There is no reason in England's dreaming

The English are a strange race. I say this as someone who considers themselves to be half English, but obviously I am not strange. They have extraordinary - I was going to say 'faith' but that's wrong, no they have extraordinary arrogance about themselves. Obviously this includes their hapless football team, not to mention their rugby and cricket teams, but also about other aspects of the 'English Way Of Life'. I obviously have to deal with the football first. I still can't believe how much they screwed up. I will admit that the other night, when Israel won and gave England their chance to qualify (with only a draw at home) I though how sweet it would be for them to lose to Croatia (even though I can't stand those anti-semitic nazis), but I never believed it would happen. I even thought at 93 minutes with the game over that Andorra were going to score an unlikely equaliser against Russia to put England through, just what normally happens to those lucky buggers. But no, the dream came true. OK, accuse me of Schadenfreude (especially as Wales were managing a draw away at Germany at the same time), I can take it. It's just the way the English are so smug.  They feel they have a right to qualify for the European Championships - and the World Cup of course - if not a right to win the damn thing. Why? The England football team have not been as good as many European teams now for many years - Germany, Italy, France, Croatia, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic - all of these teams (and possibly some others: Turkey, Russia, Greece...) have performed better than England on a regular basis. But, the English wail, we've got such great players: Gerrard, Rooney, Lampard, Ferdinand, Diver - oops, I mean Owen,... yeah, yeah, yeah.  And to a point this is true: these are good players. But the Italians, French, Dutch etc all have good players too. Some of them better. And this is pretty obvious, since many of them actually play in England, so you would think the english might notice. They also might notice that the bloke who played that glorious through pass for Olic to score Croatia's second goal plays for Arsenal .... reserves.

Some respected commentators (good lord, including the normally intelligent David Conn) are suggesting the fault is that too many foreigners play in the Premier league. No, the problem is far more obvious than that: the players are not as good as they think they are - and their manager is truly hopeless. If you think about it, if English players were any good, far more of them would be playing abroad, for big teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan etc. But no, only Beckham plays abroad (for the high powered LA Galaxy) and we all know about that. Apart from that there was Hargreaves in Germany, recently - but that's because he's really German (or Canadian, or Welsh) and  otherwise there doesn't seem to be a lot of foreign managers desperately looking at British talent. Except for the perennial bizarre rumour that Barca want the terminally incompetent Lampard.

But it is not just in their attitude towards sport that the english have their unfounded superiority complex. With the ongoing industrial and political disputes here in France, it has been interesting to read what the English viewpoint is. Generally, commentators keep repeating, thye French way of life is impossible, they are due for a major economic disaster to befall them, and that Sarkosy will lead them towards the Thatcher/Blair light where everything will be perfect. It is true that the French have economic problems - there is a large debt, and a problem with a large Black economy because of the perceived high levels of direct and indirect taxation. But the full picture is more interesting. Those same reports might mention in passing that French workers are the most productive workers in Europe for the hours they work, but for some reason the commentators believe they should stop doing reasonable 35 hour weeks with decent lunch hours, and work the British way. Forgetting that British workers (actually the reports usually say English, so let's stick with that) are the least productive hourly. Actually, this is usually mentioned in a different article slagging off trade unions and again in a different article praising Polish workers - which is a different article again to the one complaining about all the immigrants taking jobs away from the english. (Hmmm, that sounds similar to the football argument, doesn't it?). And as for debt, no it is true, the UK does not have the same level of debt, on the face of it, to the French. Except that that is not quite the case really, because UK debt just doesn't show on paper - because instead of the normal method of borrowing favoured by most countries (and people), by borrowing money from a bank and repaying plus interest over however many years this has been greed, successive UK governments have raised cash by selling off the family silver. The french may owe money, but at least they still own their schools, hospitals, government buildings, government departments - and their army while we're at it. In the UK all of this has been parcelled over to the private sector in a PFI initiative. Whilst France might get further in debt, the UK is going to end up with nothing to borrow against.

But of course the English are right. Who on earth wants a two hour lunch break? Who wants a 35 hour week? Who wants decent holidays? Who wants excellent health care? Who wants an excellent schools system? Who wants to retire at 50? Who wants protection for the poor?

The UK relies more and more upon the private and voluntary sectors to deliver services and to support its vulnerable people. The argument that the public sector is not able to deliver such services as well surely no longer holds water? The evidence is all around that privatisation of public services, and the subsequent demoralisation of state staff by depicting them as lazy incompetent wastrels, and paying them low wages for what are deemed 'low-value' jobs (i.e. teachers, firemen, nurses) has been a disaster. Thatcher, followed by Blair and now brown have laid waste to England. The English boast of the success of their economy (whilst growth levels tumble and unemployment rises) at the same time as complaining about how awful things are: floods, the price of petrol, foot and mouth, the NHS, teachers..... and yet the English really think the French aspire to be like them. Well, maybe a few do in Paris, as they look at their wages in comparison to the UK. But who can afford to live in the UK? Fewer and fewer. More houses needed, population getting older...

The French have problems. The English have problems. Meanwhile the French have great public services, great wine, great food and a football team that qualifies for the European Championship. The French know this. Do the English?

Robbie Fowler's magic...

I should be supporting an exciting team that splashes out enormous wages for huge stars, instead I find myself supporting a bunch of duffers with two very old slow, lazy duffers up front. I think it's time to start with Thompson and McLean. Alternatively get Feeney back from the Jacks, and Green back from the Donkeys. Did someone mention Jason Byrne? Is he still here? Aaaaargh!.

At least Feeney's got a good song.