Dave Kean

An election is coming in the UK, last summer I started getting e-mail from Labour, the Lib Dems, the Torys and UK Independence Party. All were looking for my vote in the imminent British general election. Brown can leave polling day as late as early June, but the serious money is on May 6^th as polling day.

The process is far different from the US. The date the country goes to the polls is only announced a little over four weeks beforehand. The incumbent PM goes to the Queen, asks for parliament to be dissolved and the race is on.

For the next four weeks the battle-busses and chartered airplanes take the party leaders, Members of Parliament, their staff, spin doctors and advisors up and down the country stumping for votes.

Even from a distance I find British politics far more coulourful and entertaining than domestic politics at home in the US. Ultimately because my vote is cast in one of the safest Labour seats in the country it’s actually fairly irrelevant, but I will take part in the process and vote in the election.

Some American friends are familiar with Prime Ministers Question Time, it’s shown on one of the more marginal cable channels on a Sunday evening, and are fascinated by the whole process. I thing Question Time actually shows off the best parts of the British process, it forces the PM to actually answer the questions, deal with the traditional heckling, attempt to show some form of leadership and respect the traditions of the House of Commons.

I sat and watched PMQT a few weeks ago and Gordon Brown answered questions ranging from hospital bed availability in a rural hospital to international treaties.

From a distance (with a serious nod to the newspapers and some parts of the new media world) six months ago it looked as though the Conservatives (AKA Tories) had Brown on the ropes and the election all but wrapped up. The economy was all that mattered, lets not forget that before taking over the top job Brown had spent years at number 11 Downing Street as chancellor and was (quite rightfully by the way) getting a lot of the blame for the state of the British economy.

The upcoming general election is really about one thing – The Economy – somehow David Cameron has been unable to make any serious capital out of the way Brown has handled of the downturn. If this continues and the Tories really can’t gain traction on this issue then the election becomes a far closer run thing.

The feeling is different from the situation in 1997, at that point the country wanted change more than they wanted Labour. Blair provided hope, promised change and assured us it was going to be different in the future. It was as close to a revolution as I’ve ever seen in British politics. Today the conservatives are desperate to give the same message, and either the message is not being heard, or it’s not being believed. Personally I think it’s the second, trust in government to do the right thing seems to be non-existent after the expenses scandal, lies about Iraq and bailing out the banks.

Interestingly it appears that many people view both the major parties as untrustworthy, not just the incumbent.

With worries about tax hikes and cuts in services the Conservatives are vulnerable. If this fear were to grow the Torys may be unable to really take Labour to the cleaners in May. If this were to happen the country is faced with the possibility of a minority or hung parliament.

If neither party have a majority in the House of Commons all of a sudden Nick Clegg and the Lib-Dems become both the major parties best friend. Heading into the election the Lib-Dems have 63 seats in parliament and won 22% of the vote in the 2005 election.

I did not know much about Clegg, he seems to be a true centralist. Previously the Lib-Dems appeared to have a slightly left of center position, that seemed to be the natural politics of previous leaders like Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown.

From a distance it seems that under Nick Cleggs leadership the party has moved a little further right. However in an impressive balancing act it is more of a true a more central position, rather than towards the Conservatives.

During the month before the election there will be a series of televised debates, and somehow Clegg got an invite to join Brown and Cameron on stage and make them a three-way affair. This is what third party leaders dream of, equal billing with the big two and a chance to show why they should be involved.

Of course the Conservative attacks may start working and people could start believing in Cameron as a potential PM. If these occur then I think on May 8^th we find Cameron moving into Number 10 and a nice working majority in the house, if neither of those things happen then potentially Clegg and his list of demands become very important.

Link to A nice piece about Montreal Impact and the owners vision.

Surfing while jetlagged turns up some interesting stuff.

It’s no secret that one of the thing things I miss about the UK are the newspapers, specifically the sport pages. The depth and knowledge of the hacks that follow sports for the national papers in the UK is generally very good, a few are exceptional.

