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The conflict inherent between policy and principle continues to this day

The international community has been compromised by the revolution sweeping the Arab world. In three uncertain weeks, the United States vacillated from urging stability to shore up a strategic ally in Hosni Mubarak to cheering his overthrow. France trod the same path in Tunisia. Happily, the foreign minister Mich�le Alliot-Marie, whose first reaction to the uprising was to offer Ben Ali France's superior knowledge in riot control, has finally resigned. But her family's involvement with the ancien regime (her parents had shares in a property company owned by a businessman close to the regime) provided its own morality play.

Few were disinterested observers. When it came to the crunch, such as organising the interrogation under torture of jihadis picked up in Pakistan, the CIA, among others, traded with the darkest elements of Mubarak's regime being denounced with such ardour today. Russia and China, both of whom have much to fear from spontaneous demonstrations by their own people, have fared little better.

The conflict inherent between policy and principle continues to this day. While the world's attention has been focused on a mad colonel's dying days, Libyan troops are not alone in firing on unarmed demonstrators. After a mass demonstration in another Tahrir Square, this time in Baghdad, Iraq's security forces detained 300 people, among them prominent journalists, artists and intellectuals, some of whom were later beaten up or tortured in custody. At least 29 died nationwide in Iraq's "day of rage". Rather than denounce an ally in Nouri al-Maliki, whose coalition government Washington toiled hard and for many months to create, the US embassy in Baghdad played down the violence.

Three lessons should be drawn from the revolutions taking place in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. The first is that they belong to the people who made them. The Libyans, Egyptians and Tunisians have made enormous personal sacrifices to get this far, humbling eyewitnesses with their determination and heroism. They do not want, nor have they yet sought foreign intervention. The ownership of change across the Middle East does not, however, make international action irrelevant. The vote in the United Nations to impose travel and asset sanctions on Gaddafi and his entourage broke new ground for the international support it mustered, helped not least by the Arab League, the African Union and support from Libya's own US mission, which defected en masse. It is unlikely to continue, but the process of rediscovering the benefits of genuine international coalitions and institutions like the human rights council is a healthy one.

The second lesson is that these revolutions have only just begun, and the task of clearing out old faces is still work in progress. Tunisia ousted its second leader in as many months when Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned as prime minister after three days of protest. With the US and France pressing for the formation of a model which would absorb leading members of the old ruling party, the RCD, in a new democratic party, the Tunisian street is having none of it. They want a complete change, not people like Ghannouchi back in new guise. Whether a leaderless revolution will be able to create its own leadership without fissuring is another matter. But it is clear what the ambition is.

The third lesson is that the process of remaking politics will occur independently of outside influence, Islamist or western. While the Egyptian military will still need US aid, the government that finally emerges after free elections may indeed be more independent. Western policy in the Middle East will have little option but to adjust to a new reality. It will be in no position to dictate terms. When these regimes died, their role as unsavoury, but ultimately useful clients died with them.

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As long as we let ourselves be boxed in by a rightwing agenda that leaves us searching for least-worst options, we're losing

There is a new economists' sign-on letter being circulated that warns bad things will happen if there are big cuts to the public investment portion of the federal budget, as Republicans in Congress are now advocating. The argument in the letter is correct, but it is nonetheless painful to see this sort of thing being circulated right now.

The politicians in Washington may have missed it, but we are still in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate is still 9.0% and virtually no forecaster, including those in the administration, expects it to return to normal levels any time soon. In addition to the unemployed, we have more than 8 million people underemployed, and millions more who have given up looking for work altogether.

In such times, we might expect that there would be discussion of a big new stimulus programme. After all, we do know how to generate growth and create jobs. As a large and growing body of research shows (pdf), we just have to spend money. This means that tens of millions of people are suffering as a result of unemployment or underemployment simply as a result of bad economic policy.

The politicians who could, in principle, push through more stimulus have been intimidated into silence by the business lobbies and the media which have decided to make concerns about the deficit the top and only economic priority. In this context, it would have been reasonable to expect that a letter drafted by prominent liberal economists (the lead signers include Alan Blinder and Laura Tyson, two of the top economists from the Clinton administration) would centre on the need to boost demand to create jobs. Economists, who don't have to run for office can say such things, even when politicians can't.

But there is no mention of stimulus, just a plea not to cut public investment. This plea could even be taken as an implicit endorsement of cuts to other areas of spending like Medicare, Medicaid and social security.

In fairness to the authors of the letter, the state of politics in Washington is quite bleak right now from a progressive standpoint. The Republicans won a huge victory last fall, with the conservative wing of the party on the ascendancy. They seem virtually certain to retake the Senate in 2012. Arguably, the best that can be hoped for is to shelter a few selected areas from spending cuts.

While that may be true at the moment, it is hard to see this path as anything other than a slower road to disaster. After all, no one believes that the economy is going to turn around based on the sort of budget that is likely to come from a compromise with the Republicans. And President Obama is virtually certain to be held accountable for the state of the economy in 2012. Furthermore, even if he does manage to get re-elected, he will still be dealing with the same sort of congressional opposition he faces today. And, of course, no one in their right mind can think that the current economic situation is acceptable.

At some point, we have to talk about changing the terms of the debate. This is where our two honcho Democratic economists need to be taken to the woodshed. They could be trying to argue the case that the economy needs additional stimulus to get back to normal rates of unemployment. The Republicans may block this path, but at least, then, the public might understand that people are unemployed or underemployed because of a political decision, not an act of God.

If they think increased stimulus is an impossible lift at this point, why not argue the case for work-sharing? We can encourage employers to shorten hours instead of laying people off. If we can reduce the rate of layoffs by just 10%, this would translate into almost 2.5m additional jobs over the course of a year.

In principle, this work-sharing doesn't even have to cost any money. It's just substituting payments for short-time work for unemployment benefits. Work-sharing is the reason that Germany's unemployment rate has fallen in this downturn, even though it has seen less GDP growth than the United States.

Pushing for either more stimulus or work-sharing would at least set out a positive agenda, as opposed to splitting the difference on a really bad path. Of course, if our leading Democratic economists had been a little more farsighted, we never would have been in this mess in the first place.

They would have been talking about the housing bubble back in 2002-2004, when it could have been reined in without wrecking the economy. Better yet, they could have been talking about the stock bubble back in the Clinton years before that set the US economy on a path of bubble-driven growth.

It would be good if Republican plans to shut down the government and/or gut large areas of public investment can be thwarted. But serious progressives have to move beyond a situation where we are choosing between bad choices and worse ones. The folks setting the economic policy agenda for the Democrats are not going to get us there.

Dean Baker

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Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/commentisfree/rss/~3/kejmjcdcPW8/useconomy-usemployment

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Northern Rock has announced it will offer first-time buyers a 90% mortgage. But this won't help a moribund market crippled by high house prices, says Jill Insley

First-time buyers who have struggled to get a mortgage have been given a glimmer of hope following the announcement that Northern Rock ? the bank owned by UK taxpayers ? is at long last offering a reasonably priced mortgage for those with a small deposit.

