Saturday 19 March 2016

IDS brings down shapeshifter Osborne's house of cards


IAIN DUNCAN SMITH sent shockwaves through Westminster last night after resigning his position as Work and Pensions Secretary over disagreements with George Osborne's budget.

Mr Duncan Smith, a former Conservative party leader, wrote of cuts to the benefits of disabled people to be "a compromise too far" when set against the desire for the country to balance the books.

He added: "While they are defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers."

Here, Mr Duncan Smith refers to the increase in the starting point of the 40% tax band from £42,385 now to £45,000 in April 2017.

That was a move by Mr Osborne which was generally well received as, along with the increase in the personal allowance to £11,500 next April, it helps many workers in middle England.

Moreover, fuel duty was frozen for a sixth year in a row - while beer, cider and spirit duties were also frozen.

Yet, despite these little pick-me-ups, the overall impression of the budget this year was unquestionably negative.

No doubt to some extent that was down to Mr Osborne himself. Growth forecasts were revised downwards markedly for the next five years while borrowing was revised upwards.

Mr Osborne also admitted he would miss his target of reducing debt as a share of GDP - one of his three golden rules - but declared public finances were still projected to achieve a £10.4bn surplus in 2019/20.

That can only be achieved by making a further £3.5bn-worth of cuts by 2020, some of which were projected to fall upon the disabled.

Consequently, the budget was not only perceived as being negative, it was also considered to be unfair in a poll by a margin of 38%-28%.

Only 13% of people support the disability cuts while 70% think they are the wrong priority at the present time, including 59% of Tory voters.

In fact, this is the first budget which has been considered more unfair than fair since the "omnishambles" of 2012 - and Mr Osborne's personal ratings had already taken a hit even before Mr Duncan Smith's decision.

Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, has said he is "puzzled and disappointed" that Mr Duncan Smith has resigned.

He added: "While we are on different sides in the vital debate about the future of Britain's relations with Europe, the Government will, of course, continue with its policy of welfare reform."

Ah yes, Europe. The issue which has divided - and, at times, torn apart - the Tory party for over 30 years has been dragged to the forefront of the political arena with the referendum date set for 23 June.

London mayor Boris Johnson has already made a calculated move by putting himself on the side of Leave. Would it be too cynical to suggest Mr Duncan Smith, another in favour of Brexit, is trying a similar tactic?

Perhaps it would not. After all, Mr Duncan Smith did not seem too concerned about welfare reform - i.e. cuts - when he celebrated wildly in the House of Commons last summer.

Instead, this decision to depart the Cabinet allows the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green to campaign more vigorously against Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne in the run-up to the referendum.

A rivalry with Mr Osborne, in particular, exists ever since the Chancellor is said to have described Mr Duncan Smith as "not clever enough".

But, whether that is true or not, this perceived scheming is doing little to give the impression that this Conservative government has the best interests of the country - rather than itself - at heart.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has this morning called directly on Mr Osborne to follow Mr Duncan Smith by resigning.

Mr Corbyn cited "a Government in disarray and a Chancellor who has lost the credibility to manage the economy in the interests of the majority of our people" while imploring again that "the Government must change economic course".

That, of course, seems unlikely - but the biggest worry for Mr Osborne may be the Government's wafer-thin majority.

Having already been forced into a U-turn over cuts to tax credits last year, the Chancellor faces a group of several Conservative MPs who have written a letter threatening to rebel again.

Either way, Mr Osborne's budget plans are now in a total mess - full of missed targets, broken golden rules and, worst of all, an attack on some of the most vulnerable in society.

It has taken a while to come to this - but the great British shapeshifter has finally started to become unmasked.

Earlier Budget reports from Mr Osborne 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015(March)

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Shouldn't T20 cricket be solely a franchise sport?

ENGLAND opened up their World T20 campaign today with a disappointing defeat to a Chris Gayle-inspired West Indies team.

Gayle scored a splendid century, off 47 balls, smashing 11 sixes and five fours as the Windies chased down their target of 183 with ease.

Of course, it should come as no surprise at all that the 36-year-old Jamaican was the difference between the two sides.

After all, unlike most of the England team, Gayle is a T20 specialist and plays for various franchises in several different competitions around the world.

Indeed, despite his advancing years, he is very much the embodiment of a modern day cricketer, globetrotting and raking in the cash with only a minimum amount of effort by playing the shortest form of the game.

By contrast, Test cricket - for Gayle at least - is an anachronism. As far back as 2009, he commented that he "wouldn't be so sad" if Test cricket was superseded by T20 cricket in the future - and, in fact, he has not played in the five-day format since 2014.

