Response to The English Tax

( Written in response to the Rory Smith's article in the Telegraph on the "English Tax", which you can read here: http://tgr.ph/p8uhHd )

One point the article doesn't make (but is surely worth pursuing) is the fact that such inflated prices for English players helps contribute to the fact they rarely travel abroad and learn how to play in other leagues. While I agree with the writer's implication that learning how to play in the Premier League is not rocket science (sure, you tend to get less space and time, which some players adapt to quicker than others), I think that's only raised as a concern by the likes of Savage et al because of the constant harping about the EPL being the best in the world. That's as maybe, but the real question ought surely to be: of the quarter finalists in the 2010 World Cup (Spain, Holland, Germany, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and Ghana), how many played in anything like a Premier League style? Spain obviously played Barca's game, slightly tweaked to accommodate a couple of Real players; Germany generally played a 4231 with retreating wingers, Lahm on the overlap and Ozil pulling the strings - that's arguably vaguely English, but I think the way they demolished England demonstrates it had a rather more continental flavour than even Wenger's best attempts at the 4231; Holland did something between a 4231, a 4132 and a 433, Robben joining van Persie (with Kuyt on the left, when he showed up) up top, while van Bommel and de Jong basically kicked anything that moved and Schneider just looked embarrassed standing in front of them (or as Jonathan Wilson put it "six players defend, three attack, and Dirk Kuyt runs about") - in terms of lopsidedness, poor movement and physicality, this was possibly the most English team so far; Uruguay were all set to play a 352, but this quickly got reshaped (not drastically, but enough) to look more like a defensive 442 diamond - again, faintly English, with lots of pressing, but probably it had more in common with Italian teams (Mourinho's Barca-thwarting Inter in particular) than English ones (not surprising if you've been reading your Blizzard issue two with its background on the link between Uruguay and Italian football - it's in the article on Brazil's well-documented transition to 424, I think); Paraguay generally played a narrow pressing game, somewhere between a 442 and a 4132, which again is probably English on paper, but the utter lack of creativity anywhere outside the frontmen means it's probably only really suited to League 1 football (even the newly promoted Premier League teams are a bit more canny than that these days); Brazil stuck with their 424/ 4222, which is so Brazillian I refuse to write any more about it; Argentina tried numerous systems (all fatally flawed, none remotely English); and Ghana - bless em - more or less stuck with a 4141 of various widths - this was probably the most English team of the lot (they reminded me a lot of Spurs), and while they were utterly robbed by Uruguay's dodginess, that seemed a bit of a foregone conclusion from the start really (which only makes them even more English)...

So, if you agree with me thus far, we're saying Holland and Ghana represented the Premier League tactically (besides England themselves). Out of the eight top (or most lucky) teams in last year's finals, two teams played an Anglicised system, one made it to the final by sheer good fortune, cheating, and the fact the Brazillian team had no idea what to do about set pieces, while Ghana scraped through their relatively straightforward group, scraped past USA, and inevitably succumbed to cramp and nerves when Suarez's handball denied them a win.

Neither of those teams (nor England) excelled tactically. Neither team's system looked comfortably adapted to coping with other systems (Ghana tended to line up on the edge of the box and hold their breath, while Holland tended to kick anyone who came near the edge of the box), and neither team's system created much - both nations relied on individuals to spark big moments, rather than team play.

So far, so obvious. My point - while it might not be as hard as Robbie Savage thinks for a player to assimilate and integrate sufficiently to understand the Premier League's "If in doubt, Boot it OUT!" approach, that doesn't mean the converse is just as easy. As many have noted in the face of managers aiming to emulate 'The Barca way', that kind of pseudo-telepathic symbiosis is not achieved overnight, but rather instilled through a good decade or so of coaching from youth level to Messi standard. Fabregas has flattered to deceive by walking into the Barca side and getting both goals and assists, but he's been fortunate for several reasons: firstly, and maybe most importantly, he grew up playing tiki taka with Messi and Pique; secondly, he's had the advantage of team mates (like Messi) who really want him to succeed, and have done their best to make this a reality; thirdly, he's got something to prove, and like Van der Vaart at Spurs last season, he's found that's a bloody good stimulus for form; and lastly (there's probably more, but that's all I can be bothered with) he's not exactly come up against the best teams in the world... yet.

