One has to worry when the man essentially in charge of the direction of education in this country issues the statement “I’m a passionate Eurosceptic.” Michael Gove has rendered himself quite happily as an oxymoron, emphasis on ‘moron’. The term Eurosceptic is cover for slavering Europhobe but gives the veneer of a rational, if querying, mindset towards the Euro, the EU or Europeans in general. Yet to append passionate to it is nonsense, since one does not need to read David Hume to understand that the passion invalidates the rationalism, indeed that they are two contradictory mental approaches.
Since Euroscepticism in the UK generally expresses itself that ‘Europe is nice place, shame about the people living there’ whilst barely ever acknowledging that the United Kingdom is indeed part of the same continent, it should more properly be described as Europeanphobic or, to be generous, EU-phobic. This is before even coming onto the single currency. The Euro is anathema to xenophobic parliamentary representatives - mention joining the Euro to a member of the public will winkle out a laugh, probably quite hearty; do the same to, say, a Tory MP will induce apoplexy. The cobweb-strewn brains of Conservatives and right-wing tabloid journalists in particular (though ex-Marxists like Jack Straw are of the same bent) believe that the continental mainland is still a place of Napoleon, Hitler or Phillip II, champing at the bit to swallow Britain up into their monstrous design. They are a bit like duffer admirals issuing Jeremiads that naval cuts will endanger the Falkland Islands, even though Argentina may grandstand as a democracy but would never start another war as long as the civilians are in control of the government. The only reason there is a democratic deficit (one of the key Tory complaints) in the EU is because of the EU-phobic opposition in this country to any further democratisation as that would mean further integration, undercutting national parliaments, yet without more democratisation, they will continue to carp about a democratic deficit. It is akin to ETA trying to bomb a democratic Spain back to nationalistic Castlian dictatorship in order to justify their own existence. To fervently believe in a Catch-22 without recognising that they are doing so is a prerequisite for demagoguery of the most dangerous kind. They should look at the democratic deficit in their own minds.

I'm glad for New Zealand winning the Rugby World Cup. They were always the most deserving team at this tournament to hoist above their heads the Webb Ellis trophy. They almost choked again facing their bogey team - l'equipe crotte de nez - in the French. The latter did what their Association footballing counterparts enacted in 2006 - ignore the useless coach, take responsibility into their own hands and progress to the final. Whatever, to see them was unnerving to the Kiwis as the Haka is to non-French squads. Yet, they got away with it just and ended the quarter century wait for the Best Rugby Team in the World TM to be champions of the world. I'm also happy for Graham Henry, the Kiwi coach, the culmination of a sterling career.

Though not a Manchester City FC fan, their utter howking of their derby rivals Machester United 6-1 at the latter's home ground is not just joy for them but a result that is great for any team that has suffered at the hands of Manchester United. I wonder how many MUFC 'fans' will stay that way after this. Bad boy Mario Balotelli had a firework set off in his bathroom of all places on Friday - he let off a couple of fireworks yesterday, scoring the first two goals for City. Sir Alex Ferguson is on record as saying that, when his outfit lost 5-1 at Manchester City's old ground Maine Road, he went straight home after the match and buried his head under a pillow for two hours. What would he have done on Sunday afternoon once the game was concluded, given that this was at Old Trafford? That thrashing at the Road was in the old days before the team he managed were regular title contenders. What was most surprising as the result is that prior to yesterday's game, Manchester United were still favourite to retain their Premier League crown. Not any more. I bet all those pundits who suggested Manchester City would fall short after losing to their city neighbours in the semi-competitive Community Shield are eating their words now.

Spooks – what a finale! I only started watching the spy series from last year, having previously ignored it. But it has held a compelling grip over me since then. The sadness at the very end was well-handled and it had a good pay-off line to sign off the show. Will be missed.

