All kicked off with this report
in today's Mirror. The Mirro declines to name the "advisors" pushing her in this direction, however, I, not a betting man, would put a pretty penny on the IEA being in there. They have form and recently, as
the Dossier blogpost in late May revealed. The IEA is a lobbying group which dresses itself up as a "think-tank". AS Peter Geoghan explains very clearly in
Democracy for Sale they are backed by funding from American right wing billionaires, but have been largely driven by one
Shankar Singham. As it happens this morning, no sooner had I read the CAST tweet of the Mirror story, when I turned on the BBC Today radio prog., just in time to hear them discussing the merits of Truss's proposed economic policies. And who was the economist they got in to put the case for that? None other than Shankhar Singham...
I hope we can all join to resist this by setting aside tribal political differences. I did for example hear that when Dorries took over the Culture Ministry somebody from CAST had an audience with her on the FLR, and was pleasantly surprised both by her grasp of the issues and apparent commitment to resolving them. The IEA is a dfferent matter. As the blogpost suggests, they are probably doing the dirty work of FAPL club ownerships, after some of them made prats of themselves trying to do it themselves. They have their claws into Truss and there are people I follow who predicted exactly that. But as the blogpost shows, (and an interview with Victoria Hewson on a different topic confirmed), they are lightweights, and nobody should be afraid to take them on.
Comments
The full story: https://www.castrust.org/2022/09/cast-meets-the-sports-minister/
On the back of several recent newspaper suggestions that Truss was planning to kick the FLR into the long grass, I again wrote to my (Labour) MP last weekend, explaining briefly why I regard this issue as important and requesting that he apply any pressure he could to the DCMS. My guess is that he will forward my email to the DCMS.
I further suggested, since the Report appeared to have received cross-party support when it was published, that if the Tories reneged on their 2019 manifesto promise and the Johnson government's undertaking to (at least) implement the recommendation for an IREF, perhaps he could suggest to the Labour leadership that this was a cause which they might take up.
It seems to me that it will do no harm for others to apply similar pressure to the DCMS via their MPs - as ever, it is the number of communications from voters, rather than their precise content which can bump a topic up a minister's list of priorities!
Edit: If you do write to your MP, remember to include your name and address so they can verify you are one of their constituents...
But all the above shows that while inevitably this is "political" it need not be tribal. The fact is that there are two Conservatives in that list above who totally "get it" and have been more successful than Clive Efford was in achieving a broad consensus. Unfortunately the new Cabinet is all about trashing stuff, and trashing people who don't give them the advice they want to hear. Yheir advice comes from nutters, including when it comes to football. Read all about the Institute of Economic Affairs and how they trashed the FLR here on the Dossier website; from then on you won't find it hard to discover authoritative commentaries that finger the IEA's malign role in the wider shit-show that hit us all this week.
I wonder if it’s worth the CAST updating that draft and circulating another link to encourage supporters to contact their MP if they haven’t done so previously. It is very important to keep the firmly issue on the table - as CAST and the FSA are doing - in order to counter the insidious and very well funded lobbying by the vested interests of the Premier League.
We also now have to contend with the crusade of Truss et al against regulation, always assuming that she remains in post. She, Special K and some other extreme, right wing neo-liberal nutcases like Raab and Pritti Patel wrote ‘Britannia Unchained’ back in 2012, setting out their vision for the United Kingdom's future as a leading player in the global economy, arguing that Britain needs to adopt a far-reaching form of free market economics, with fewer employment laws etc. The book asserts that the UK has a "bloated state, high taxes and excessive regulation". Music to the ears of many Premier League owners, including the growing number of US owners. How long will it be until they own 14 of the 20 Premiership clubs and are able to push through whatever changes they want to our national game?
Going back to ‘Britannia Unchained’, this extract is also rather telling:
I filched a few ideas from these specimen letters, to help me compose mine. Might help you?
https://theuglygame.wordpress.com/2022/09/22/text-of-letter-to-mps-to-urge-the-government-to-implement-the-crouch-report/
Probably best not to copy templates wholesale, since MPs tend to notice when they are getting a series of identical letters and then disregard them, but always useful to get some extra ideas to express in your own words and add to your own views!
She and the Dildo Brothers won’t want any form of regulation to dampen the exorbitant profit they make when they flog the Happy Hammers next year. As I understand it, the taxpayers’ right to share in any windfall expires in 2023 - another example of dismal negotiation by the LDDC.
This was the Charlton Dossier's response in December 2021 to a previous piece by Brady about the FLR.
https://thecharltondossier.com/orc-no-2-baroness-brady-of-knightsbridge-cbe/
Still all those underpaid premiership players will have been given a hard earned boost to their meagre income………..
If only we made cheese 🧀!
Thank you for contacting me about the Fan-led Review of Football Governance.
Whether Rodda's interest in football governance has anything to do with Angela Rayner speaking in favour of the FLR at the recent Labour Party Conference, or whether he has had his own "road to Damascus" moment, I am unsure, but at least someone in his office appears to understand the issues.
We have also seen recently that the new government is not totally inflexible in the face of public opinion, so whatever party represents your constituency, it has to be worthwhile registering with your MP your support for the recommendations of the FLR and your dismay at media reports that it is set to be shelved. After all, whenever TS does decide to sell, this will swiftly become a very live issue for all of us Addicks.
Bury: The town where football fans are shaping politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63707933Tracy Crouch presented an update at the House of Commons last week:
https://www.castrust.org/2022/11/the-fan-led-review-in-the-long-grass/
Plans to create a new football regulator will not become law before the election, but Labour and the Conservatives say they are committed to bringing in the new rules.
The government announced plans for the regulator last year, but it’s understood there will not be time for the required legislation to be passed before parliament is dissolved ahead of the election.
Labour’s shadow secretary for culture and sport Thangam Debbonaire told the BBC earlier this week that current plans need to go further to protect the financial sustainability of clubs.