This transfer window, the most notable Englishman to venture overseas was Joe Cole. That is to say, the Joe Cole who will be 30 in November, who struggled to make an impact on a wobbly Liverpool squad, and who is now plying his trade in Ligue 1 - widely regarded as one of the worst top-flight leagues in Western Europe - for last season's champions, Lille, who will play in the Champions League this season for the first time in their history. While it would be lovely to think that a year from now I'll be eating my words and remarking on how Joe's inclusion at Lille was a masterstroke, providing the lynchpin in their 21421 system (now being imitated all over Europe) and giving him the tactical awareness he's always lacked, allowing him to waltz into the England team as our one token veteran, leading the younger lads to certain glory, the likelihood is rather more mundane - this time next year Lille will have sent Cole back to Liverpool, who will now be looking to offload his overblown wages onto some other mug.

If English players didn't command such a premium, surely other teams from other leagues would be more likely to take on a few of them and perhaps - just perhaps - we'd start expecting our national side to be a little bit more knowledgeable about the game as a whole. Who knows, maybe in five or ten years time, Joe Cole will speak on an English football radio show about Jack Wiltshire - "I don't rate Wiltshire, he didn't do very well at Villareal"...

Response to Spurs_SSP

( Original post by Spurs-Such Small Portions here: http://bit.ly/nWWIr9 )

Hmm. Would that it were so simple. Money has made City a much improved team on last season's bunch, but a lack of it hasn't made us a much worse team, unless you reckon the trickle of last season's bit-part players from our squad has somehow eroded their former strength. Obviously, Champions League adventure aside (which would have added lustre even to a relegation season), we didn't look all that great last season, but it wasn't especially bad. In terms of players, we've not had much turnaround since we got fourth spot the season before last, so (assuming form hasn't dipped hugely from a once-in-a-lifetime peak for the majority of the squad, and the year and a bit of ageing hasn't rendered them all fit for the knacker's yard) we ought to be entitled to expect similar - albeit not quite as good, allowing for other teams' improvement - performances. Of course, everyone's entitled to a bad day at the office, and no question that injuries have taken their toll on our first XI, but the question really has to be - has a handful of megabucks signings (Nasri, Aguero, Savic and Clichy) really transformed City that much, or has Mancini simply (finally) taught his assortment of overpaid mercenaries how to play football? And has our squad really stagnated and depreciated that much, or is Harry getting found out as a bit one-dimensional?

Yes, City have the funds to assemble a squad of whoever they like, and in time their team will be so full of Galacticos that the original Galacticos will end up looking like present-day Liverpool, but currently it's pretty clear that the majority of their players - while very good - are overpaid, with perhaps a small handful of worldclass exceptions (for my money, Kompany, Nasri, Aguero - Dzeko just happens to be in amazing form, much like VdV was for us this time last year). The rest are being paid a premium for taking part in a club-development project in rainy Manchester. No, we couldn't ever match their wages in our current state (without going the way of Leeds), but nor should we want to: we'd be breaking our wage structure for players not significantly better than our current crop (except, of course, up front).

A lot of parallels are being drawn between our thumping and Arsenal's, and rightly so (both teams have injury problems, have had protracted transfer sagas throughout pre-season, and got their tactics horribly wrong on the day), but I think the financial comparison is a bit of a red herring. Yes, City have essentially unlimited money, and United are the biggest business in football, but if you look at United's team on Saturday, although they spent over £50m this summer on De Gea, Jones and Young, their top earners are apparently Rooney, Ferdinand, Berbatov and Giggs; only two of whom featured, and Giggs only off the bench at five-one, with the game effectively over. It seems unlikely a team made up of names like Evans, Jones, Smalling, Anderson, Cleverly, Wellbeck and Young are earning wages that would massively break Arsenal's wage structure, and the money they're making on the Emirates relocation (plus player sales) means by most estimates they have around £100m sloshing around in their bank account - their refusal to change their wage structure (unlike Levy with ours) is borne of Wenger's 'philosophy' (some might say 'obstinance').