Mad Dog Put Down

The death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (also Qadafi, Kadafi, etc.) is not just a seminal moment in Libyan history but global history as well. Through his idiosyncrasies he garnered international mirth, through his crimes international notoriety – simply, he was one of the most infamous of current national leaders.
Was. Past tense. Though his death will be unlamented (except maybe by unreconstructed South African ANC politicians), the manner of his death is deeply troubling. The Transitional National Council (which should resign imminently as per its promise after liberation) claims Gaddafi was killed in crossfire between the rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces but how they would they know, far away in Benghazi as they are? A BBC journalist on the ground in Sirte has, on camera, a fighter claiming Gaddafi was captured and then shot with a 9mm pistol.
It is sad that Libya has opened a new chapter in its national narrative with extra-judicial murder (Mutaissim Gaddafi, one of the sons was also apprehended alive and then somehow died later, as also occurred to the Jamahiryah’s National Security Chief). There can be no clearer summing-up of the ill-discipline rife in the rebel army that a hothead can take it upon themselves to deliver justice. As World War Two drew to a close in Europe, Allied armies took great pains to arrest as many Nazi leaders alive as possible, so the judgement of history would have a legal framework. Most faced the hangman but not all (bar one acquittal, the rest faced long prison terms), giving the whole process more credence. In Gulf War Two, Saddam Hussein was found cowering in a hole much like Gaddafi – but US troops didn’t bundle him into the back of the truck and shoot him in the head. Bar shaving off much of his facial hair to make him recognisable, they did not in obvious way mistreat him. In the end, the Iraqi courts saw fit to execute him but not before he was made accountable of many of his atrocities. Gaddafi said he would die fighting on Libyan soil and, ironically given the rebel hatred of him, he got what he claimed he wanted. A warrior’s death is far too honourable for such a monster.
One person said last night ‘you live by the sword, you die by the sword’, but revenge is a dish best served cold. There is no uncertainty and Gaddafi’s removal from the scene in unequivocal but democratic politicians deal with uncertainty and must perforce equivocate as part of governing. Years of public dishonouring in court, a daily reminder of how low he had been brought, would have been far greater punishment. The issue of who would try him – the Libyans or the International Criminal Court – is now as dead as the indicted and he can no longer spread, at the least verbally, the poison of insurgency. Yet a sour taste persists that Gaddafi was not brought to book in a crushing – for him – legal setting.
Libyans must now get on with rebuilding their country and reining in the excess that led to Gaddafi’s premature death. The whole institution of government – judiciary, legislature and executive – must be created from almost a standing start and civil society – freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience – must be encouraged to prevent backsliding into corrupt and/or undemocratic ways. There is a splendid example just over the border in Tunisia, who will be holding genuinely competitive elections this Sunday (something that should also shame Egypt into speedier action in its political transformation). We in the West can only wish the Libyans well and give them every possible assistance to complete the democratic revolution.

Tinkered and tailored to be wonderful

Having neither read the book nor seen the television adaptation, I was pretty keen to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, having insulated myself from it bar that it was feted at the Cannes film festival and featured a magnificent performance by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, who is as far from James Bond as it is possible to get. While bad reviews may not fully tally with one’s perspective, good reviews tend to indicate something special.
It was a brilliant film, not least in making no concessions to short attention spans which I wholeheartedly applaud. Moreover, given what we know about KGB penetration of the British Secret Service it had a distinct air of truth. Then there was almost a roll-call of acting aristocracy not seeking to outdo each other but turning in convincing portrayals. The evocation of the 1970s was exceptional in its griminess and worn-out nature.
Having wound the gears up, like an expertly crafted music box, as everything falls into place it is amazing to behold. I was still seeing new connections emerge twenty minutes after I had left the cinema, proving that it not only stays in the mind but keeps the mind active too.