Now, please do not misunderstand this blog - it is not going to be another English-centric rant about how T20 is killing off our beloved Test cricket.

If anything, T20 is doing the opposite by attracting a younger and more family-oriented audience to the sport.

There are no guarantees but these people may just go on to check out a 50-over match or Test cricket - and, even if they do not, that would be their choice and would unlikely be the fault of T20.

Furthermore, this write-up is not a criticism of Gayle - or, for that matter, a certain Kevin Pietersen - or indeed any other modern cricketers who want to monetise the value of their talent in the same way as top-level footballers do.

That is their right and, ultimately, the amount of money which they make out of the game will depend on the quality of the product and their contribution to it.

Instead, this is an attempt to find a way in which T20, One Day Internationals and Test cricket can peacefully coexist.

This is not a straightforward matter but clearly there is far too much cricket being played every year at the moment.

Players cram game after game in exhausting tours, while teams often lack consistency and struggle, particularly, in away series.

One key change which could be made would be to abandon T20 internationals altogether, at least among the top countries.

For, if T20 is all about the razzmatazz - something which fits in seamlessly with the likes of the Indian Premier League and the highly successful Big Bash in Australia - then this is not something which works quite so well in international cricket.

International team-mates are more dryly determined by an accident of birth or their choice of naturalisation, and not the fantasy team-based constructs to which the whole idea of T20 would seem to belong.

Of course, this sort of change is unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all. The world governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), understandably sees too much money to be made with T20 to remove its own stake.

However, in making this choice, it ignores the wider picture of player burn-out and a declining interest around the world in Tests.

In terms of a solution, then: what about an arrangement where the ICC agreed to give up on organising their own T20 cricket in returning for fixing the dates of various sanctioned franchise events?

Outside of the T20 tournaments, the ICC would be able to schedule the traditional Test and ODI series - here too, though, there is a lot of room for improvement.

Actually, at least on that issue, the ICC appears to be moving in the right direction. Test cricket badly needs a simple structure which can be easily understood and, indeed, successfully marketed.

For example, England's fine recent win in South Africa ultimately counted for little except for a slight adjustment in the fabled Test rankings of a few points either way.

But how much more important would that series have felt it had saved England from relegation to a second tier?

Basically, it seems obvious to me that a proper round-robin structure with promotion and relegation between different tiers is long overdue.

Finally, it is my view that ODIs should stay as, in the absence of T20 internationals, they would provide a reasonable contrast to Test cricket while providing the guarantee of an on-the-day result.

Nevertheless, there should certainly be no more than five ODIs played at the end of each Test series.

Of course, it also makes sense that both Test and ODI results contributed to a team's place in the league, in a similar way to which the Women's Ashes are currently contested.

Meanwhile, the original - and still primary - Cricket World Cup would continue to be played every four years outside of the promotion/relegation structure.

Instead of all this, however, the World Cup's 'little brother' - the World T20 - looks set to continue, with the 2020 tournament already scheduled to be taken to Australia.

Frankly, anyone could turn up there as defending champions after the heavy loss for favourites India in their game against New Zealand yesterday - in fact, even England have won this competition once in 2010.

Surely, though, the bigger question which needs to be asked is how much would it really matter if it happened again?


GROUP 1 FIXTURES
SRI LANKA + SOUTH AFRICA + WEST INDIES + ENGLAND + AFGHANISTAN

DateVenueResult
16 Mar 14:00MumbaiWEST INDIES 183-4 18.1 beat ENGLAND 182-6 by six wickets
17 Mar 14:00KolkataSRI LANKA 155-4 18.5 beat AFGHANISTAN 153-7 by six wickets
18 Mar 14:00MumbaiENGLAND 230-8 19.4 beat SOUTH AFRICA 229-4 by two wickets
20 Mar 09:30MumbaiSOUTH AFRICA 209-5 beat AFGHANISTAN 172 by 37 runs
20 Mar 14:00BangaloreWEST INDIES 127-3 18.2 beat SRI LANKA 122-9 by seven wickets
23 Mar 09:30DelhiENGLAND 142-7 beat AFGHANISTAN 127-9 by 15 runs
25 Mar 14:00NagpurWEST INDIES 123-7 19.4 bt SOUTH AFRICA 122-8 by three wkts
26 Mar 14:00DelhiENGLAND 171-4 beat SRI LANKA 161-8 by 10 runs
27 Mar 10:30NagpurAFGHANISTAN 123-7 beat WEST INDIES 117-8 by six runs
28 Mar 15:00DelhiSOUTH AFRICA 122-2 17.4 bt SRI LANKA 120 19.3 by eight wkts

