Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Qatar’s World Cup goals all miss the net
QATAR is a state of little more than 300,000 people – about half the size of the ancient nine county province of Ulster.
But it has just spent £330billion on new stadia, roads, hotels and other infrastructure for the World Cup.
This astronomical figure blows out of the water previous spends, some pundits suggesting it to be more than that of all other host nations combined.
While human rights have claimed up to 6,000 people, mostly foreign workers, have died during the building programme, the Qataris claim the true figure is only 36.
What no one is disputing is these workers were expected to work long hours in the boiling sun for around 80p an hour.
And it’s also only too clear health and safety was not a priority for the authorities there.
It’s not healthy to work in 50 degree heat, believe me.
So the hypocrisy of FIFA’S mission statement about “making the world a better place for all” really is BS of the highest order.
Dr Michael Saunders, a former member of the Bank of England’s interest rate setting committee, observed: “It we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity Budget this week.
“The need for tax rises, spending cuts wouldn’t be there, if Brexit hadn’t reduced the economy’s potential output so much.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out any discussion on the “B” word in case it scares voters.
Rather than facing the reality he’s claiming that he’ll make Brexit work. Really?
When he’s at it, maybe he could try catching rain with a net. It has about the same chance of working as Brexit.