Not all (Blair)right

Two articles today prove that no matter what the Comic Strip do tonight, Tony Blair defies satire in many ways. He was just a dickhead of the first order.
In this, Peter Oborne reaffirms that he is one of the most astute and even-handed commentators writing at the moment:
No, Prime Minister, Jeremy Heywood is not the man to lead our great Civil Service
It is notoriously the case that the dying days of governments, of whatever persuasion, are marked by scandals involving lax morals and the abuse of power. John Major at the end of 18 years of Tory rule in the 1990s, Harold Macmillan at the start of the 1960s, and more recently Gordon Brown: all of them had to cope with the consequence of having been too long in government.
This makes the situation confronting David Cameron unusual. Though only 18 months old, his Coalition government is already beset by the kind of problems that normally emerge at the very end of a premiership. During the past week alone we have seen Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, fighting for his career after a series of breaches of the ministerial code, and Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly accused of serious conflicts of interest involving his family’s business connections. Meanwhile Chris Huhne, the Environment Secretary, already facing embarrassing claims that he misled the police over a traffic offence, remains unpunished after being caught red-handed feeding journalists damaging material about his Cabinet colleague Theresa May.
Yet none of these stories – not even the Fox debacle – is as worrying as this week’s huge shake-up in Whitehall, and the emergence of Jeremy Heywood as the replacement for Sir Gus O’Donnell as cabinet secretary. Just 50 years old, there is every chance that Heywood will remain in post, at the beating heart of British government, for a full 10 years.
To understand why Heywood’s appointment is so alarming, and why it sends out such bewildering messages about the future trajectory of the Cameron administration, it is necessary to cast a glance backwards.
There have only been 10 cabinet secretaries since the post was invented in 1916 by Sir Maurice Hankey, secretary to the Lloyd George war cabinet. Indeed, the constitutional historian Lord Hennessy dates the start of modern British government to 11.30am on Saturday, September 9, 1916, when Hankey took down the first ever cabinet minute. Once circulated round Whitehall, these minutes became what Hankey called “operative decisions” and established the power of the cabinet secretary throughout Whitehall.
In the years that followed, Hankey – and his great mid-century successors Bridges, Brook and Trend – established a massive moral and intellectual authority. Not only did they oversee the superb Civil Service machine that ran the domestic war effort from 1939-45 and thereafter established the modern welfare state – they were also formidable guardians of public integrity during the period of our history when the British state was at its most admired and powerful.
It was not until the very end of the 20th century that this system came under threat. From 1997 onwards, Tony Blair’s New Labour government keenly resented the power, as well as the delicate sense of propriety, of the established Civil Service.
Blair had little or no use for his first cabinet secretary, Robin Butler, who feebly and unsuccessfully sought to insist on the impartiality and discretion of the Civil Service, as well as the importance of maintaining boundaries between public duty and private interest.
The small coterie who surrounded Blair were just as dismissive of Butler’s successor, Richard Wilson. They ignored his advice and imposed instead a system of crony government in which due process was ignored, with integrity being lost as a consequence. It was a miserable time in the history of British public administration.
The Blairites needed allies inside the system, and fortunately there was one to hand. They were always hostile to outsiders, and at first the prime minister’s private secretary, the young and ambitious Jeremy Heywood, was regarded with suspicion. But with the passage of time Heywood was accepted as a vital member of the group of allies around Blair. Indeed, he was to play a central role as the disciplines of government collapsed and the “sofa culture” of Downing Street reached its peak.
Ordinary procedures, such as minute taking, appear to have partly ceased. This became embarrassingly apparent when the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly sought to reconstruct the process which had led to the Ministry of Defence scientist’s name appearing in a national newspaper. Lord Hutton heard how some four meetings, each involving senior officials and cabinet ministers, had taken place in the 48 hours before Dr Kelly’s name was released. In an extraordinary breach of traditional Whitehall procedure, it emerged that not one of these meetings was minuted. This was Heywood’s job, and it was not carried out.
But it was not just basic procedures that failed with Heywood in Downing Street. Standards of integrity stalled too, as The Daily Telegraph discovered when we ran a well-sourced story revealing that Downing Street had pressed for Tony Blair to be given a bigger public role in the Queen Mother’s funeral of early 2002. Heywood wrote a letter to this newspaper, in his capacity as private secretary to the prime minister, insisting that the report was “without foundation”. To say the least, this was being economical with the truth. Fundamentally, he had crossed the key dividing line between unbiased, public-spirited official and careerist political adviser.
Tony Blair, naturally, adored his private secretary and, in another blatant abuse of Civil Service rules, sought to rocket him to permanent secretary level. When this move was resisted, Heywood just vanished. Granted “unpaid leave” from the Civil Service, he suddenly emerged as co-head of the Morgan Stanley investment banking division, only returning four years later to help sort out Gordon Brown’s chaotic Downing Street machine – a job where he gained universal admiration.
It is easy to understand why David Cameron – who personally chose Heywood – wanted him so much. Heywood knows his way all around Whitehall, and is expert at delivering what a prime minister wants.
But that brief stint at Morgan Stanley aside, he has never worked outside Downing Street and the Treasury. Indeed, Heywood has no experience of the wider Civil Service, which makes his first big decision especially troubling. Sir Gus O’Donnell (and nearly all his predecessors) combined the job of cabinet secretary with that of head of the home Civil Service. There have been very solid reasons for this, not least because it has meant that the Civil Service has a proper voice inside 10 Downing Street. Heywood has turned his back on this arrangement. Precedent suggests this decision will open the way to a long, unnecessary period of attrition between Downing Street and the outlying parts of government. It is a recipe for division and chaos.
David Cameron once boasted that he was the “heir to Blair” and his choice of Heywood suggests the comparison is all too apt. Heywood is a perfect manifestation of everything that has gone so very wrong with the British Civil Service over the past 15 years – too cosy a relationship between public and private, too much dominance at the centre, contempt for tradition and the collapse of due process.
In his foreword to the new ministerial code, published last year, David Cameron wrote that “after the scandals of recent years, people have lost faith in politics and politicians. It is our duty to restore their trust. It is not enough simply to make a difference. We must be different.” These are empty words, with Jeremy Heywood at the heart of government and guardian of British public standards.


