Clegg, Cavendish and Cricket

Words of 50 is back! After what can only be described as an accidental hiatus, I’m looking to return to at least weekly posting. As you will see from today’s offering, the style of posting is going to move away from dedicated posts on a particular topic (lack of inspiration has been one factor in the recess) towards a more random diary like collection of various thoughts I have had during the week. Something along the lines of Simon Hoggart’s diary (Saturday Guardian) or the Evangelical Alliance’s Friday Night Theology. Hope you enjoy…

It’s been a rocky few weeks for Nick Clegg. Facing a likely hostile Liberal Democrat autumn conference, we’ve had all kinds of aggressive plays coming out of the deputy prime minister’s office – an apology over tuition fees, new zealousness for the ‘equality’ agenda (somewhat overshadowed by ‘bigotgate’), a call for higher taxes on the super rich and an open declaration that the party would be willing to work with Labour in the future. Are these the actions of a renewed political force or the desperate thrashings of a dying beast? Time will tell, and whilst there may be enough political ‘meat’ here to satisfy the braying conference hordes, it’s going to take far more to win back anything near the popularity Clegg enjoyed during the 2010 election campaign. For that to happen, it would be nothing short of a political miracle.

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Talking of political figures of dubious substance, I find myself ever more saddened at the presence of Mitt Romney in the presidential election. Over the months I have seen nothing come from the Republican candidate that speaks of genuine political vision and value, or that there is a coherent centre to his policy. Regardless of one’s views on President Obama’s policies, he remains the most compelling candidate by a country mile and can only have himself to blame if he loses to a man best described as a political opportunist.

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Amidst the bottomless triumphs of British sport in 2012, two things sadden me: firstly, I have not been any near as enthused about cricket as I usually am. I would suggest a few potential causes of this: boredom over the Pietersen affair, the continued absence of test cricket on free television and not having played or made it to a game this summer. Either way, I feel a poorer person for this, and hope the enthusiasm returns during the winter series.

Secondly, the continued talk of Mark Cavendish leaving Team Sky distresses. While not upset at Cavendish for wanting to maximise his success, I find his calculation that leaving Team Sky will achieve that a little odd. For a start, 2012 has been a successful year for Cavendish – 13 stage wins (including 3 in the Tour de France), 1 one-day race win (Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne), 1 stage race overall win (Ster ZLM) and missing out on the Giro D’Italia red jersey by just one point. This is arguably a stronger return than that of 2011 when he had an entire team built around him. The only exception to that is the Tour de France, where he has been winning 5 stages on a regular basis for a number of years and picked up the Green Jersey last year. If Cavendish were to move to a team where he again picked up 5 stage wins a year in the TdF (which is far from a certainty), he would surpass Eddy Merckx’s stage win record in 3 years time; yet if he stayed at Sky and won at a rate of 3 stage wins a year that timeframe would only expand to 4 years. Besides this odd calculation, Team Sky have come close to ‘total cycling’ this year – i.e. on any given stage of any given race a Team Sky victory has been a realistic prospect. It is an exciting philosophy of racing, and one which would be very badly damaged with the loss of Cavendish. Finally, the thousands who lined the streets of Guildford on the final stage of the Tour of Britain roaring Cavendish home to victory in his Team Sky rainbow Jersey will forever be an iconic moment in British cycling – it would be a real shame if there were no more of those. So Mark, if you are reading this, please reconsider!