The bank will lend mortgages worth 90% of the property's value at a rate of 5.99% for two years, 6.49% for three years, and 6.59% for five years, with no product fee payable. Other lenders have been offering cheaper deals at a 90% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for some time, but they tend to charge application fees of around �1,000 ? a big sum for those battling to pull a deposit together.

Readers may think this an extraordinary move for Northern Rock to make right now: the bank was pilloried for what many considered reckless lending. Its Together product, a combination of a mortgage and long-term personal loan, allowed borrowers to take out up to 125% of their property's value. These mortgages proved impossible to sell on to other lenders as economic conditions declined, forcing the bank to seek help from the government.

Moreover, house prices are falling, and expected to continue a downwards trend through the year as interest rates and unemployment increase, exposing both bank and borrowers to a greater risk of loss if the latter are unable to repay their loans.

But Northern Rock points out that it is a different bank from the one that lent the Together product, and it is approaching lending more cautiously this time. It claims to have set strict affordability criteria, requiring prospective borrowers to reveal one-off spending outlays as well as regular bills. It is also offering a 10-step guide to buying a first home, from setting a budget and choosing a property through to completion. The one off-key note is the maximum loan size of �450,000 ? frighteningly high for a first-time buyer.

The government has called repeatedly on lenders to once again start providing affordable and sensible mortgage funding for this vital section of the market. First-time buyers are traditionally regarded as the lifeblood of the housing market: all sales chains have ? until the rise of the buy-to-let investor ? started with them, and their home purchases support the economy through sales of white goods and furniture.

Yet their number plummeted by 42% year-on-year in December, according to figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, leaving many to pay more in rent than they would for a mortgage on the equivalent property.

So instead of of criticising Northern Rock for offering these loans, perhaps we should really be asking why it has taken the bank so long. The fact that Northern Rock is just one of several banks now prepared to lend at 90% LTV ratios shows that mortgage lending is not really the hindrance to first-time buyers it once was.

The real elephant in the room is house prices. Although they have fallen 0.9% over the past year, according to Land Registry figures, it is not nearly enough to make property affordable for most first-time buyers. While the average salary in the UK is just �26,510, the average price of property is still more than six times that at �163,177.

Until something is done to address this disparity, prospective buyers will remain as tenants.

Jill Insley

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/feb/28/northern-rock-first-time-buyer-mortgage

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Tom has to learn the secrets of the world's greatest lovers. They send him to Liverpool

This should be interesting: How to Live With Women (BBC3). How indeed? It's something I've often wondered. Carefully is probably the best answer I can come up with.

Tom lives with one ? Cherelle ? in Essex. But he's not doing it right. Things started off well. When they first met he thought she was bangin', she was well fit, he ain't gonna lie. And he loves her to bits, he wouldn't want anybody else, know what he means?

But then they moved in together, and it turns out Tom's a total waste of space. He doesn't have a job, so Cherelle has to have two. He spends most of her wages down the bookies. When he's not at the bookies he lies about on the sofa all day, expects her to wait on him. He doesn't do nothing, says Cherelle. She has to do the washing, the ironing, she has to run his bath for him . . . it will get to the stage where she's going to have to put his toothpaste on his toothbrush, that's how bad it's going to get, know what she means?

"That would be nice," says Tom.

"Know what I mean!" says Cherelle.

So Cherelle packs Tom off to live with some other women, three inspirational mentors, starting with chef Fiona in Cornwall. Fiona introduces Tom to the value of work; he does a bit of washing up, cleans out the bins, helps in the kitchen, feeds the chook. He has to earn his stripes, says Fiona. Or stroips, because she's a Kiwi.

Next, Tom needs to learn how to treat a lady right, because up until now his idea of a romantic night out has been sharing a kebab on a bench. Where to go? Who are the world's great romantics? Italians? Don't be daft, no. Scousers. Or perhaps it's down to BBC cuts. Anyway, Tom spends a couple of days in a Liverpool beauty salon to learn what true romance is all about, and how to treat a lady like a lady.

And the final part of Tom's education is to discover the value of money, and how to make a vegetable soup to feed 25 people for a just a fiver, from a lady vicar in Hull.

It's a bit baggy as an idea ? like Tool Academy meets Hell's Kitchen meets The Liver Birds meets The Vicar of Dibley, kinda. But it's still very entertaining to watch. And that's not because of Fiona the chef, or the makeup artist, or the vicar, or even Cherelle. It's all down to Tom, I'm afraid. He may be a slacker, and a scrounger, and a total waste of space, but he's also quite sweet and dead funny. A cheeky chappy with the gift of the gab. Know what I mean?

Perhaps Tom would have turned out better if he'd been to Lordswood school in Birmingham, as featured in Classroom Warriors ? Panorama (BBC1). One 12th of the staff at this boys' comprehensive are ex-military, and every week on cadet day a fifth of the pupils get dressed up as soldiers and the playground becomes a parade ground. In the gym they learn to shoot rifles.

It's part of a government plan to send the troops into Britain's troubled classrooms, to restore order and respect. Michael Gove is a big fan. "The presence of role models who have the sort of experience in taking young men and women and forging them into a cohesive team, and instilling discipline, I think that will be immensely valuable," he says. The big camouflaged society.

It's been done in the US, where the Troops to Teachers scheme was launched after the Gulf war, since when 15,000 ex-military have entered the teaching profession. The only difference is that they don't need to teach the shooting, because the children already know how to do that over there. Maybe they're allowed to bring their own weapons.

Anyway, it works, says Gove. School cadet forces, ex-squaddies in the staff room, it all helps to restore the virtues parents want in schools. Square bashing stops them bashing each other.

I suppose you could argue that the chalkface is not the same as the frontline, that education isn't just about teamwork and discipline, that schools shouldn't be run as boot camps, that perhaps some free-thinking and independence should be encouraged etc. But that's the kind of liberal, idealist, woolly, sandal-wearing nonsense you'd expect in the Guardian. Left, left, left right left.

Sam Wollaston

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/28/how-to-live-with-women-tv-review

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Though most of his fellow enthusiasts are half his height, our writer has fun finding his inner shadow warrior at Japan's Iga-Ueno ninja festival

To arrive in Iga-Ueno on the first Sunday in April is to feel like a stranger in ninjatown. This small city in the mountains, about two hours by train from Osaka, is supposedly the ancestral home of those fearsome feudal super-sneaks and master killers, whose name and reputation have spread across the world through movies, comic books and video games.

Here in Japan, ninjas are now something of a national myth, a slightly cartoonish composite of old folk tales and modern pop culture. This morning in Iga Ueno, however, it would be discourteous to dispute their existence. It's the opening day of the annual ninja festival, and travel on public transport is free to anyone in costume. Connecting to the local loop line, I step on to a train brightly painted with ninja murals (designed by the famous Japanese manga artist Leiji Matsumoto), and find my carriage filled with muffled, hooded figures, all armed with swords and throwing stars.