The second is an obituary for Sir Hilary Synott:
In Bad Days in Basra (2008), his memoir of the six months he spent in Iraq, Synnott recorded, in devastating detail, the chaotic reality behind the CPA’s attempts to establish civic governance; the dysfunctional relationship between the two occupying powers, Britain and America; and lack of planning and support from the government back home.
The phone call offering Synnott the post as “King of the South” of Iraq came three months after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The situation was not promising. His predecessor — a Danish diplomat — had resigned early after protesting publicly about the lack of support from his American superiors in Baghdad. “It’s a bloody mess”, the head of the Foreign Office’s Iraq unit admitted. Yet Synnott could not resist the challenge.
The reality turned out to be much worse than even he had imagined. Arriving in Basra in July 2003, he found his team camped in the squalid offices of the city’s electricity company, sleeping four or five people to a room in sweltering temperatures of up to 49C (120F). Hygiene arrangements were “unspeakable” and staff had not been informed that they were expected to provide their own soap, towels and bedding. Some even had to sleep on the floor.
Worse still, it was unclear what Synnott’s job involved. Armed with instructions covering “half a side of A4” and a general injunction to “play things by ear” and provide “leadership and direction”, Synnott struggled to establish any sort of administrative routine. He had no phone and no computer until the Americans helped him out, though he could only send reports to London by public email services.
“Everything had to be created from nothing but against a background where it was not clear what the task was,” Synnott recalled. No one in Whitehall had expected that Britain would suddenly have to take the civilian lead in the South: “Instead there had been some vague expectation that the Americans would sort things out.” Ministers “simply wanted someone in Iraq on the ground at once and were less concerned about what I should do when I got there.”
His instructions were to report to both Paul Bremer, American head of the CPA, and to Tony Blair, who had told Synnott that his job was “a challenge of prime national importance” and invited him to phone him personally if he needed anything. In fact, as Synnott struggled to establish a civilian presence alongside the British military effort in southern Iraq, he found himself frustrated at every turn by American indifference and the indecisiveness of his masters in London.
Ensconced in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Bremer made little attempt to disguise his contempt for the British. Synnott recalled that entering Bremer’s office for the first time “felt a bit like entering the headmaster’s study. I was kept waiting; then once I went in, I was kept waiting further until he’d finished reading. Then we sat down, he put his feet on the coffee-table and he delivered a reprimand to me about the behaviour of the British military.”
The CPA itself, he found, was mainly staffed by American policy wonks — “young, naive, pushy people” fired with a messianic zeal rapidly to replace centuries of tribal and religious rivalries and state control with democracy and free markets, and displaying a dogmatism that, as Synnott drily noted, “cut no ice” with the Iraqis.
By the time Synnott arrived in Basra, Bremer had already made two of his most notorious blunders: disbanding the Iraqi army and ordering a de-Ba’athification programme that, in effect, eliminated the entire Iraqi administrative elite. In Basra, Synnott’s staff were instructed to sack school headmasters on the basis that they had been party members, one American CPA official declaring that she would rather have “chaos in the classrooms than Ba’athists in the classrooms”. The British quietly ignored the instruction.
Bremer, Synnott pointed out, was a specialist in dealing with terrorism, but had no wider expertise in developing countries. Seemingly uninterested in the complexities of tribal politics, he “appeared to regard all Iraq as a suburb of Baghdad”.
Dealings with the government back home were equally frustrating. In particular, Synnott found that Tony Blair’s personal assurance that he would have everything he needed was worth little in practice; and he was furious to learn, when Blair paid a visit to Basra in early January 2004, that the prime minister would not be visiting him and his staff, despite assurances that the visit would focus on the civilian effort.