Meanwhile, although City have spent far more than either ourselves, United or the Gooners (indeed, their net spend in the last decade has been higher than all three of us put together), we've outspent both United in six of the last ten seasons, and the Gooners in seven out of ten (source: bit.ly/ppCB0p). We haven't splashed the cash (yet) this transfer window, but should we really need to? A half-decent striker would make a world of difference; some (more) cover at centre-back (since Harry seems to hate Bassong) would firm up the back line; and Harry would really rather love to do a Dalglish/Comolli and sign every central midfielder going, but these are (with the exception of the striker) minor additions rather than massive overhauls. As for the striker - there aren't many good ones around, and the few there are don't want to come to us, partly because admittedly we don't pay highly enough, and partly because we're not a firm top-four contender. Hopefully, Adebayor will mark the improvement we need (except in the one remaining fixture against City - cups not withstanding) and represent a great bit of business, so really Harry's bleatings about the lack of signings are a smoke screen for his inability to identify what's going wrong.

I'm not in agreement with the "Harry out" grumblers, but I don't think injuries, lack of money for signings/wages, and form/morale were really as significant a factor in our demolition by City as the simple fact that Harry got his game-plan hopelessly wrong, much as Wenger did later in the day. That's not an argument for throwing the baby out with the bathwater and sacking a manager who has taken us further than we've ever been in the modern era (just like the players, a manager can't go bad in just over a year), but equally I don't think we should be making excuses for him

If he goes, I'm not sure who we can bring in who'll be any better, but I do think if he continues to stick with his naive "have a go" 4411 tactics and make excuses in the press at every given opportunity when we don't perform (the recent "terrible pre season" comment being a fantastic way to abdicate responsibility for a result while doing no more than compounding the symptom it identifies, further damaging morale), he is in danger of quickly falling into the Ramos trap where anyone (Andy Gray, Me, Sandra Redknap FFS) coming in is going to do a better job than him of lifting the mood. He needs to get hold of things quickly, get us playing tight (and - Spurs forgive me - ugly) football so we can get a few results and build some confidence. My fear is that he's simply manoeuvring to paint himself as a powerless victim of Enic and Levy's 'stupidity', so as to preserve his reputation when the FA come knocking after Fabio departs. Even if that's the case, a few more drubbings like this weekend's will surely devalue his stock to Allardyce levels, so hopefully he'll make a bit more effort for Wolves. Fingers crossed. COYS.

Response to Apathy Sketchpad on "Scum"

( Original post on Apathy Sketchpad concerning the use of the word "scum" amongst football rivals here: http://bit.ly/p87Vuc - NB: I think Andrew Taylor is an excellent blogger, and strongly recommend you give Apathy Sketchpad a read)

You make a good point, but I’m not sure I agree.

Firstly, let me tell you why part of me is inclined to concur. One night a year or two ago I was out drinking with a friend, who had invited a friend of his along. This friend-of-a-friend was a fan of Portsmouth, or Southampton – I can’t really remember, as I’d been drinking and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t really matter which.

Talk got down to football (as it often does amongst young men who don’t really know much about one another and haven’t much else to talk about) and somewhere along the way this fellow let slip his utter, undying hatred for anyone from his rival town. Sensing a bit of drunken hyperbole, I explained that I, as a Spurs fan, had a similar ‘hatred’ for Arsenal fans, but outside the footballing arena, knew a couple who were good friends and who I wouldn’t wish ill of, besides a thorough drubbing from my team of choice whenever we faced off. Indeed, at the risk of falling into the “some of my best friends are immigrants…” rhetoric, I emphasised that I have no ill feeling towards any Arsenal fans outside of football, and feel that the rivalry is simply a convenient way of expressing the fundamental tribalism human beings are innately prone to, without anyone getting hurt in any meaningful way (leaving aside stories of people around the world killing themselves and/or others after matches, which only goes to emphasise the dangers of people taking that tribalism too seriously). Obviously, I was a bit drunk, so I doubt my argument was quite so succinct, but I think I made my point reasonably coherently.