Admittedly, their weapons appear to be made of soft foam or folded paper, and their outfits come in a range of colours ? not just classic ninja black but purple, red, canary yellow, baby blue and a distinctly unthreatening shade of pink. Also, very few of these mysterious commuters stand much over four feet tall.

Apparently, only children take this occasion seriously enough to dress for it. The centre of town is overrun with excitable little death merchants, mostly around the 16th-century castle, where the moat and stone walls provide an ideal backdrop for springing mock assassinations on their parents.

This must be hot work in broad daylight: many of the young ninjas submit to having their masks pulled down and drinking straws thrust into their mouths. As it happens, this sunny weekend also marks the beginning of cherry blossom season, and the castle grounds are shaded by sakura trees, with families picnicking under the petals. Some have brought along their dogs, and these, too, are kitted out with hoods and swords.

Other festival activities include combat demonstrations at the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum (iganinja.jp/en). And life-size ninja mannequins have been positioned around town, staring blankly from the rooftops, peeking from behind telephone poles and lying under benches more like modern drunks than medieval spies.

I spent much of my own childhood dreaming of this, and resenting my parents for their failure to train me from birth in the lethal arts of the shadow warrior. They permitted me to rent such silly yet illicit videos as Pray for Death and Revenge of the Ninja, but drew the line at buying me the wicked-looking tools of the trade. "A ninja wouldn't whine like that," my father told me, twisting the knife. "The ninja is always adaptable."

Eventually, I accepted that I would never be much more physically adroit than Winnie the Pooh, but I have never forgotten my early masters, and have travelled the length and breadth of Japan to honour them. En route, I have discovered that most ninja-related attractions in this country are based around their novelty appeal to kids and credulous westerners.

Near Nagano, in the wooded alpine village of Togakushi, there is the Shinobi Karakuri Fushigi Yashiki (tinyurl.com/6hzamcf), or "ninja gimmickry wonder house". A maze of false floors, secret chambers and hidden passageways, it seemed kitsch and juvenile to me until I got frantically lost inside for over two hours and had to be rescued by an elderly attendant.

To the north, in Kanazawa, there is the so-called Ninja-dera, a house and shrine that once belonged to the powerful local Maeda clan, who were not actually ninjas at all, but devised such crafty and deadly defences that their home was recently renamed. Just adding the word "ninja" has proved a sure-fire way to bring in the tourists.

The word is, I am told by scholars, relatively new, "a product of the modern age, and the entertainment industry". Kanako Murata, a guide at the museum in Iga-Ueno, explains that the original clandestine operatives went by many different names and performed any number of functions.

"Their chief role was to gather information," says Murata. "Never to assassinate. In movies they are always killing people, and viewers have come to believe these violent images. Our mission here is to tell them the truth."

For Murata and her colleagues, this is the busiest time of the year, with long lines of visitors filing past their displays of old scrolls and rusty artefacts. The bulk of this material dates from the "warring states" period from the 15th-17th century, when the rough terrain around Iga was rife with bandits, dissidents, ascetic mystics and rogue samurai, who all made their own contributions to ninja legend.

The exhibits make the case that the real shadow warriors were highly trained intelligence agents in the employ of rival warlords, rather than kung fu wizards who could vanish into mirrors and run across moonbeams on their tippy-toes. If anyone is disappointed to hear this, they are soon distracted by the hourly combat show, by a troupe called the Ashuka.

I have already suffered a fit of the giggles from reading this group's promotional poster, which proclaims in unfortunate English that their ninja forbears developed these skills while "living hidden on the backside of history". The show itself is a combination of martial arts, acrobatics, special effects and slapstick, with audience members invited to try their hand with a shuriken, or throwing star.

My first goes into the dust, my second into netting at the back of the stage. My third strikes the edge of the target ? not a killing blow, perhaps, but nasty enough to delight my childhood self, and satisfy my inner ninja.

Both, to be fair, are easily pleased, and enjoy the tackier fringes of this festival at least as much as its elusive historical substance. The streets of Iga Ueno are literally paved with ninjas, recast as friendly-faced mascots and imprinted on the manhole covers, bridges, buses, and even fire engines.

And local businesses are fairly upfront about the true purpose of the festival, having capitalised on this event since it started in 1964. The Aikan-Tei noodle restaurant offers "ninja" udon and soba, and offers a ninja costume rental service on the side. The Miyazaki pickle shop sells "ninja" preserves.

I have no great hopes for the authenticity of the Murai Banko-en ninja cafe, but owner Motoharu Murai claims a bona fide bloodline. His grandfather was a ninja, he says, serving me brown tea and black sesame ice-cream in his courtyard garden. Then he disappears into a back room and bursts back out wearing a wig and firing a cap gun.

My shriek of fright is certainly un-ninjalike, and Muraimoto-san smiles to show that he has taught me a valuable lesson. Further surprises follow, as he emerges in different disguises with more antique weapons from his arsenal ? a pistol, a pike, a heavy iron rifle with ornate carvings on the barrel. At last, out comes his grandfather's old katana.

"Dangerous," he warns, letting me heft the sword and telling me that it has killed three people. As with most ninja stories, this is probably not true. But the blade feels very real.

? Fly to Osaka Kansai airport, then take the train to Iga Ueno. Finnair (0870 241 4411, finnair.com) has returns from �770 in April, from Heathrow via Helsinki. The Iga Ninja Festival (iganinja.jp/en) runs for five weeks from the first weekend in April, with events centred on the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in Ueno Park. Hotel Grantia Iga-Ueno (hotel-grantia.co.jp/igaueno, doubles from around �84) has great views over the castle, as well as private hot-spring bathing

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Regulator Ofwat defends decision to tie price inflation to RPI as opposed to the smaller CPI measure, with bills expected to rise by �16 on average

Water bills are set to rise by an average of 4.6% or �16 to �356 a year in 2011/2012, according to water company regulator Ofwat.

The rise has been set in line with RPI as measured last November, when CPI ? the government's favoured measure of inflation ? was 3.3%. As RPI includes mortgage interest, which is expected to rise in cost this year, the trend for RPI to be higher than CPI is likely to continue.

A spokeswoman for Ofwat defended the use of RPI as its benchmark: "We've used RPI since privation in 1989, and all the other regulators use RPI too. Sometimes it works in the customer's favour, as the RPI rate used last year was 0.3% when CPI was 1.9%."

Ofwat decided in 2009 how much water and sewerage companies could charge customers between 2010/2015 before inflation. The regulator said its challenge of companies' proposed bill rises meant that across England and Wales average bills are set to remain broadly stable up until 2015 and around 10% lower than what companies asked for. The rate of inflation is added to bills on a year-by-year basis.

Ofwat's chief executive officer, Regina Finn, said: "People can shop around for the best deal on many things, but not water. Our job is to do this for them.

"No one wants to see bills increasing, particular in tough economic times. When we set limits on prices we listened to customers and challenged companies hard. That is why average bills are set to remain broadly in line with inflation up until 2015, while companies are investing more than ever before ? �22bn. That is more than �935 for every property in England and Wales.

"This will deliver real benefits to consumers ? from almost 10 million people's water supplies being better protected from events such as flooding to cleaner rivers and beaches."