In the US the coverage is generally regional and most papers only have a handful of journalists who only do sports reporting. Some are very good and give great local coverage, Art Thiel in Seattle is one example of the good local writers. This contrasts with the coverage at a national level which tends to rather bland and flavourless. Nothing the British papers will ever be accused off, with the banner headlines trying to pull in the casual paper buyer in the ongoing circulation wars.

Yes, there are one or two reporters that are sensationalists, a few others that are obsessed by the antics of the WAGs (“Wives and Girlfriends” for the uninitiated) of the England team, but looking beyond that, there are some very good writers on the papers who have something intelligent to contribute to the ongoing obsession (a word that does not do the level of interest justice) with the England team in the build up to the world cup.

Today the Daily Mail exclaims “I WILL BE BACK, Beckham vows to play on for England as op saves career”. David came though the operation to repair the tear in his Achilles yesterday and according to the Mail, wants to play for England again.

I agree that he should be with the squad in South Africa and I’m sure Capello will find a way to use his vast experience and role as a leader on the team. I think Capello saw Beckham with a limited role in games, less to come in and win games late, but more to kill games off. He’s not as deadly from 35 yards as he was during the qualifying for Germany, but his positive influence on the team as the senior player is huge.

The other story that caught my attention is “I’ll always be Special One, says Mourinho”. Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge as manager of Inter in a Champions League game. He helpfully pointed out that since he left Chelsea have only won the FA cup, while under him they won the league twice, the League Cup twice and the FA cup once. Quite a record.

I’ve never heard of winning the FA Cup being used as something the beat the opposition down with. Ultimately Mourinho got fired because he clashed with the owner, but unquestionably he built (using the owners bank account admittedly) a team that could win at the highest levels in Europe, and since he got fired they have only won the Cup.

As I said, I miss the papers and while the Daily Mail is not my first choice, it’s sports writing is rather good.

Two stories yesterday, Beckhams injury and the Bahrain GP dominated the sports pages of the British papers.

The general belief is that Beckham was going to be part of Capello’s squad. I think his positive influence in the dressing room and ability to come off the bench to provide something extra late in a game made his inclusion in the 23 almost certain, even if he was unlikely to start games.

After tearing his Achilles in an Italian cup match certainly means he’s not going to his fourth world cup, the question is will he play top level football again?

He was due back in LA in July, I assume that’s not going to happen and Beckhams time in the MLS is over. Certainly as a player, however he has been linked to the ownership group of the potential Montreal MLS franchise as an investor and part owner of the team.

The 19^th MLS team story gone quiet, if the 2012 date is accurate then it’s now two years until kick-off and decisions should be getting close to being made. I get the league has a lot going on right now with the collective bargaining agreement, but they have put put all sorts of banal press releases, but nothing I’ve seen about further expansion.

Montreal seems the favourite, and like Seattle, Vancouver and Portland it’s a former USL-1 team, complete with existing front office, stadium and (unlike Portland) a history of some success.

The league seems to be rather determined to get back into the Southern Florida market once again, FC Barcelona were linked with a potential expansion franchise there, but that idea seems to have died. Two teams have been tried in Miami and Tampa, and both were ultimately failures and unable to draw a crowd. The current top level franchise in South Florida is Miami FC with an average attendance of just over 600 last year (Montréal are in the same league and draw over 11,000). I really don’t understand why MLS is so determined to have another try at the Florida market as the demand does not seem to exist.

The league has hinted in the recent past that it’s changing it’s marketing policy and going after the football fan, not the family marketing that’s been done in the past. This is smart, but has one big obstacle to overcome: an existing football fan understands the game and already has an allegiance to a team. Putting an MLS franchise into a town is not going to change that supporter, it’s the gameday experience that’s got to be sold along with the local connection, as lets be clear as the quality of play on the field is going to inferior to the leagues they already watch.