In his memoir, Synnott recalled an “intemperate” phone call with an unnamed “minder from Number 10/Labour Party” who told him via “a string of four letter words” that the press would want stories and photos of soldiers, “not foreign civilians”.
The shortcomings of American and British administration enraged the Iraqis, helping to fuel the insurgency. In Basra, where the coalition forces had initially been welcomed as liberators, the vacuum left by the removal of Ba’athist administration was soon filled by Iranian-backed Shia militias, making the task of rebuilding the country much more difficult. In and around Baghdad, meanwhile, areas that had been quiet immediately after the invasion were soon peppered by explosions and violence; sectarian violence became the norm, and as all security evaporated, al-Qaeda cells established themselves, decapitating locals and foreign workers in executions that were frequently videotaped.
If the occupying powers had succeeded in replacing a stable, if brutal, dictatorship (without weapons of mass destruction) with a fundamentalist insurgency on two fronts, Synnott was clear where he thought the blame lay: “The key decision-makers, and especially Bush and Blair, must inevitably bear ultimate responsibility both for the war itself and for the failures surrounding the process by which success might be achieved,” he told an interviewer.
Synnott was tempted to call his book “Bugger Basra”, and it was to be more than two years after his return to England before he felt calm enough to write it. “I couldn’t have written it before because I was just in such a blind fury,” he confessed. The Synnott who emerged from Basra was a very different individual from the kindly and philosophical man his colleagues recalled from earlier years.
The son of a naval officer, Hilary Nicholas Hugh Synnott was born on March 20 1945 at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, and educated at Beaumont College, a Jesuit public school in Windsor, before winning a scholarship to Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. From there he went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to do a Science degree, and then to the Navy’s engineering college.
After spending five years in submarines, Synnott applied to join the Diplomatic Service in 1973, aged 28. After early postings to Britain’s OECD delegation in Paris and then to the embassies in Bonn and Amman, in 1989 he was appointed head of the Foreign Office’s Western European department. In 1991, as head of the FCO’s Security Co-ordination department, he was responsible for negotiating the release of the British hostages held in Lebanon, a difficult but ultimately successful task which won him much acclaim.
After three years as deputy high commissioner in New Delhi, from 1993 to 1996, Synnott returned to London as director of the FCO’s South and South East Asia department. In 2000, after a year spent as a visiting fellow at the University of Sussex, he was appointed High Commissioner in Islamabad.
Though his three years in Pakistan coincided with the invasion of Afghanistan and a deterioration in relations between Pakistan and the West, he won the affection and respect of many Pakistanis. In Transforming Pakistan: Ways Out of Instability (2009), Synnott noted that Pakistan had “paid a heavy price for other countries’ behaviour towards it, notably the West’s accommodation with the country’s military rulers in the 1980s, and its encouragement of a jihad in the service of Cold War strategic goals”.
After his retirement, Synnott became a senior consulting fellow of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, but his experiences in Basra cast a long shadow. In January this year he wrote to the Secretary of the Iraq Inquiry, responding to Tony Blair’s assertion that he (Synnott) had been “on balance optimistic not pessimistic” about the future of Iraq when he left Basra in 2004.
That judgment, Synnott underscored, “referred only to southern Iraq – the region for which I had some responsibility – not to the country as a whole”. His “optimism”, he stressed, had been based on advice he had given the Prime Minister to maintain a multinational development team in the south rather than hand control to the Iraqis. In the event, the team was disbanded and the “vast majority” of its projects failed.
Hilary Synnott was appointed CMG in 1997 and KCMG in 2002.
In 1973 he married Anne Clarke. They had a son, who predeceased him.
Sir Hilary Synnott, born March 20 1945, died September 8 2011.