However, the Consumer Council for Water criticised the rise. Dame Yve Buckland, chair of the council, said: "We recognise that water companies are facing some additional costs in other areas and that there are 'swings and roundabouts' on this issue. However, many water companies and their shareholders will benefit from higher inflation.

"Many customers are struggling with rising household and other bills and debt is rising. Already one in six customers tells us that they cannot afford their water bill.

"Water companies need to make profits and that's fine, but when water companies have done well financially in the past, the Consumer Council for Water has been successful in persuading them to give back �135m to customers in the form of lower prices and additional investments in the water and sewerage network, to benefit customers. We will be talking to the companies to see how this can be repeated in this price period."

The council recommends that anyone who is struggling to pay their water bill should contact their company immediately to see if more flexible payment options, such as weekly or monthly payment plans, special assistance funds, or possibly a special tariff scheme, are available.

Jill Insley

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/feb/25/water-bills-rise-ofwat

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Enda Kenny's in-tray is full of horrors. First up, on Monday, were keenly awaited mortgage arrears figures which showed 10% of homeowners are now struggling

The man who will be taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said all the right things on Saturday night after his party secured its place in government in one of Ireland's most historic elections.

He talked of rebuilding the country and "sending a message round the world that Ireland was open for business".

He said he wanted to show that the government was back in control and was decisive.

"The people have made their choice and we are not going to leave this country without a strong and stable government," he declared.

Comforting words for a people bruised and battered by the previous administration, led by the now extinguished Fianna F�il and its leader Brian Cowen.

But comfort won't last long for a population battling with finances, emigration and unemployment.

Mortgage arrears just keep on rising

New mortgage arrears figures released on Monday by the Central Bank show 6% of the country's households are now in mortgage arrears ? 44,508 homeowners have not made a monthly payment for more than 90 days.

This compares with 28,603 in arrears the previous year to the end of December 2009.

Worse ? there are a further 35,205 who have done private deals with banks ? to pay interest only, get mortgage holidays etc. That's 80,000 in total who are in arrears or have restructured mortgages, meaning 10% of the total mortgage population are in trouble.

These figures will be a cold shower for Kenny and his team, because they underline how real the prospect of a second wave of debt default is, something economist Morgan Kelly predicted last year when he suggested 19th century-style social revolt from the middle-classes.

He may yet be proved right.

At the moment the financial regulator's code of practice requires all banks to enter into restructuring talks with homeowners in difficulty and prevents them going to court to seek repossessions for at least 12 months after such a deal is broken. However critics believe this is just delaying a domestic debt default crisis for another year or two.

National Irish Bank economist Dr Ronnie O'Toole, at a recent seminar on bankruptcy tourism, said historic evidence shows that personal debt lags behind other recession indicators. "Personal insolvencies will continue to rise, even after the recession ends," he says.

Battle number two ? the EU

Some have said the new government should send Sinn F�in president Gerry Adams to do the negotiations after he was elected a TD for the first time.

Joking aside, Kenny will also be straight in to battle on the European front.

On Friday he flies to Helsinki to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and other European leaders at an informal summit of centre-right party heads of state and government.

Over the weekend, Kenny received calls from Merkel, David Cameron and the president of the European commission, Jos� Manuel Barroso, who will also be in Helsinki.

It is understood that the issue of the IMF/EU bailout was addressed in broad terms and Cameron has already invited him to Downing Street on a date to be decided.

A commission official said Barroso had also expressed "full confidence" in Kenny and said he looked forward to "a very close and constructive co-operation" with him.

After his fighting talk about renegotiating the IMF/EU bail-out during the election campaign, the electorate will be expecting more than soothing words on Saturday morning about the possibility of a change in the interest rate. After all, every fool knows that the ECB rate of interest is only going one way ? and that is up. So let's see if Kenny can "fix" the country's mortgage on a lower rate for the next four years.

But what the international markets (and the electorate) will be watching for is movement on a deal with senior bondholders. As Stephen Kinsella, guest blogger, said here last week, the country can't live with this mountain of debt.

As he put it "every act to attempt to reduce the uncertainty around the Irish economy has failed" because it does not address the chief concern ? debt to income levels for Irish households stand at 200%".

What do you think? Comment below or if you want to contact Lisa O'Carroll privately, email her on guardian.dublin@gmail.com

Lisa O'Carroll

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Ted Prangnell (Letters, 25 February) bemoans the lack of spending on everyday cycling, as opposed to the �94m new velodrome for the Olympics. He's right that much more could be done to enable people to make more journeys by bicycle. Sustrans is working with local authorities to improve the environment for cycling, developing new links, redesigning the urban environment, providing people with information and advice and working with local schoolchildren. We are lobbying councils to do more still, including using the government's local sustainable transport fund. We have now delivered 13,000 miles of national cycle network, which is quite an achievement in just over 15 years. And Ted will be pleased to learn that the Bexhill-to-Hastings link is on the way. It is part of our national Connect2 project and, working with East Sussex county council, a safe route avoiding the A259 will be built later this year.

Simon Pratt

Sustrans, South East England

? The Olympic and World Championship successes of Britain's track cyclists in recent years has inspired thousands of youngsters to take up cycling. Attendances at London's decrepit Herne Hill velodrome have been hugely increased since the last Olympics and as a coach in a children's cycling club I can vouch for the massive enthusiasm generated. Fortunately it appears that Herne Hill is to be reinstated to the position of a decent, usable venue. I agree with Ted's demands for safe cycle routes. The provision of safer cycle ways, as in most of Europe, would see even more people using bikes to travel to work and school and for exercise.

Peter Fordham

Sutton, Surrey

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/28/olympics-and-safe-cycle-routes

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Travel writer Kevin Rushby looks back at the people he's met on his Guardian assignments, from the UK to Mongolia

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/interactive/2011/feb/11/photography-uk

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Wild fans and large audiences have incredulous arrow throwers asking 'where will it all end?'

I have been reading the autobiography of the comedian and actor Steve Martin, which fails to address the question of why such an exciting, funny performer chose to appear in so many dull films but is very interesting on the phenomenon of exponential growth.

At least, I think exponential is the word I am looking for, although I have had little involvement in mathematics since passing the O?level exam some 40-odd years ago and walking away, saying: "My work here is done."

Anyway, this sounds pretty exponential to me. For years Martin played to small and medium-sized venues with his quirky magic/banjo/comedy act but then a few appearances on Saturday Night Live, a glowing review of a gig in Miami and the apparent endorsement of America's leading arbiter of comedy Johnny Carson, combined to create the conditions for him to go boffo, or whatever it is they say in the United States. Martin is as mystified as anyone.

"How many people are out there?" he asks in Dallas. "Two thousand? How could there be two thousand?" Soon there are 18,695, at The Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio, Martin's life now passing in a whirl. Sixty cities in 63 days, subsisting on room service deep?fried breaded shrimp "with the texture of sandpaper, really just a ketchup delivery system". Forty-five thousand tickets sold in New York.

