STRAIGHT TALKING
WAS that the most dull January transfer window ever?
An entire month of supposedly frenetic activity by agents, clubs and players, and what was the stand-out signing?
The entirely unsurprising news that Pep Guardiola ( is to take over from Manuel Pellegrini as Man City boss next season.
God only knows how much money the likes of Sky spent having reporters outside all grounds everywhere on Monday, glued permanently to their satellite trucks.
At the end of the day there was little to tell other than someone you’d never heard of moving on loan from one midtable club to another.
It was almost enough to make you turn over and watch the latest on the EU negotiations.
But only almost! THERE’S a saying in political campaigning that if it wasn’t reported in the media, it never happened.
It’s been used since the Blair years, when politicians being media whores went to a whole new level.
They would time their big announcements around the news programmes, making sure there was enough time for broadcasters to edit the packages nicely before their faces pop up on the telly, telling you how great they are, just as you were trying to enjoy your shepherd’s pie.
But David Cameron’s stage management of his EU “renegotiations” makes Blair look like he was just in a youth theatre.
His planning is so detailed he must have taken lessons from his partial name sake, theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh.
The whole sorry charade played out recently and culminating in yesterday’s pantomime was entirely for the media – because for us, the voters and taxpayers, Prime Minister Cameron Mackintosh has achieved absolutely nothing.
He trumpets that national governments will be able to veto EU laws they don’t like.
But what he doesn’t tell you is that it can only be done if most of the other EU countries agree.
And guess what – we can do that already, IF most Euro-MPs vote it down.
He has valiantly fought for a brake on giving in-work benefits to immigrants. But guess what again – that means nothing.
The main problem is that the number of migrants working here brings everyone’s wages down whether or not they claim benefits.
So all this means is that a
If they could’ve got away with saying “you should’ve seen him in there” they would have said it. Really.
What is more likely? Cameron massively publicises meetings with the EU guys that could go badly wrong for him and make him look like he’s got the negotiating skills of a second rate