You may have thought Mrs Thatcher callous, brutal and indifferent and that her policies unneccesarily caused human misery but no-one could question her integrity and so under the rules of the political game, she is worthy of being created a Lady. Tony Blair should never be given a knighthood; nobbled maybe but not ennobled.

What would have been expected to have been a good weekend for England turned into a pretty poor one. First England’s football team throw away a two goal lead to draw nervously with Montenegro with Wayne Rooney sent off and the then the next day, England’s rugby union team caught a dose of the footballers’ disease and crashed out against a French side that were flat on their backs after defeat to Tonga. Complacency cost victory in both cases. The rugby meatheads thought they could just turn up and the French would fall over.
In Podgorica, England started well, but the moment they conceded a goal, instead of being a wake-up call to redouble their determination, England went into their shells. Bringing on Frank Lampard retrenched the psychological crippling effect that subsumes the team when events go against them. A draw wasn’t a disaster but it was plain to see that Montenegro could be blown away if played against with confidence. At least Rooney will have some extra recovery time when he inevitably injures himself just before the tournament, now that he misses the opening match through suspension.
Fabio Capello’s record in this qualifying campaign is in some ways better than the qualifying for the World Cup in that England are undefeated. But turn it the other way round, basing it on win ration and it is far less impressive. In 2008-09, Capello’s team won 90% of their competitive matches; in 2010-11, it is only 62.5%. Moreover, the one defeat in 2008-09 came after England had won the group with two matches to spare. Inability to keep the ball has blighted England for at least a decade – I remember the travails of Euro 2000 particularly vividly in this instance. One bad example summed it up with England conceding a throw-in after one touch from their own throw-in. They would never do that at club level and if they did they would fear returning to the dressing room.
Towards the end of the match, the camera panned across the away support of Englishness; one banner for Northampton Town with that club’s nickname was most apt for the performance we had seen – Cobblers.