It is something of a leap from the US's first big concert-hall comedy star to darts player Raymond van Barneveld who nobody, even here at Screen Break headquarters, would describe as a wild and crazy guy but Barney's puzzlement, interviewed in front of eight thousand cheering fans in Belfast on Thursday, mirrored Martin's when his hundreds became thousands.

"Where is it going to end?" asked Barney, after his Premier League victory over Adrian Lewis. "Eight thousand here, 10,000 at the O2. After football, this is the second best televised sport ever." The credit for the success of the Premier League should probably be shared between Barry Hearn and the ready supply of alcohol which undoubtedly helps foster the wild enthusiasm of the fans.

We will come to Hearn shortly, but among those scrawled messages the spectators wave at the cameras going into the commercial break, my favourite in Belfast was one reading simply: "Tanya Doherty On The Cider Again." In the melee, it was not clear whether Tanya herself was holding up the banner, maybe celebrating the end of a period of abstinence, in which case, welcome back Tanya, from all those of us convinced of the benefits of a glass of wine with the evening meal and a small single malt before bedtime. Or could it have been an economic cri de coeur from Tanya, forced by circumstances in these difficult times to abandon her grown-up booze and return to her more competitively priced student tipple?

Perhaps the message was a warning from one of Ms Doherty's companions to those waiting at home, to prepare to greet a Tanya high on cider and tungsten. Or might it simply have been a plug for one of those Irish novels you never quite get round to reading, Tanya Doherty On The Cider Again?

As to Hearn, the darts Premier League he has cooked up with Sky is a brilliant construct, building on the success of the PDC World Championship at Alexandra Palace by taking the top eight players to decent-sized venues around the country, where they play each other in a league format, culminating in a top-four play?off.

I am with Hearn on the play-off system, believing it maintains interest for more clubs, as in Super League, and the Football League. He was on Gabby Logan's show on BBC 5 Live last week, talking about reviving sports through "short forms" ? snooker is his latest project ? without compromising the integrity of traditional competitions.

The inescapable conclusion was that the unnecessarily drawn out cricket World Cup would be a whole lot better if it were all handed over to Hearn.

With darts, of course, there is not a whole lot of tradition to be preserved, unless you count Freddie Trueman's pipe, pint of beer, and cheery "I'll si-thee" on Yorkshire Television's Indoor League in the 1970s, so Hearn has been free to build the entertainment around the characters whose roadshow round Britain is like one of Martin's coast-to-coast tours. While none yet has come up with a line quite as brilliant as Steve's: "I've learned in comedy never to alienate the audience. Otherwise I would be like Dimitri in La Condition Humaine", there is fun to be had.

I particularly enjoy Simon Whitlock's outrageous ponytail, and the work of James Wade, who does a little shuffle on stage and flirts slightly with the promotion girls hired to walk on with the players.

It is indecently entertaining for such a simple game, the only fear being that as it moves on to the next level it may become the sporting equivalent of Parenthood or Father Of The Bride II.

Martin Kelner

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/feb/28/barry-hearn-darts-steve-martin

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From mysterious pony deaths on Bodmin Moor to a grey whale in a calving lagoon, this week's pick of images from the natural world

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2011/feb/25/week-in-wildlife-in-pictures

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Istanbul straddles Europe and Asia, has a population of 13m and manages to be both lavishly ancient and vibrantly modern. But how do you pin down such a restless, dynamic city?

In the lobby of the cinema in Istanbul's Nisantasi district, salon-tanned kids stretch out on sofas overlooking the lights of the city, before a blue-lit cocktail bar. It takes me a while to realise that these glamorous teenagers aren't here to see Public Enemies or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; they've come to the cinema lobby just to make the scene.

I'd heard for years that Istanbul, which was one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2010, calls itself "Europe's coolest city". It's certainly one of the most complex ? the centre of a country that is 98% Islamic yet increasingly famous for its watermelon martinis. Here is a place whose Blue Mosque has an LCD screen flashing the time in Paris and Tokyo. Turkey's most cosmopolitan metropolis has more billionaires than any city other than New York, Moscow and London, and when I went to its Istinye Park mall, it was to see Aston Martin DB9s and Bentleys jammed outside a gilded avenue of fortresses labelled "Armani", "Gucci", "Vuitton" and "Dior". To my friends in business, and to many proud Istanbulians, this city is where the Islamic world meets the global order, serving as a bridge ? literal and metaphorical ? between Europe and the outer edges of Asia. But still nothing had prepared me for the flash and glitter of it all.

We foreigners like to recall that Istanbul is the only city on earth with one shore in Asia and one in Europe. But its real heart, according to its eloquent son, Orhan Pamuk, in his evocative memoir Istanbul: Memories of a City, lies rather in the division between the old (which is usually the local and the Islamic) and the new (generally the western and the secular). The relation between the two is still tense: I had to walk through a security machine just to go to the movies. And Pamuk himself, though Turkey's most famous modern citizen, was brought to trial in 2005 simply for mentioning his country's brutal treatment of Armenians in 1915 (the next year, perhaps in response, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature).

Istanbul today seems as compressed and vital a model of the larger globe as you could find; one morning, when I awoke just before dawn, I could hear the call to Islamic prayer from every minaret, even as I could faintly make out the sound of hip-hop pounding along the streets. I've always been something of a global creature: I was born in England to parents from India and I grew up in California, though I now live in Japan ? and for much of my life I've sought out global places that are trying to piece together, as I am, disparate cultures and identities, to make a stained-glass whole.

Istanbul is most attractive to many for its complex, layered past ? its harems and mosques and cemeteries and bazaars; but for me it's intriguing as an image of the future. It was no surprise, I thought, that President Obama visited the city within three months of taking office. The minute I arrived in town ? my first trip back in more than 20 years ? I could feel the contemporary excitement that makes Istanbul one of the hottest destinations around. The narrow, cobblestoned streets around Ortak�y Mosque were so crowded on a Saturday evening, close to midnight, that I could hardly walk. Little boys were letting off neon-blue paper dragonflies, like homemade fireworks, and local girls whose tiny skirts and wild blonde tresses suggested Shakira were slipping past black-clad doormen at the Angelique nightspot. A small stall was offering tarot readings and tattoos, and behind it the Bosphorus Bridge was bathed in red hues, then blue, then yellow, so it seemed more a giant Slinky than a thoroughfare between two continents.

The particular promise and confidence of the city today lies to some extent in the fact that it has been three times the centre of the world; for centuries it has known how to talk and trade with Russia to the north, Iran to the east, Central Asia just behind and Europe all around. Unlike, say, a Dubai or an Abu Dhabi it can be in tune with the future precisely because it has so rich a sense of the past and such seasoned wisdom about the cycles of culture and history. I walked into the spice bazaar one day and found LCD signs in Japanese (though the merchants there were fast-talking in French and Portuguese and Spanish). And the most commonly seen couples in the backpacker area of the old district of Sultanahmet were beaming young Korean women on the arms of leather-jacketed young Turks who'd just won them over.