Unfortunately, my fellow football fan disagreed completely. His rivals had deeply wronged the people of his town, and he could barely bring himself to draw breath when he drove through their town, much less consider that its people might be anything other than the very worst humanity has to offer. I countered that Arsenal had deeply wronged Tottenham in a very real way (the root of the animosity being first Arsenal’s ‘invasion’ of North London in 1913, escalated by their arguably unfair – albeit democratic – election to the First Division ahead of Spurs in 1919) and that while I’d burn a ‘Gooner’ shirt rather than wear one (even if I had to pay for it if I burned it, or got the money if I wore it – which I thought was quite a decent bit of jeopardy construction in my drunken state), I had the common sense to accept that present-day Arsenal fans had nothing to do with the events of nearly a century ago, and were at any rate mostly fans by accident rather than design, and thus not responsible for anything to do with their club. I was told I was wrong, our rivalry bore no comparison (I tried to argue that all rivals consider their rivalry more pure and valid than anyone else’s, but was shouted down) and the bile and indignation escalated until I was forced to concede that I could not change his mind, and so somehow shifted the topic to music, in the hope he wouldn’t get so wound up about the bands he disliked.

The whole episode shook my faith in the idea that football is these days rather benign. Here was a man for whom reason departed utterly where football was concerned, for whom dogmatic prejudice was as deeply ingrained as a fundamentalist. A grown, married young man who seemed genuine in his assertion that he would disown (and so would presumably at least consider such a course of action) any child of his who struck up a relationship with the “scum”.

So I’ve no doubt that idiots exist, for whom words like “scum” resonate with the fullest, deepest of meanings, and for whom such vocabulary reinforces a sense of consensus around their irrational loathing of people they know nothing about. I’ve no doubt some such people take to violence and hooliganism, and I’ve no doubt innocent people occasionally get hurt as a result.

But I still don’t agree that the word should be stigmatised. First up, I stand by my view that football satisfies our tribalistic urges, and I think that’s a healthy thing for most people. Even Airstrip One knew the value of a two minutes hate. Uniting in (for most people a pantomime of) hatred against some other people serves as a useful release of pent up frustrations, and instils a sense of both togetherness and being part of something bigger than oneself (yes, there are other routes to that feeling, but it’s not inherently a bad one). Secondly, I’m not convinced it’s such an awful word. It’s not a nice one, referring to something worthless and dirty (I don’t have an OED subscription, and my copy is not to hand to check the full definition, but as far as I know, there aren’t many meanings to the word) or else semen (as in scumbag>condom), but it’s by no means a monstrous, hideous slur that confers some horrible fate upon its recipient (I’m not convinced any words are, although words such as nigger and cunt are often hauled out as irredeemably awful arrays of letters – I’d argue they’re just words that have gained deeply negative associations, and no more likely to inflict actual hurt as words in themselves as any other; scum, for instance… That’s not to say I’d use them except in very particular contexts and circumstances, but still). Take away scum, and those who wish to express deep loathing will simply commandeer another slur (or make one up). The feeling will not be cured by removing its means of expression.

Perhaps it would be better if we focussed on finding ways to ensure (or at least encourage) media outlets (from Sky to twitter users) make some effort to avoid the senseless binary opposition evoked whenever rivals square off on the football field – we could start with a bit more dialogue between rival fans, some genuine banter rather than the usual laddish sparring.

At any rate, it’s an interesting debate – typically thought-provoking stuff from you.

Another deconstruction of the 1-5

( Originally posted in the comments over at WhoFramedRuelFox here: http://bit.ly/ngBYVv )

I can’t help myself. I’m like a child with a scab.

I’ve just been looking at the Guardian chalkboards…

4 of City’s goals came from inside the box, where they made 11 attempts (6 on target, 5 off target) – 55% on target in the box (compared with 41% overall).
Our single goal came from inside the box, where we made 10 attempts (2 on target, 4 off target, 4 blocked) – 20% on target in the box (compared with 24% overall).

They made 10 blocks (spread across Kompany with 5, and one each for Barry, Dzeko, Lescott, Richards and Savic).
We made 3 blocks – all Dawson.

Their 85% pass completion also saw them attempt to pass 181 times more (648) than our 79% (467 total), or 186 more accurate passes than we managed.

They managed 77% successful clearances, to our 50%.

Looking at the midfield battle:

We achieved more interceptions with 21 to their 13, and tackled with 69% success (47 won, 21 lost) to their 41% (23 won, 33 lost).

45% of their passes took place in our half. 50% of our passes took place in their half.

