his season long loan to Sunderland. It looks like they were waiting for Kenwynne Jones to leave for Stoke. It should be a good move for all concerned.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/12/manchester-united-danny-welbeck-sunderland

The BBC asks who will be champions, that's another set of red faces come the end of the season.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8909054.stm

Capello in bad books again this time for the mishandling announcement of Beckham's international retirement. Actually i have a bit of sympathy for the Italian here, as last night was to be about the future and going forward from South Africa. Every time Beckham gets involved in anything it becomes a media circus revolving around him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/aug/12/david-beckham-fabio-capello-england

Alan Smith thinks there were some signs of progress on Wednesday night as England managed to win after falling a goal behind to Hungry. I agree with his assertion about the woeful lack of real international class strikers at the managers disposal. Though I think Zamorra is a fair centre forward myself, pretty under rated. The more youngster came on the better England got, it wouldn't surprise me if the Terry's and Lampards of this world start to get slowly phased out of the picture over the next couple of years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/7940141/Alan-Smith-England-start-to-shape-up-as-manager-hints-at-change.html

Ian Herbert writes that Lerner has partially admitted O'Neill left due to lowered ambition as the two no longer shared a coomon view on the way forward. He will have to be careful, it's not that big a drop from top 6 to mid table and worse mediocrity.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/lerner-admits-villas-lowered-ambitions-led-to-oneill-walkout-2050004.html

The indies obituary of Jimmy Reid. I was too young to remember the work in, but i have seen documentaries about it and i watched the documentaries he made himself about the USSR. The work in was they type of union leadership the trade union movement could have done with a hell of a lot more during the seventies.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jimmy-reid-inspirational-trade-unionist-who-led-the-workin-at-upper-clyde-which-reversed-government-policy-on-the-docks-2049987.html

The German economy bucks the trend to post 2.2% growth. We don't hear free market nutters telling us Germany is finished any more , i wonder why?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/13/german-economy-fastest-growth-ever

The torygraph reports that the bank of England is fully behind the coalition's policy. That's no surprise, Mervyn King has been pretty dangerously alligned with the coalitions economic position. His position hasn't really come under the pressure it should have done because he didn't exactly have a great credit crunch. If we do enter a double dip recession, should questions be asked about his leadership of the bank again?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7939764/Bank-of-England-backs-Coalition-cuts-despite-double-dip-fears.html

I'm no great fan of Seamus Milne but can't argue with much of this piece on the present economic situation. It will be interesting to see what Osborne will do if we do enter a double dip recession, as his whole strategy will have been blown out of the water. Will he have the chutzpah of new labour who totally disregarded the first ten years economic recored when the storm truly hit home in 2008 or will he do a Geoffrey Howe and kill of what remains of our manufacturing base. And in so doing destroy what small chance we seem to have in restructuring our economic base. The latter is too awful to contemplate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/11/double-dip-recession-cameron-u-turn

Is this was what David Blanchflower is worried about.
http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2010/08/growing-families-inequality

An interesting article about the Chinese economy and western attitudes to it from Daniel Ben-Ami in Spiked.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9406/

Julian Fellowes agrees with the decision to cut the film council.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/7941224/Cut-the-Film-Council-and-end-this-1970s-navel-gazing.html

Whilst a fellow traveller of the right argues for it to be saved
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/09/clint-eastwood-film-council

Babyshambles