Footy updates 2025/15

How did my forecasts fare this weekend? (And ChatGPT's)

Manchester City Women 1 Arsenal Women 1 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 3-2
Attack good; defence awful. Title gone?

Wycombe 1 Barnsley 2 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 2-2

Leeds 2 Tottenham 2 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 1-2

Arsenal 3 West Ham 0 CGPT: 3-1 Result: 2-0

Nice to see one of our favourites topping a table. Those pesky other North Londoners threatening, the North London Derby is on 23rd November.

Preston 1 Charlton 1 CGPT: 2-0 Result: 2-0
Preston 4th in the table so no worries

Ipswich 2 Norwich 2 CGPT: 2-2 Result: 3-1
Ipswich haven't won this derby for 16 years so this is a welcome shock. It took an hour for Ipswich to realise that playing out from the back is a recipe for disaster at this level. Thereafter, and with four excellent attacking substitutions, it was all Town.

Hythe Town 0 Whitstable Town 1 CGPT 1-1  Result: 1-2
Still a promising position in the table if they can make the most of their games in hand 

Correct results: 2 out of 7 (ChatGPT: 4)

Correct scores: 0 out of 7 (ChatGPT: 2)

Match score: usedtobecroquetman 0 Chat GPT 1

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Upcoming midweek games:

It's an international break so only one game:

Arsenal Women v Lyon (Champions League)

Footy updates 2025/14

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This week's midweek matches:

Bristol City 1 Ipswich 1

Not a bad result given City are 4th in the league but it's not promotion-winning form. McKenna is perhaps struggling to integrate 11 new players into the squad, some of them with little or no pre-season, and watching this match didn't give me confidence he is near to finding the optimal solution. However, we are only three points behind 3rd place with a game [the infamous game] in hand, in a very congested table. He needs to sort out his best eleven quickly.y

Bodo/Glimt 2 Tottenham 2 (UEFA Champions League [UCL])

Trips to the icy north of Norway are never easy so a draw isn't the end of the world

Derby 1 Charlton 1

After last year's promotion from League One, Charlton are flying. 8th in the table but only one point off the playoff positions.

Arsenal 2 Olympiakos 0 (UCL)

Credit to Olympiakos for coming to play and making it a thrilling match.

My forecasts for this weekend: (I've added ChatGPT's "guesses" (its word))

Manchester City Women 1 Arsenal Women 1 CGPT: 2-1

Wycombe 1 Barnsley 2 CGPT: 2-1

Leeds 2 Tottenham 2 CGPT: 1-2

Arsenal 3 West Ham 0 CGPT: 3-1

Preston 1 Charlton 1 CGPT: 2-0

Ipswich 2 Norwich 2 CGPT: 2-2

Hythe Town 0 Whitstable Town 1 CGPT 1-1

White Stripes

Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury 2017. "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn".

This anthem derived from a 2003 single "Seven Nation Army" by the American rock duo White Stripes, comprising Jack and Meg White. It's centred around a seven note guitar riff which never stops, forming bass and melody at different times. I rather like it.

The motif became a stable of football fans celebrating their teams, most notably by the Italian fans at the 2006 World Cup, where their team became Campione del mondo, a phrase which perfectly fit the musical phrase (in normal Italian speech piò is pronounced as a single syllable [a diphthong] but the fans bastardised it to fit the riff).

In poetic scansion the first three syllables - taking piò as one - unstressed–stressed–unstressed - make an amphibrach; del is a stressed monosyllable and mondo is stressed–unstressed: a trochee. As for Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy is stressed-unstressed-unstressed, a dactyl. Corbyn is a trochee again. I hope you're still with me.

In order to explore whether any of today's politicians can adopt the chant, we need names of seven (in the original riff) or six (in the generally adopted version) six syllables.

Sir Kier Starmer. 4. No good (no offence).

Nigel Farage. 5 but plausible that you could stretch age into the final two notes together. "Oh, Nigel Fara-age". Promising.

Kemi Badenoch. Also 5 but they're all in the wrong places. Which is probably what Robert Jenrick things as he looks at her.

Of course Jezza is still around, although unlikely to be invited to Glastonbury any time soon. But I have the perfect fit for you....

OH, ANGELA RAYNER.

I can hear it ringing around the House of Commons.

For non-fans of rock music and football, the seven note riff is eerily similar to that of the first movement of Anton Bruckner's Fifth Symphony:

Acknowledgements to YouTube, The White Stripes and Jos Thys.

A century

In Japan, you get a silver sake cup when you turn 100. Some Swiss cantons give engraved cowbells. Ireland gives a €2,540 "centenarian bounty" - not a once-off, you get it every year until you die.

I asked ChatGPT how many centenarians the Irish currently have, who is the oldest living example and who holds the longevity record. Apparently around 600 currently alive. As for examples, you can imagine records might be a bit patchy - and maybe private; a woman died last year aged 111, another born in 1911 died aged 113. Women worldwide average around 5 years longer lives than men.

More generally around the world, centenarians get a letter from the monarch/President/local Mayor and sometimes elaborate public celebrations/raucous parties. In Israel centenarians are invited to the President’s Residence for tea, group photos, and a party with other 100-year-olds. Sounds a riot.

The 600 Irish centenarians cost their taxpayers €1.5 million a year in total. Peanuts in overall terms. Good for them. Despite UK politicians' best efforts, we could probably afford that. Better than a letter/telegram/WhatsApp message from the King.