Looking at our four central midfielders individually:

Kranjcar – 88% pass completion, 63% of successful passes in their half, four tackles all won
Modric – 78% pass completion, 64% of successful passes in their half, four tackles out of seven won
Huddlestone – 81% pass completion, 59% of successful passes in their half, one tackle won
Livermore – 75% pass completion, 63% of successful passes in their half, one tackle won

You could argue that the tackles numbers aren’t very good, but given that Barry and Toure managed four successful tackles between them, we did quite well.

Ok, we all know there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, but I think all this gives lie to is Harry’s complaint about the central midfield ‘crisis’. Modric didn’t play his best for whatever reason you care to name, Huddlestone wasn’t fully fit, Kranjcar isn’t really a central midfielder, and Livermore really isn’t all that great, just a useful squad player for the time being. But they all put in a shift and did relatively well.

Our real problem was the fact our defenders gave City’s forwards too much time and space (partly because we didn’t have a man covering the defence and closing the forwards down, and partly because the back four looked horribly off the pace), and that City defended as a unit and Kompany was (and is) an exceptional defender who didn’t allow any of our forwards space/time to breathe. The former problem could’ve been easily addressed early on by bringing Livermore or Huddlestone on for someone (anyone) and telling them to sit deep and pick off Nasri, Silva or Aguero; the latter problem isn’t so easy due to our well-known lack of forward options, but could’ve been solved either by setting VdV on Kompany – briefed to act as a decoy – and Defoe on Lescott. Even if neither got the better of the marker, they ought to have been able to create space for our attacking midfielders to run into. What exactly Crouch was supposed to achieve is a mystery.

Sorry to be such a statto bore, but I’m quietly hoping Harry learns some lessons, and my fellow Spurs fans don’t continue to follow his narrative that we’re somehow lacking in midfield. Falque *ought* to address Lennon’s lack of competition (that’s why we got him, right?), and Parker (if he comes) will replace Livermore as more experienced combative CM option. Neither will solve our current problems, because midfield really isn’t that much of an issue, as far as I’m concerned. Our midfield held their own against the United team that just bitchslapped Arsenal – it was the defence that capitulated.

Ok, I think I’ve wasted enough of my bank holiday picking at this particular wound, time to leave it to heal. COYS.

Response to Dear Mr Levy

( Original post by Spooky on DML here: http://bit.ly/ooxKTl )

Nice little trilogy. They're all accurate.

Ramos was supposedly a tactician, but (maybe because his English was piss-poor, or maybe because his heart wasn't in it) when his tactics were repeatedly shown to be ineffectual (at best), Levy dropped him and went for Harry.

Harry's supposedly a man-manager. He works on getting the best out of individuals through motivation, encouragement and fatherly guidance. When (as in our late surge in 2009/10 and the CL matches last season) he manages to squeeze magic out of his players, he's satisfied and vindicated in his belief that "...it's 10% about the formation and 90% about the players.", and anyone who dares point out the naivety of playing five attack minded players/no in-form goalscorers/no deep holding midfielder/just hoping that if we keep the ball in their half and don't succumb to the painfully simple counter-attacks, gets shouted down as an idiot who doesn't understand the game. Look, we won - the tactics are irrelevant. The boys done good.

Of course, it doesn't always work like that (if it did, we'd have won all competitions last season, right?). The glory of Harry's anti-tactics stance is that it abdicates any responsibility on his part - if they play well and win, he talks of 2pts from 8, bottom of the table, blah blah, got them playing confidently. If they play badly and lose, he focuses on form, injuries and other individual problems. It's a perfect way to avoid any blame for anything, and worst of all, I think he's learnt to believe it too.

Now, we all know United and City have squads better than ours, and we'd be daft to think any fluke of tactics or individual genius could've turned those scorelines the other way around without some injection of fresh blood - but that's not to say we couldn't have walked away with a little more pride. We did ok against United, but a glance at the highlights (and/or zonal marking's write up) shows we were far more open than we really needed to be, and going forward we lacked the movement to cause problems. If the players don't have the vision, it's surely up to Harry to either tell them what to do, or (in his preferred Managerial role) replace them for players who know better.