GROUP 1WLNRRun 
rate
Pts
(Q) WEST INDIES3100.366
(Q) ENGLAND3100.156
SOUTH AFRICA2200.654
SRI LANKA130-0.462
AFGHANISTAN130-0.722

GROUP 2 FIXTURES
INDIA + NEW ZEALAND + PAKISTAN + AUSTRALIA + BANGLADESH

DateVenueResult
15 Mar 14:00NagpurNEW ZEALAND 126-7 beat INDIA 79 18.1 by 47 runs
16 Mar 09:30KolkataPAKISTAN 201-5 beat BANGLADESH 146-6 by 55 runs
18 Mar 09:30DharmasalaNEW ZEALAND 142-8 beat AUSTRALIA 134-9 by eight runs
19 Mar 14:00KolkataINDIA 119-4 15.5 beat PAKISTAN 118-5 18 by six wickets
21 Mar 14:00BangaloreAUSTRALIA 157-7 18.3 bt BANGLADESH 156-5 by three wkts
22 Mar 14:00MohaliNEW ZEALAND 180-5 beat PAKISTAN 158-5 by 22 runs
23 Mar 14:00BangaloreINDIA 146-7 beat BANGLADESH 145-9 by one run
25 Mar 09:30MohaliAUSTRALIA 193-4 beat PAKISTAN 172-8 by 21 runs
26 Mar 09:30KolkataNEW ZEALAND 145-8 beat BANGLADESH 70 15.4 by 75 runs
27 Mar 15:00MohaliINDIA 161-4 19.1 beat AUSTRALIA 160-6 by six wickets

GROUP 2WLNRRun 
rate
Pts
(Q) NEW ZEALAND4001.908
(Q) INDIA310-0.316
AUSTRALIA2200.234
PAKISTAN130-0.092
BANGLADESH040-1.800

KNOCKOUT STAGE
DateVenueResult
30 Mar 14:30DelhiSF1 ENGLAND 159-3 17.1 bt NEW ZEALAND 153-8 by seven wkts
31 Mar 14:30MumbaiSF2 WEST INDIES 196-3 19.4 beat INDIA 192-2 by seven wickets
03 Apr 14:30KolkataFIN WEST INDIES 161-6 19.4 beat ENGLAND 155-9 by four wickets

Wednesday 2 March 2016

Trump towers over his rivals on Super Tuesday

SUPER TUESDAY RESULTS Primaries and Caucuses
ALABAMA01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 77.8%, Sanders 19.2%
REPUBLICAN Trump 43.4%, Cruz 21.1%, Rubio 18.7%
ARKANSAS01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 66.3%, Sanders 29.7%
REPUBLICAN Trump 32.7%, Cruz 30.5%, Rubio 25.0%
GEORGIA01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 71.3%, Sanders 28.2%
REPUBLICAN Trump 38.8%, Rubio 24.4%, Cruz 23.6%
MASSACHUSETTS01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 50.1%, Sanders 48.7%
REPUBLICAN Trump 49.3%, Kasich 18.0%, Rubio 17.8%
MINNESOTA01-MarDEMOCRAT Sanders 61.7%, Clinton 38.3%
REPUBLICAN Rubio 36.5%, Cruz 29.0%, Trump 21.3%
OKLAHOMA01-MarDEMOCRAT Sanders 51.9%, Clinton 41.5%
REPUBLICAN Cruz 34.4%, Trump 28.3%, Rubio 26.0%
TENNESSEE01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 66.1%, Sanders 32.4%
REPUBLICAN Trump 38.9%, Cruz 24.7%, Rubio 21.2%
TEXAS01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 65.2%, Sanders 33.2%
REPUBLICAN Cruz 43.8%, Trump 26.7%, Rubio 17.7%
VERMONT01-MarDEMOCRAT Sanders 86.1%, Clinton 13.6%
REPUBLICAN Trump 32.7%, Kasich 30.4%, Rubio 19.3%
VIRGINIA01-MarDEMOCRAT Clinton 64.3%, Sanders 35.2%
REPUBLICAN Trump 34.7%, Rubio 31.9%, Cruz 16.9%
ALASKA01-MarREPUBLICAN Cruz 36.4%, Trump 33.5%, Rubio 15.1%
COLORADO01-MarDEMOCRAT Sanders 58.9%, Clinton 40.4%

FRONT-RUNNERS Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton boosted their respective chances of winning their party nominations for the general election after both took seven states on Super Tuesday.