By the way, Japan (123 million population) has over 92,000 centenarians. That’s by far the highest per capita anywhere in the world. It's the sake.

A fine margin in Switzerland

The freedom-loving, anti-interference Swiss recently held a referendum on digital ID 'cards'. This followed a law passed in December enabling such an e-ID scheme providing a digital alternative to paper passports and driving licences. There had been an earlier referendum in 2021 where the plan was defeated soundly with 64% voting against, apparently largely because it was to be run by a private company. This time around the proposal was for it to be state-run and was approved by the huge majority of 50.4 to 49.6 percent.

There's a lot for our UK government to learn from this as it seems to be moving towards some kind of our own e-ID facility. I've written about this before and referred to the Estonia exemplar, which seems to be the gold standard that everyone aspires to.

I'm instinctively in favour of something along the Estonian line but the government, whilst not proposing a referendum (heaven forbid the unwashed masses should decide this), needs to be able to take public opinion with it.

From a Times leader on Saturday:

This popular understanding of liberty, including the right not to be aggravated by the peremptory demands of petty officialdom, has long set Britain apart from what many saw as an overbearing “papers please!” culture elsewhere in Europe. It dogged, and eventually defeated, Tony Blair’s efforts to bring back ID cards — Gordon Brown shelved the scheme when he took office in 2007, on grounds of cost, feasibility and civil liberty concerns. And when the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition came to power, the scheme was scrapped....Mr Starmer's proposed "Brit card" will include details such as name, date of birth, residency status and a photograph...although it will not be a panacea for illegal immigration, it might well prove one useful element of a solution.

The national security/immigration/right to work card must be a tempting one to play but I believe this would be a mistake. Far better to explain the (Estonia-like) benefits of easy access to government services and to remind us of how much personal data we already give freely to big tech companies anyway.

It would be nice to think this kind of proposal could be something that could be agreed to along non-partisan lines but I fear the rabid right and zealous left (i.e all the opposition parties) will be too tribal for that to happen.

Should they take the hit on the manifesto?

If Rachel Reeves needs to raise taxes in order to stabilise the economy and prevent public service cuts, is it worth breaking a manifesto promise? Given there are still virtually four years before the latest possible date of the next general election (15th August 2029), could the Government have sufficient time to weather the inevitable political storm? If the ensuing time led to a spectacular improvement in the economy? If it provided more money in people's pockets? If mortgage rates were lower? If the small boats were stopped and net immigration minimised? If they succeeded in hitting their house build target? If NHS waiting lists came down dramatically?

That's a lot of Ifs. Even so, my question stands.

I don't know enough about economics to judge what is the country's economic situation and, if it's bad, how best to remedy that. But it's pretty clear that, all things being equal, raising taxes - even income tax and/or VAT - is what you would do if you hadn't made that manifesto commitment. And if you weren't prepared to cut public services.

So it's not an economic decision, it's a political one.

But the Government has a majority of 165.

ChatGPT, answering my question "are there examples of governments reneging on manifesto commitments?" started with the absurd line that "Manifestos are more marketing documents than binding contracts" [good luck to any government that tries to argue that]. Notably, the Liberal Democrats took 14 years to recover after going back on "scrap university tuition fees" but that was arguably a different situation - they were the minor partners in a coalition. Nevertheless it's a problem in any first past the post election system that in order to get elected you have to promise things which are economically illiterate. I wonder whether there was a better way of smooching the manifesto words to give the intention without making a commitment. But that probably wouldn't stand up in an adversarial election campaign.

I do think there are arguments about "harsh global conditions" (as Reeves has been reported saying today) that slightly eases the pain, and she has to be prepared to detail the exact consequences of those conditions - so many billions due to US tariffs, so many to increasing defence spending as a result of Russian aggression, so many to the rising global costs of borrowing - in the upcoming budget. And there is a "strong government in the national interest" argument to be made, particularly to your rebellious backbenchers.

In addition to the LibDems fiasco, there has been a surprising number of instances of governments breaking manifesto commitments. In 1992, John Major’s government had pledged not to introduce VAT on domestic fuel. In power, they slapped 8% VAT on it. They then lost the 1997 election to a Labour landslide. That Labour government promised not to introduce top-up university tuition fees but legislated to more or less break that. Their majority was halved at the next election. The Conservative 2019 manifesto promised no new taxes and no rise in National Insurance, subsequently increased NI and then in 2024 lost to another Labour landslide.

So the auguries are not great. Even so...

This is probably about leadership. There is no way you could expect your Chancellor of the Exchequer to take the hit herself; the Prime Minister would have to stand firm alongside the Chancellor - we're in it together. That goes for the Cabinet too.

Sir Kier Starmer has proved himself to be a good leader on the international stage but, at the slightest sign of political pressure from his own side, he has been unable to bring himself to face down rebellions, with disastrous economic consequences. His first speech after becoming Prime Minister included the phrase “We’ve changed the Labour Party, returned it to service — and that is how we will govern, country first, party second.” So far it could be said that hasn't been true.

I think it's time for bold. assertive leadership. Reiterate the "country first" pledge, support the Chancellor's "harsh global conditions" context, face down Badenoch at PMQs when she challenges about broken promises with "what would you do?" and tell the media you will stand together with Reeves 100%. And no fudging, no weasel words: tell it straight - "we are breaking our manifesto promise because....."

Time to step up and show us what you're made of.