Against City, we were woefully badly set-up: after fifteen minutes it was clear that, while we could possibly take the lead, we'd struggle to stop them scoring at some point. What did Harry do? At two-nil down he introduced Huddlestone for Kranjcar, then Defoe for a broken Lennon, then at four-nil Livermore for Modric. No effort to change the shape - Defoe on for Lennon was necessitated by our lack of a right-wing alternative on the bench, and the idea seemed to be pushing VdV wide and doing a Hoddle/England'98 -esque frontman rotation between Defoe and Crouch. If we'd been closely competing all game, it might've been a brilliant response to an injury calamity, but at four-one it was bizarre. Arguably by that point the game was long-lost, so what difference did it make, but shouldn't he have attempted to change things sooner?

Like I said, once Ramos' tactics were found out, he went. I don't care whether Harry goes or stays, but if he stays I'd like to see him make some effort to address the gaping holes in his tactical abilities. Try some variety (4411/451/442 is not variety when they all involve playing in the exact same style), be more proactive to change things when you've made mistakes (he's made first-half subs in the past - why not yesterday?), just DO SOMETHING. At any rate, I think it's pretty obvious now (and I've been saying this since last November, so it's not a kneejerk) that man-management does not negate the need for *some* tactical common-sense, and when form and morale are at a low ebb (as they currently are), only three events can possibly turn things around:
1) Manager gets team playing more grittily, to earn points and restore confidence
2) New signing rejuvenates team spirit and fixes squad imbalance
3) New manager rides in to the rescue.

Number 2 seems unlikely as we clearly can't compete for the big boys' signatures. Number 3 was Harry's own trick, and I've no doubt Levy would be pursuing this route if he had any idea who could possibly take the reins. That leaves number 1, so come on, let's be realistic, and look forward to us playing tight, pragmatic football and doing our best to get a solid three points against Wolves and at least a hard-won draw against Liverpool. If we go up against Wolves thinking we're Barcelona, it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.

COYS.

Response to The Freedom Association (part 2)

( Following Tom Waters' response to my first comment, which can be found here: http://bit.ly/nsTwMo )

Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm not sure my response will achieve much, but it appears from what you've said that I could've been clearer, so I will attempt to elucidate the comments you take issue with. Forgive me for lacking brevity, but spelling things out inherently takes longer.

Firstly, I agree that linking to the video does absolve you of a little of the responsibility to address everything said in the interview, but since we all know that not everyone saw the footage live and not everyone bothers to click on video links for all kinds of reasons (where would we find the time to *do* anything?!), it seems more than a little disingenuous that you opened your second paragraph with "The first reason for the riots that Ken cited", rather than, say "Of the reasons for the riots that Ken cited, the first one I take issue with...". Anyone who does not consult the primary source before reading your post is going to get the impression the Ken really is on cloud-cuckoo land; I don't think that's very fair of you. Another option would perhaps have been to include in your introductory paragraph words to the effect "while Livingstone made some general comments that would be hard to refute, some of his other opinions seemed very revealing...". Without these kinds of qualifying, balancing statements, your original post reads rather like a hatchet job.

I'm still not at all convinced it reveals anything much about how Ken values people if he refers to people at the "top" and/or "bottom". For one thing, I don't think by "top" he strictly meant "politicians", which is why he didn't use the word "politicians" - he meant (relatively) wealthy and powerful; politicians, journalists, businessmen and women, perhaps even to some extent the police. At any rate, the "top" was used more as a binary alternative to his viewing of the people involved in rioting as being from the "bottom" of society. These words only have any implicit value-judgement attached if you yourself view a position at the top as more desirable than a position at the bottom, and your objection to these terms perhaps reveals your own prejudice that people at the bottom are in the least desirable position, and thereby are the least valuable/valued of all people.