Around them, the handful of restored Ottoman boutique hotels that had greeted me in 1986 now numbered 200. Everywhere there seemed to be a natural savoir faire that reminded me of cities such as Mumbai and Shanghai, able to rise from every setback to put themselves in sync with the moment. Even the 6th-century caverns at the Basilica Cistern are lit now in nightclub colours with "Summertime, and the livin' is easy" piped incongruously around its Medusa columns.

Yet for all the racy Italian fashion ads (on the Asian side of town) and for all the salesmen (on the European side) laying down carpets on the streets at 9pm from which to sell toys and electric shavers, the city can seem to the anxious as if it's on its way to becoming the next trendy, but perennially torn, Beirut. To this day, more than 97% of Turkey is Asian, which makes Istanbul an anomaly as well as a beacon. And a city of 500,000 souls in 1920 now contains up to 25 times that many as people flood in from the Anatolian heartland, perhaps unsure themselves whether the economic opportunities the city offers are worth embracing if they also bring with them secular European values. The newspapers were all talking, when I visited, about a new "hip" mosque in the �sk�dar area, said to be the first such building designed by a woman. But it seemed a fair guess that the silent majority across the country, away from the imported surfaces, still saw "hipness" and mosques as pointing in opposite directions.

"It's the most eastern part of the west and the most western part of the east," a Turkish student said when I asked a class in the smallish city of Isparta (through its American teacher) what they thought of Istanbul. He didn't add that that could result in collision as much as in collusion. I kept trying to remember how Istanbul might look to a Turk, for whom it is an invigorating model of the future. If foreigners are always drawn to what is "Turkish" about the place, the Turks who pour in from the interior are, for equally good reason, drawn towards everything that seems cutting-edge and international. One of the students I'd questioned told me: "People in Turkey say: 'The earth of Istanbul is made of gold.'"

It certainly can seem that way around the boutiques and caf�s of the privileged quarters. After staying across the street from the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, I moved one day over to the Bentley Hotel, near Nisantasi, and walked into a minimalist white-and-black lobby with fashion magazines from Sweden laid out on a table. A framed letter next to the front desk expressed the thanks of a cardinal who had stayed here recently while travelling with the Pope. And after checking into a designer room there, I took a taxi down to the Istanbul Modern Art Museum, whose in-your-face canvases shout out that Turkey today refuses to be boxed inside a foreigner's quaint notions of it.

Since the summer day was buoyant and warm, I boarded a cruise ship travelling up the Bosphorus, and as we passed the yali summer houses set along the water, I was forcibly reminded that affluence and style are nothing new here; novelist Gustave Flaubert, visiting in 1850, had said that Istanbul, a century hence, would be the capital of the world. At the Sakip Sabanci Museum, much of fortunate Istanbul was reclining on the museum's lawns listening to live jazz as men in polo shirts picked nonchalantly at slices of watermelon; the museum's restaurant had, in 2007, been named by Wallpaper* magazine as one of the hottest new eateries on the planet. In the old wooden houses of Arnavutk�y, not far away, trendy couples were dining on terraces filled with bright flowers, as if posing for a vision of what many young Turks in the countryside might see as the good life.

"Turkey managed to live through, in 2007, the paradox of an elected party rooted in Islamic tradition stating that it wishes to maintain the secular republic set up by Kemal Atat�rk in 1923," Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar, a political science professor in California, told me, and it survived the further paradox of the nation's military, determined to protect that secularism, refraining from taking over the new government by force. If Turkey could maintain such a balance, my friend, an expert on the Middle East, had said, he had high hopes for it. But culturally the whole country seems to be perched on a tightrope.

Just three weeks before I arrived, the city had placed a ban on smoking in its coffeehouses and eating places; this seemed about as plausible as banning red wine in Paris or noodles on the streets of Beijing. By the time I began walking around, angry proprietors were already launching loud protests in the streets, claiming that the ruling had stripped them of up to 80% of their business. And for those who love Istanbul, the small change seemed symptomatic of a city that was eager to show how European and modern it was, even though its heart ? and character ? lie in its very pungency and closeness to its eastern roots.

"Istanbul has always been about raw life, from the murderous driving and yawning potholes in the roads to the street brawls and the smoke-filled teahouses," Nigel McGilchrist, a sometime resident of Turkey and author of the Blue Guide Greece: The Aegean Islands told me of the city he has known for more than 30 years. "It's not Belgium or suburban Gloucestershire; it's the nearest thing to India in the west."

Even as Turkey cherishes its almost half-century-long wish to become a formal part of Europe, it seems reluctant to leave behind the ancient identity it still so proudly maintains. For centuries Istanbul has taken in Greeks and Armenians and Jews, and in areas such as Balat and Fener the echoes of their presence are what give the streets their savour. Yet none of those groups seems to have affected "Turkishness" at the core or coloured the city's sense of itself. After a week visiting every corner, I realised I had not seen a single woman working in a hotel or restaurant or caf�.

"I worry," McGilchrist went on, "that Turkey wants to become European in all the stale, bureaucratic ways, without embracing important, deep-rooted values of Europe, such as respecting the rights of dissenting writers to express their views."

And as I walked past the Robinson Crusoe bookshop, boasting its large selection of English-language books, as I sat in a little room in the orthodox area of Fatih, where a sheikh was leading followers in passionate Sufi chants to the sound of a tambourine, I began to feel that the power of the city lay precisely in the fact that its next move could never be anticipated. The true nature of Istanbul seems always in dispute ? or in passage, at least, like the boats constantly crisscrossing its waterways.

I had seen more chadors and head scarves here than I had noticed in Syria or Egypt ? but the women with blonde ponytails were still sipping $20 cosmopolitans among the trendy caf�s of Asmalimescit. There were few signs of the poverty I was used to in places like Jakarta or Marrakech. Yet outside the glamorous areas, Istanbul did not seem a wealthy city ? especially for the millions who stream in and end up in drab apartment blocks without the new lives they dreamed of. Statistically it claims to be one of the safest cities in Europe, but it didn't strike me as particularly friendly. Watchful and guarded, Istanbul seemed the place where the age-old reserve of Greece runs into the very different kind of foreignness of Pakistan.

Pamuk had been similarly circumspect in his evocation of the hometown he has been exploring all his life. "This is indeed a city moving westward," he had written, "but it's still not changing as fast as it talks." One day while I was there, phone lines back home to Japan went down for 24 hours. In the internet caf�s I found that Turkish-language keyboards prevented me from logging on to AOL. And as I checked out of my fairly fancy hotel in Sultanahmet, a gracious desk clerk asked me to write in a tip (a first, in my 30 years of travel). I did so ? but when he gave me back the bill I saw that he had doubled the amount on the sly.

On my very last night in Istanbul, I decided to put all my ideas and thoughts of a global future away. What really excited me about the place, I came to realise, was simply the sense of ceaseless movement, the way the energies of an Asian metropolis pulsed through largely European streets, so that the whole place seemed, intoxicatingly, a work in perpetual progress. And nowhere was the habit of making hard-and-fast distinctions dissolve more apparent than on the water.