Taking the chequered flag with a largely unchequered performance

When the first manifestation of Cars was given silver screen billing, it was held generally to be one of Pixar’s lesser creations, given the high standard that was expected of the computer animated arm of Disney. Though a fan of Pixar from before and thereafter, I decided to eschew this release. I considered the same approach for the sequel, until a review on Radio 4’s Front Row that I heard on the off-chance was so fulsome in its praise I decided to give Cars 2 a fair hearing (and viewing).
I was especially motivated given that Michael Caine was one of the stars lending their voice, in a very postmodern way, in his role as secret agent and souped-up car as one; it won’t be long before his glamorous James Bondish performances outnumber his original ‘ordinary spy’ turn in The Ipcress File et al – the very reason he is getting such latter-day opportunities such as Austin Powers and now here.
Since the original, Paul Newman has passed on but he knew the nature of franchises (not just in film) and his character Doc Hudson has been retired altogether, though the Doc is often invoked by the slow (in many ways) tow truck, Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), which, along with Caine’s Finn McMissile, is the dual centre of the show (like a binary solar system), leaving Owen Wilson’s turbo-charged sleekness in the form of Lightning McQueen for dust (figuratively).
Film writers are always inculcated with the need to have a twist to ‘wrongfoot’ the audience and make them re-analyse the movie in retrospect; Hollywood 101, as can also be evinced in The Green Hornet, that the chief villain of the piece (not least through their betrayal of others) must be an important, if peripheral’ ‘good guy’ and I take particular pleasure in spotting the disguised blackguard as soon as possible, though I’ll forgive Pixar’s attempt as it is meant for children also and they tried pretty hard to throw me off their tail. Once in the know, you can even detect the aural signature through a voice-scrambled message – the key in this instance is that the mysterious bad guy and the ‘good guy’ were never in the same shot.
An immense charm of Cars 2 is the cornucopia of incidental detail, the personality of each mode of transport rendered exquisitely and with so much detail on display, one’s eyes are overwhelmed with delight. Intelligence abounds such as making the brutish henchman stealth ships like sharks or giving the Italian F1 vehicle a quiff of hair via an engine duct (though, amusingly, all the young females are bald). Big Bentley skirts my objections as the British landmark tower – not just the bell – might have been renamed as such in this universe. Of course, the Queen (in the tones of Vanessa Redgrave) is a Roll-Royce, while Prince William is an S-Type Jaguar, proving the newly created Duke of Cambridge still maintains overseas glamour in his own right and not when paired with his wife.
Some of the violence meted out is horrendous, craftily pushing the boundaries of a Universal rating, given that they are cartoon cars after all. There are a few errors that I managed to spot without recourse to a bloopers website (Egypt is not immediately to the southwest of Italy, in place of Tunisia, something less forgivable after the Arab Spring) but they do not impinge on either the picture’s credibility or its fun. Cars 2 can be enjoyed by petrolheads and pedestrians alike, as well as all others in between. 4 out of 5.

Newcastle United may have ridden a wave of luck as wide as the Tyne on Saturday, as they defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 on the latter’s home patch, but as this was the first time the Magpies had not pecked out the eyes of Wolves in the Midlands while in the top-flight since 1957, it was probably needed to end the Molineux hoodoo. Anyway, in those 54 years, I’m sure the Old Gold have had their fair share of good fortune, remembering a few occasions in the last decade that went against the form book (and Newcastle).
This result made it United’s best start to the season since the near-glory days of 1995-96. Still, it must be put in perspective. Though fifteen points have been accrued in the first seven games, of the teams that finished in the top seven last season, the black-and-whites have only had to face one of them so far and that was an out-of-sorts Arsenal. A real test will come at Gallowgate when Tottenham Hotspur come to visit. Moreover, the Mapies’ pretty perch at fourth in the table is precarious. Spurs have a game in hand to go with their own twelve points and Liverpool are close behind the top four. I remember Wigan was second in the table at roughly this point in the season back in 2005 and at the end of the season they had suffered eight league place degradations. Were Newcastle to suffer the same, they would finish in the same place as last season (given the summer turmoil, maybe not such a bad result). There is an element of banking points early so as to survive after tougher moments in the season which might expose a small squad.
But, for the time being, to go into the international break on an unbeaten twelve match league and cup run stretching back to last season, it feels good to enjoy these warm times while they last.

On Match of the Day 2, we had some classic Colin Murray-isms – “If you been avoiding the TV to take in the sun and missed yesterday’s games, we’ve got them all here” – referencing the Indian Summer distinctly locates Britain as the area people watched Match of the Day and 10.30 pm was long after the sun had gone down, so why miss TV to soak it up, if it wasn’t there?!? And then claiming Rio Ferdinand was in the England list before Lee Dixon corrected it him by the simple expedient of reading the screen instead of making assumptions. What happens Colin when you assume? In your case, the only ass made is you.