Well are we on home strait for World Cup bid?

Whenever I read about our World Cup bid (a bit of a misnomer because we are not prepared to pay the commissions required) I am always amazed about the news management we put up with in the UK. Last night both the ITV and the BBC interviewed David Beckham, who was upbeat about the bid, without mentioning the fact that the Russians were favourites with the Spanish/Portuguese. Although there would be different time zones, which would probably affect television coverage, I am quite happy for the competition to go to Russia. We have already got the white elephant of the 2012 Olympics, where I suppose there will be the benefits of opening up a part of East London and of West Ham moving to a new ground.

The main advantage for our World Cup bid is that we have the stadia in place such as
Wembley, Old Trafford and the Emirates. There would not be major distances for fans to travel and there would be the added bonus of our football yobs not having to travel abroad. I suppose this will all be irrelevant after the BBC's Panorama programme on FIFA.

If we did not get the 2018 competition, at least we would avoid the embarrassment of England being knocked out in the qualifying round. With the Premier League you could not set up a more inimical structure to the interests of the national team. How many
domestic players get picked for Arsenal?

David Cameron and his vanity staff!!

There are claims that British Prime Minister David Cameron used the announcement of the royal wedding to bury the "bad news" that his personal photographer and his wife's stylist would not be going on the government payroll after all. I don't believe these claims at all but the proposed appointments did show an unhealthy interest in media management. Well, at least we have got the new term "vanity staff" in the UK political language.

What is perhaps more worrying is the pressure on the BBC to delay a Panorama programme on the World Cup bidding process because it would annoy FIFA. I think the
BBC's independence should be cherished more than winning the right to host the
World Cup.