So I stepped on to a ferry in Emin�n�, in Europe, and went across to �sk�dar, in Asia. On arrival, I passed through the turnstiles, turned around and bought another token for a ferry passing through the Golden Horn, back to Europe. The sun was starting to set, and the late-afternoon light turned every face to gold. Lovers were courting on the white wooden benches, waiters jounced past us carrying trays holding glasses of orange juice and apple tea. I watched secretaries in high heels teeter home through the sharpened dusk and giggling schoolgirls trying out their French on captive tourists on the boat. From every bridge we passed, men had thrown down fishing lines, which I'd never seen from the ferries of Hong Kong or New York.

To one side of us, the Bosphorus Bridge was turning red and blue and yellow again; to the other, the minarets and mosques of Sultanahmet looked more unearthly than ever, illuminated against a blue-black sky. As soon as you begin to know a place, I thought, all talk of "old" and "new" or "east" and "west" becomes redundant. Just the movements inside it, the way it comes closer and then slips away: that's all the excitement you need.

Essentials

Pegasus (flypgs.com) flies to Istanbul from Stansted from �65.56 one-way including taxes. Double rooms at Lush Hotel (+90 212 243 9595; lushhotel.com) start at ?139 including breakfast

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/feb/27/istanbul-minarets-and-martinis

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Projects cut short after government withdraws money earmarked for education and employment evaluation

The government has withdrawn millions of pounds earmarked for research and evaluation of its education, employment and business policies since it came to power, documents revealed to the Guardian show.

An evaluation of academy schools, set up under Labour, is one of several research projects to have been scrapped sparking renewed criticism that the coalition is abandoning evidence-based policymaking.

A group of statisticians and researchers, the Radical Statistics Group, who campaign for greater transparency in the use of official statistics, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a list of research projects which had been cancelled or cut short across four departments since May last year.

The responses reveal that 70 projects worth �8.9m over several years have been halted.

They include:

? A �400,000 evaluation of academies that was established under Labour

? A �2.8m survey of disabled children's services

? Six projects run under the auspices of the Department for Work and Pensions, including one on lone parents. In all, the department spent �612,000 in the current financial year on work that now won't be finished.

? Research on the Fire Service worth more than �177,000

? A survey of the public's views on social cohesion, discrimination and race relations known as the Citizenship Survey.

More than �715,000 has been spent on research that will not now be completed, the government's responses reveal. This is because many of the projects were already under way when the decision was made to terminate them.

The revelations fly in the face of David Cameron's claims that the government supports evidence-based policy-making. It follows claims from scientists in December that the government was rejecting evidence-based policy when it proposed that ministers would no longer be required to seek the advice of scientists when making drug classification policy.

Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE) have defended the scrapping of key evaluations and dismissed accusations that the cuts indicated a move towards more ideologically driven decision-making.

The Department for Education said the same amount would be spent on research this year as last year. A spokesman said the academies evaluation was commissioned by the previous government and little work had been undertaken. Its remit was confined to the previous government's sponsored academies and therefore excluded schools becoming academies under the current government, a spokesman said. He added that ministers were considering alternatives. "There is no point in simply doing research for research's sake ? it is only right that it reflects ministers' priorities and informs the policies of the government."

A DWP spokesman said ministers were "committed to evidence-based policy making," adding that the department expected to spend a total of �20m on research and evaluation in the current financial year.

A BIS spokesman said an assessment was "always" undertaken before decisions to curtail or cancel research were made. "Owing to a challenging spending review settlement, research needs to be prioritised in order to get the best value for money for the taxpayer," he said.

Defending the decision to axe the Citizens Survey, a spokeswoman for the DCLG said it was a "complex and expensive survey to run" and had been cancelled following a review of where savings could be made.

Academics have attacked the cuts. Ludi Simpson, professor of population studies at Manchester University, said cancellation of the Citizenship Survey was shortsighted. "The Citizenship Survey was the only source of assessing how people felt about immigration and integration. All surveys cost what they do. We will be left only with unrepresentative internet surveys, unsuitable for serious government policy-making."

A RadStats spokesman said: "Key government ministers have proved themselves to be practically innumerate in their use of existing evidence to justify new policy moves. How do we know they have cut/curtailed the right projects? And what plans have they to address any information gaps they have created to check their new policy moves are working? This could be a double whammy of waste ? wasted research monies on unusable research from curtailed research, and a waste of spending on policy moves that early evidence could show may not do what was expected of them."

Stephen Overell, associate director of policy, at The Work Foundation think tank, said the axing of so many projects cast doubt on the coalition's claims to support evidence-based policy. "The anxiety here is that ideology not evidence directs which research projects are cancelled or curtailed, leading to doubts about the coalition's commitment to evidence-based policymaking. Properly and independently evaluating government programmes and initiatives are a duty of policymakers that must underpin the policymaking process. It seems especially wasteful to be cutting research already well under way without deriving any value from it."

? Full FOI data can be found via Radstats at: http://en.wordpress.com/tag/reduced-statistics/

Mary O'Hara

Jessica Shepherd

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/26/money-research-education-policy

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Scott Parker was at the heart of West Ham's midfield dominance in a thrilling and vital 3-1 victory over Liverpool

Afternoon all: Looking back at Kenny Dalglish's last two visits to Upton Park as Liverpool's manager in 1988 for some omens drew something of a blank. In the league the defending champions won 2-0 with a starting XI featuring the rare combination of Peter Beardsley, Ian Rush and John Aldridge in the same side, the first two scoring. A month later they came back in the Littlewoods Cup with just Beardsley and Aldridge up front and lost 4-1 with goals from Tony Gale, a pair for Paul Ince and an own goal from Steve Staunton. Both West Ham line-ups featured Allen McKnightmare in goal, a keeper I had all but erased from my memory but who I now can't shake from featuring in recollections of very nervy displays.

I also checked the excellent "played for both sides" list on the AFS site and there have been so many that Hammers fans would wish to forget, notably Titi Camara, those who shone very briefly such as Rigobert Song and those like Rob Jones and Mike Marsh whose injuries did for them, much as Camara and Song did for Harry Redknapp. Starting for West Ham then going on to Anfield include Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson, Javier Mascherano, Joe Cole, Ince (eventually), Paul Konchesky and Daniel Sjolund.

Liverpool have gone for five at the back while West Ham's midfield looks the strongest quartet they've had for ages, though as Jacob Steinberg, readying himself for the League Cup final alongside me points out, lacking in pace. Anyway, should be a decent game.

Teams:

West Ham: Green, Jacobsen, Tomkins, Upson, Bridge, O'Neil, Noble, Parker, Hitzlsperger, Ba, Piquionne. Subs Subs: Boffin, Reid, Cole, Boa Morte, Spector, da Costa, Hines.

Liverpool: Reina, Johnson, Kelly, Carragher, Skrtel, Wilson, Lucas, Gerrard, Meireles, Kuyt, Suarez. Subs: Gulacsi, Kyrgiakos, Cole, Poulsen, Spearing, Maxi, Ngog.