I do believe (and yes as a former USL Sounder fan I ‘m biased) that building on local history, with local rivalries (relative in the US, there will not be cross town derbies) and allowing the supporter groups to lead the rest of the crowd in creating excitement and a great atmosphere is the potential recipe for success. This is why Montreal rather than Miami seems like an obvious choice.

The second big story on the back pages was what happened in Bahrain, I missed the GP itself and the reports I read all talked of the lack of overtaking chances. That is mostly down to the track, but the longer braking distances of fully fuelled up cars did not help I’m sure.

Vettel had problems and Ferrari came away with a somewhat dominant 1-2. McLaren seemed to misjudge how it’s race strategy with Hamilton making some comments about being called in for tires earlier than he thought he should be.

The little I saw was that the leaders would all come in with in a lap of each other, no one got an advantage and it’s not worked quite as the spectators hoped, two weeks until Australia and we’ll see if Bahrain was an aberration or the norm for this year. I hope it’s the former.

Bernie E called a meeting of the teams to learn what happened. after what one team principal have been the most processional F1 race in years.

Sebastian Vettel in the Red bull claimed pole and the rest of the top 10 was made up of the usual suspects with no huge surprises, but a left a few more questions.

• Biggest thing may be Schumacher being beaten once again by Rosberg. The difference between the two Mercedes drivers was rather consistent, about 0.3 seconds across the three qualifying sessions.
• Same story at McLaren, Hamilton was a consistent 0.3-0.4 seconds ahead of Button in all three parts of qualifying.
• Ferrari was 2^nd and 3^rd with Massa beating Alonso by 0.35 in the final session. Looking at times over the last two days these two are very, very close with Q3 being the biggest split between the two.

Unsurprisingly the three new teams occupying the last six positions and never made it out of the first qualifying session.

• For the first time the two Lotuses were not the fastest of the new-boys, that particular honour went to Timo Glock in the Virgin GP car. Having said that he was still more than 3.5 seconds from making it into Q2, which gives an idea of the huge gap in performance.
• Not surprising was the Hispania cars at the bottom of the time sheets. Chandhok was slowest, but considering the first time he’s driven the car was at the start of this qualifying session, being only 1.7 down on his teammate is a somewhat respectable performance from the inexperienced Indian driver.
• Williams and the three new teams share the same engine supplier, and Williams did OK qualifying 11^th and 13^th. That shows the engine is not the issue and that chassis development and experience is the major difference.

Yes this is only qualifying and no points were given out today. In my experience, every driver considers his own teammate as the most important opposition to keep track of; after all they are the only people on the grid with the same basic equipment. I’m trying to highlight what I see as the important battles this weekend and it’s shaping up to be as good as I hoped.

Schumacher has a bigger question mark over his comeback than ever after being consistently beaten by Rosberg over the last couple of days. Michael has picked up a couple of tenths of a second on Rosberg when compared to yesterday, but I don’t think too many people thought he would be in this position today.

First day in Bahrain is in the books, as they are going for time I’m guessing everyone is running with low fuel and the car is set up accordingly. A quick look down the times from the two Friday sessions show a few things:

• Michael is not in the groove, a little rusty or underestimated the level of competition as he was beat by Nico Rosberg in both sessions by close to half a second.
• The top four cars in the second session were all powered by Mercedes and were almost 0.4 faster then the best of the rest.
• Did not catch anything obvious, but Ferrari did not improve as much as the other top teams in the second session. Working on race setup perhaps?
• There is nothing between Hamilton and Button in qualifying trim with less than 0.2 separating them in either session.
• Nico Hulkenberg could be the one of the next pretenders to the title, fast and the consistent improvement he shoed in the preseason seems to have carried on through to today. He comes rather hyped and delivered two performances that beat his teammate Barachello by about a second each time.
• The Lotus’s are about 5 seconds off the pace, the two Virgin cars a further two seconds back and the Hispanias somewhere far off in the distance in what is really first shakedown run.
• Vettel looked good and Weber had some issues in the second session, but was comprehensively beaten in the earlier run.
• Sauber found a lot of speed between the first and second session.