Mr Trump won in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia in the Republican race - while Mrs Clinton dominated her only rival Bernie Sanders in the South.

Indeed, Mrs Clinton took Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia as well as Massachusetts narrowly.

And, while the defeats in the southern states were far heavier, they were expected - and so it is the Massachusetts result which will give Mr Sanders most cause for concern.

Massachusetts was one of a quintet of states - along with Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont - which Mr Sanders admitted he really needed to win.

But the fact that he did not fully succeed in this aim suggests his race is nearly run - with bookmakers having now made Mrs Clinton as short as 1/33 to be the Democrat nominee.

By contrast, for now, the equivalent Republican contest is still alive - but Mr Trump is undoubtedly in control.

The entrepreneur's nearest rival Ted Cruz met - or even perhaps even slightly exceeded - expectations in winning Alaska and Oklahoma as well as his home state, the delegate-heavy Texas.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio finally got on the board with his first primary win in Minnesota.

However, Mr Trump was at least relatively competitive pretty much everywhere, recording his lowest percentage of the night in Minnesota.

There, it was still 21.3% - and his much higher figures elsewhere have helped him pick up delegate nominations even in the states which he did not win.

And this is important - for, ultimately, it is the number of delegates which counts, not the number of states won (although both, of course, go hand-in-hand).

Currently, Mr Trump leads the way with 316 nominations ahead of Texas senator Mr Cruz by 90.

Mr Rubio trails in third place on just 106 delegates but the one-term Florida senator has so far declined Mr Cruz's request for him to end his campaign.

Mr Cruz understandably wants to have a go at Mr Trump all on his own - but Mr Rubio will not pull out as he fancies his chances in the upcoming winner-takes-all contests in Ohio and on his home turf of Florida.

Moreover, Mr Rubio considers Mr Cruz's strong pull of the evangelical vote to be too narrow to win in the general election - or even against Mr Trump.

In fairness, he is probably right in this regard - Mr Cruz should have done far better already. Nonetheless, Mr Trump hardly looks to be quaking in his boots at the thought of a resurgence from Mr Rubio.

Already, indeed, the Queens-born businessman last night instead turned his sabre-rattling towards his anticipated rival for the presidency, Mrs Clinton.

Earlier, Mrs Clinton had made her own Super Tuesday speech in which she said: "I’m going to keep saying it. I believe what we need in America today is more love and kindness, because you know what? It works."

She added that she wanted to "make America whole again" - but this was derided as a meaningless statement by Mr Trump who added: "She [Clinton]'s been there for so long.

"If she hasn't straightened it out by now, she's not going to straighten it out in the next four years. It's just going to become worse and worse."

At least, this time, he launched a legitimate attack on his main political opponent - rather than earlier in the week when he was quoting Benito Mussolini on Twitter.

Or, then, more seriously, appearing reluctant to disavow support from David Duke, the leader of the notorious white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan.

Nevertheless, it seems Mr Trump will have plenty of other opportunities yet for mis-steps, both deliberate and planned.

A Republican contest which was previously unclear has now shifted inextricably in his favour and Trump v Clinton on 8 November beckons.

Put the date in the diary folks and then cross your fingers that a badly-coiffured lunatic does not end up in the White House.

It moved one step closer after his and Hillary Clinton's Super Tuesday.

EARLIER RESULTS
IOWA01-FebDEMOCRAT Clinton 49.8%, Sanders 49.6%
REPUBLICAN Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3%, Rubio 23.1%
NEW HAMPSHIRE09-FebDEMOCRAT Sanders 60.9%, Clinton 37.9%
REPUBLICAN Trump 35.7%, Kasich 15.8%, Cruz 11.7%
NEVADA20-Feb
23-Feb
DEMOCRAT Clinton 52.6%, Sanders 47.3%
REPUBLICAN Trump 45.9%, Rubio 23.9%, Cruz 21.4%
SOUTH CAROLINA20-Feb
27-Feb
DEMOCRAT Clinton 73.5%, Sanders 26.0%
REPUBLICAN Trump 32.5%, Rubio 22.5%, Cruz 22.3%

NY TIMES DELEGATE COUNT
Democrat (2382 to win)
577 Hillary Clinton
386 Bernie Sanders

Republican (1237 to win)
316 Donald Trump
226 Ted Cruz
106 Marco Rubio
25 John Kasich
8 Ben Carson