Of course, I have no doubt that you would retort that you'd rather not see things in such strictly hierarchical terms, and prefer to value all people equally (which is a sentiment I share, but moving on from that idealism) we must accept that hierarchies of wealth, influence and self-determinism (to name but three) exist within our society, and while I would not personally value the lives of - say, from the political sphere - David Cameron, Nick Clegg or Ed Milliband any higher than three youngsters who did not riot despite being in the same economic position as many of those who did (indeed, to have the courage to not break one's moral views in the face of that kind of peer-pressure surely makes you a much more valuable person, in my eyes, than any number of career politicians), that's not to say Dave, Nick and Ed are not infinitely more wealthy and powerful and fortunate to have the opportunity to contribute to society than our three hypothetical youngsters. We frequently use terms like top and bottom to describe success and failure, power and powerlessness, wealth and poverty, and indeed value and worthlessness, but again I say these words have no implicit value-judgement attached: top and bottom are merely the extremes of a spectrum we wish to discuss (much like the y axis on your graph, more on which in a moment). Consider, if you will, common English phrases such as "top-down leadership", "to come out on top", "at the bottom of the ladder" and "bottoming out" - while it is entirely possible to take an almost Marxist semiotic slant on things and discuss connotations of value and worthlessness, in practice we're no longer critiquing Ken Livingstone, but rather centuries of refinement of the English language. This waffly two-paragraph response to your objections to two simple terms has probably bored any other readers to tears (and quite possibly done likewise to you and I; I'm nodding off a bit) - imagine how the world would be if we expected all our politicians to qualify their use of casual terms like this, all the time.

Now then, the link between fearlessness and the EMA. There isn't one. It's entirely imaginary. It is a straw man you and many others have invented to allow you to focus on one silly incongruous detail rather than examine the wider picture. Look again at what I said: "The discussion of EMA cuts is clearly meant to *contextualise* the rioting" and "the uncertainty brought about by scrapping EMA is *merely one example* of [the fact rioters have nothing to lose]" This in no way contradicts your argument that "if you were in London the night before last, you knew you could go out, loot some shops, and be 99.9% sure that you wouldn't be caught". Let's look again, I said:
"the rioters…have nothing to lose"
You said:
"loot some shops, and be 99.9% sure that you wouldn't be caught"
I'm pretty sure we're arguing the same thing there. I haven't, didn't and will not (nor did Ken, nor anyone else so far, as far as I know) say "the rioters felt more uncertain because they no longer had EMA, and then acted on that uncertainty with criminal acts" - that's your straw man, right there.

The uncertainty and hopelessness is borne out of the *context* of no EMA, rising youth unemployment, rising unemployment in general, cuts to public services, inflation, recession, communities in need of regeneration, and a myriad of other factors. I am NOT painting a direct link of causality between EMA (nor any of the other factors I just mentioned) and rioting, and the crux of my argument around that subject was (and is) that refuting the arguments of anyone who dares mention EMA with silly quibbling about the lack of riots seven years ago when EMA didn't exist (strictly speaking, that's not true, anyway - it was trialled through a range of deprived UK councils as far back as 2000) is a very simple (and lazy) straw man argument. The fact you haven't responded to that point suggests that either you know full well it's a straw man and don't want to concede the point, or else you're not sure what a straw man is.

You seem to feel the motivations for the riots perhaps weren't anger and disaffection. I've seen no evidence to suggest anything else was involved. If the BBM messages continue to emphasise 'free stuff', doesn't that fit with 'disaffection' - no longer willing to play by society's rules, to earn the things you covet? Wasn't the utterly senseless (and not at all looting-related) burning and smashing of shops and restaurants (and some homes) with nothing of value inside a pretty fine example of 'anger'? Again, you trot out the line of politicians 'not caring'. I believe the actual words Ken used were:
"[The rioters] feel no one at the top of society in government or city hall cares about them or speaks for them."
This isn't an argument for more 'hug a hoodie' soundbites, and nor is he strictly saying that politicians don't care; rather he is employing empathy to again try to contextualise their actions - the rioters feel unrepresented and hopeless, so they feel no responsibility to society. You may have heard this interview (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424) which makes all-too-clear that at least a few - and likely the vast majority - of the rioters have no connection with politics, and indeed no real understanding of the spectrum of wealth they find themselves at the bottom (that word again!) end of. I don't think Ken was suggesting that anger and disaffection were/are the sole cause of rioting (any more than the EMA), but merely that these are the backdrop, that this state of being disconnected from society and without anything to lose makes it possible for people to attempt to rationalise such arrant criminal behaviour.

"I can't believe that less well off people have so little moral backbone as to riot when they are angry about losing some benefits - and that's where I think Ken was wrong. He wasn't giving them enough credit… ...I didn't say that he was tarring everyone with the same brush, but implying that the thing stopping people from rioting is that they are well off enough already and have jobs ignores the fact that people don't riot because they know it to be wrong."