Top teams look like the predicable group, Mercedes, McLaren Red Bull and Ferrari with Sauber and Williams close behind.

Last word goes to Michael – “It’s not a problem. It’s just that for one lap I saw that Nico was four-tenths up and that is a bit too much for my standards. I’ve got to raise my game a bit and I’m sure I’m able to.”

The preseason is over and the teams are arriving in Bahrain for the first race of the season, the waiting and teasing is almost over and we’ll get to see who has what for real.

Based on testing times it looks a little like the F1 world has returned to business as usual with McLaren and Ferrari a little ahead of the rest. The rest are led by Red Bull and Mercedes, with Sauber, Williams and Force India looking very competitive.

With the rule changes reading anything into pre-season testing times is probably more pointless than usual. Speeds with full fuel load and tire wear have become more important than the headline grabbing fast lap times.

The two biggest driver stories are clearly Schumacher’s return and how long the pairing at McLaren will play nicely together.

Love or hate him, Schumacher’s return to the grid can only been good. It’s a huge story in the most interesting off season in many years.

The cars will be starting with a comparatively huge fuel load, somewhere around twice as much as was carried at any point last year, somewhere around 165 or 170kg of fuel at the start. This means car set up will become much more of a compromise and conserving tyres and brakes become more important.

Like the drivers teams will have to adjust. Pitstops times and race strategy will change to become more reactive to what’s going on around them. Teams will be looking at the track 20 or 25 seconds behind their driver in order to get out and have a clear track to make best use of the fresh rubber. Unlike last year it will be possible to hold a driver out for a few more laps in order to get that elusive space.

I like the twist in the rules that the top 10 qualifiers start on the same tyres they qualified on. Go for a soft compound in qualifying, get a good grid place then be forced into pitting earlier than perhaps you’d like.

How will this differ when you compare wide open Singapore with the twists of Monaco?

As I’ve said, this could be a fascinating year with four world champions, really quick drivers like Vettel and Weber who want to join that club, and potentially 6 or 7 teams capable of competing at the sharp end.

Come Sunday evening we will know a lot more, we’ll find out who has been holding something back during testing and who flattered to deceive. This will be fun to watch.

I remember the ’88 Olympics from Calgary; being British hopes were never high for the winter games. Team GB had a little run of success in figure skating, the superlative performance of Jayne Torivll and Christopher Dean in Sarajevo followed on from the success of Robyn Cousins and John Curry in ‘76 and ’80 respectively.  However going into Calgary I recall no realistic medal hopes, which can lead to really good coverage of the marquee events.

Eddie Edwards provided some light relief and exposure for British winter sports, but as expected the British team returned from Calgary empty handed. Eddie Edwards took his ski jumping very seriously, but like the vast majority of British winter athletes at this time never had the money to do the job properly.

During some reading I discovered there was a fatal accident in Calgary, Jorg Oberhammer was the physician for the Austrian ski team and was preparing for the start of the giant slalom when he collided with another skier and was thrown under a tracked vehicle. This happened in front of Austrian world champion Pirmin Zurbriggen a few minutes before his run.

Every Sunday evening David vine presented Ski Sunday, I knew who Pirmin Zurbriggen was and that he was favorite to win the Super-G.

Under these incredible conditions Zurbriggen went on to take the bronze medal as real tragedy made it’s presence felt at the highest level.

That was 1988; today the death of Jorg Oberhammer is but a footnote to what was a very successful Olympics. Fast-forward twenty-two years to the Vancouver games and despite the outpouring of compassion and the questions raised, I doubt many outside Georgia will remember Nodar Kumaritashvili in a few years’ time.