Firstly, we're both beginning to fall into the trap of oversimplifying the argument to a question of wealth, when it's already been established that at least some of the rioters have been relatively much more affluent than we might have expected. Secondly, I think the "less than one tenth of one percent" comment Livingstone made gives a lot of people a lot of credit, and criticising him for not spending more of the interview discussing the motivations of those who chose not to riot is again rather unfair - if asked to pass a comment on the tuition fee protests a politician wasted time talking about how wonderful everyone who didn't protest is, we'd rightly wonder if the politician had gone mad. It's a fine example of faulty generalisation to suggest that Ken was claiming less well off people have little moral backbone and so decided to riot because they were angry about losing benefits. Meanwhile, the inverse - that the fact so many people living in similar circumstances didn't riot proves somehow that those circumstances didn't in any way motivate the minority who did - is yet more faulty logic, this time ad populum.

On the matter of the graph, I'm very capable of identifying the time and quantity axes, my issue is with the vagaries of the quantity axis - the figure seems to fluctuate around the twenty mark, but twenty what? Twenty people? Twenty million people? Twenty tonnes of people? Twenty percent of people? And are these young people NEET or merely unemployed? "Rate" usually (but not always) implies a percentage or other measure of proportion: in this case, it's quite a useless statistic to use when claiming that unemployment hasn't changed in two years (quite beside the fact it obviously has peaked and troughed but seems to be in roughly the same place it was two years ago this month, the fact is the population has grown in that time, and so the numbers will have swollen even if the line was utterly flat). Also, I'm not sure where you got your most recent figures from - any chance of a source? I'm not doubting you, but I had great difficulty finding anything from ONS so recent: figures usually look at the three months prior to their publication.

I have no idea whether Ken Livingstone will be embarrassed by his comments, and no interest in speculating around that possibility. My feeling simply remains that while you could've criticised his comments on the grounds of shameless posturing and point-scoring (and I would have agreed), you instead took the route of attempting to pick apart his other comments, indulging in the process in a great deal of illogical argument, which had little to do with what was actually said and far more to do with what you chose to hear.

Again, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Response to The Freedom Association (part 1)

( Original post by Tom Waters of TFA here: http://bit.ly/qo0fA6 )

This whole post utterly fails to deal with the first half of Livingstone's argument (which focuses on the police force's problems of funding, staffing and general public image, albeit rather briefly as befits a short interview for breaking news coverage) and proceeds to argue semantics - how exactly is Ken supposed to refer to political leaders, if not people at the top of society? "People in the middle" perhaps? "People in Rupert Murdoch's pocket" maybe? And should he really be expected to launch into a discussion around the difficult nature of using hierarchical terms to label different strata of society when he's basically on there for soundbites and knee-jerk reactions?

The discussion of EMA cuts is clearly meant to contextualise the rioting - as Ken says, the rioters are fearless, inspired by the fact they have nothing to lose, and the uncertainty brought about by scrapping EMA is merely one example of that. He's not saying people are breaking into Foot Locker because they can't afford to buy text books for college next month, and refuting that line of argument is a laughably elementary straw-man. Ken's argument is boiled down towards the end when he says "this is anger and it's disaffection" - a point which is wholly ignored here, in favour of arguing that "youth unemployment is unlikely to be the cause of the riots – it’s barely changed in 24 months" (using a fantastic vaguely-scaled graph to illustrate the point), brilliantly ignoring the fact that we currently have nearly seven hundred thousand young people not in employment education or training (aka NEET's) - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/feb/14/youth-unemployment-statistics - many of whom have likely been in that position for two years or more. Yeah, that's not going to make anyone angry or disaffected.

I hate political posturing as much as the next person, and have to admit Livingstone made more than his fair share of digs at both the government and Boris Johnson, but at the end of the day, that's the name of the game, and arguing that his attempts to rationalise and contextualise the malcontent that has led to this chaos somehow tars everyone with the same brush is pathetic, particularly when, towards the end of his spot, he states "this is not one tenth of one percent of London's young people". All in all, this is typical nitpicking and political posturing (much like Ken's, but with none of the constructive thinking, leaving only the point-scoring and naysaying) as befits TFA's politics.