An email pings in: From Gary Naylor, on emergency loan from Rob Smyth's OBO: "Liverpool appear to be playing as King Kenny would have played ? alas not in 1978, but in 2008. Is all this pragmatism what Liverpool fans expected?" I think they would, Gary, and would be pleased that there's been some steadying of the ship and a more logical approach to Raul Meireles's best position. The co-commentator today is Chris Coleman so we'll get a Welsh lilt to the analysis. Jacob sends me this footage of West Ham's 2-1 victory in 1997, the very one that Robbie Fowler and Ian Wright have just been reminiscing about in the studio. I failed to mention the surprise of seeing Matthew Upson in West Ham's starting XI. I thought he was out for the season but he's defied the medical opinions and returns. Wonder how he'll cope with Suarez.

1 min: Liverpool kick off attacking the Sir Trevor Brooking fan, not Sir Trev himself and attempt to build from the back before Johnson's short pass leaves Wilson straining to get there and the ball goes out for a throw.

3 min: Very good possession football from West Ham up their right in tight spaces, O'Neil and Jacobsen combining well and then Parker passes to Hitzelsperger who pops a diagonal pass to Ba before it comes back to the German who fires a shot from 25 yards that Reina plucks out of the air.

7 min: Kelly loses possession when facing the wrong way when hassled by Piquionne and Skrtel comes to his rescue by hacking Piquionne down 10 yards into the Liverpool half and gets booked.

9 min: Piquionne ends up on the grass when running to try to get his toe on a through ball from Parker but Mark Halsey thinks Carragher's block was fair and waves play on.

11 min: Long ball from O'Neil aimed at Ba in the D of the penalty area but Carragher, the spare man, reads it well and heads clear. West Ham keep coming, though, and don't look at all lacking in confidence.

13 min: Mistake from Tomkins who was afraid of conceding a corner so turned and passed it, aiming for touch, straight to Johnson. He checked inside and passed to Meireles who shot from 20 yards, weakly, and Green got down to pick the ball up. He launches his kick and West Ham win a corner.

15 min: Excellent and vicious inswinging corner from Der Hammer and although Liverpool head it clear it falls to O'Neil who shoots into the crowded box and the ball rebounds away. Then Liverpool break and Hitzlsperger powers back to tackle and give Liverpool a corner, which Meireles takes and Johnson heads on to Piquionne's arm, by his side, could have been a penalty but wasn't given.

18 min: O'Neil has started well on the right. Sky had him playing on the right of an attacking three but he's actually tucked further back in a midfield four. Here's Scott Stricker on the thorny subject of Steven Gerrard, who seems to get a lot of correspondents' goats. "How many ill-conceived 40 yard cross field balls can we expect from Gerrard today? As tonight is the Ooscars, is it possible he will be trying to get a late nomination for best supporting actor to the real Liverpool lead, Raul Meireles, by littering this game with hundreds of wasteful Hollywood passes?" I think one of his real weaknesses is occasionally overhitting routine passes to team-mates who would have to have the control of a Pele to deal with some of them.

20 min: Chris Coleman thinks Piquionne lacks heart, shouting "Go on Big Fella" when he let ba pass from Parker roll out for a goalkick instead of chasing it to the touchline. He's also had a go for his failure to ride Carragher's earlier challenge. Yet West Ham are playing well and Piquionne is playing his part. O'Neil links up well with Ba, who slipped the ball past Skrtel and bombed on.

GOAL!! West Ham 1-0 Liverpool (Parker) Parker bursts in from the right, beats Lucas or possibly Wilson, passes to Hitzlsperger who hits a lovely return round the corner and Parker's finish is an absolute peach, flicked with the outside of his right foot across Reina and into the right-hand corner of the Spaniard's net.

24 min: Another strong ruin from Ba wins West Ham a corner when he tries to skin Carragher. Reina's punch sets up a quick counter attack, Suarez running forward and leaving the two West Ham markers for dust, passes to Kuyt who shoots into the side netting.

27 min:West Ham come straight back at Liverpool with Noble dispossessing Meireles on halfway then storms forward and passes to O'Neil who fizzes a cross across the six-yard box and a lunging Ba can't reach it.

29 min: Some news from James Dart on the West Ham co-owner David Gold: "David Gold was today in hospital being treated for cholangitis and septicaemia, the club have confirmed. Gold, 74, was first taken ill on Wednesday evening and was unable to attend the Hammers' Barclays Premier League game against Liverpool this afternoon. His daughter, Jacqueline, said: "I saw my dad this morning and he is very poorly with cholangitis (inflammation of the bile duct) and septicaemia. "He is on powerful antibiotics and we hope to see an improvement in the next few days. "He asked me to be at the Liverpool game today on his behalf and is absolutely devastated he could not be there himself."

31 min: Suarez is limping after a challenge from Tomkins who threw the full weight of his body into the tackle. West Ham are pressing very adeptly and Hitzlsperger, in particular, looks like someone with energy to burn. It's been quite end-to-end but West Ham look comfortable in possession. The danger comes when they play the killer ball, or attempt to play the killer ball, rather, and Liverpool break with pace.

33 min: Suarez seems to have run off his knock and he wins a free kick off Tomkins who slides in to tackle him then handles when on the grass. Now Meireles is clutching his knee after another firm tackle from Parker. Here's Andrew Booth with some tactical insights: "Liverpool are playing the wrong formation here. With three centre backs minding three strikers they lack the numerical advantage at the back that makes the formation effective against other sides. It means the fullbacks are having to stay back to give support, so that the man for man midfield is also not having the time on the ball they need. Wonder how long before Kuyt starts to drop deeper to help out the midfield, fully blunting the Liverpool attack."

35 min: Piquionne is penalised for hand ball in the Liverpool area which allows Sky to show a couple of challenges in the West Ham area, one, where Tomkins just boots Suarez's standing leg, was inches inside the box and should have been a penalty.

37 min: "Liverpool would be far more dangerous if they did not have to rely on breaking with pace and Dirk Kuyt," writes Ian Copestake. As predicted by Andrew Booth, below, Kuyt has dropped deeper which leaves Suarez the sole target of a brace of Gerrard ineffectual long balls, easily picked off by Upson and Jacobsen.

39 min: Sky are eulogising "Matty Upson, the rock solid defender at the heart of West Ham". He's done well so far but not sure rock solid is the most apt description given his frailty. Kelly shoots from the right of the area, cutting in to hit it with his left but Green only has to go to ground to gather as it's a weak, bobbling scuffer.

41min: West Ham free kick, 25 yards out to the left of Liverpool's goal after Skrtel fouls Hitzlsperger to stop him shooting. Taken by Noble with his right and curled wide.

42min: Kelly goes down on a lung-burster of a dribble up the right wing when he grasps the back of his left thigh. That's a pinged hamstring.

43min: Liverpool substitution Joe Cole on for Martin Kelly. Liverpool go 4-4-2 with Johnson at right-back and Wilson at left-back, Cole on the left of midfield, Meireles, for now, stuck in Hodgson exile on the right.

GOAL!! West Ham 2-0 Liverpool (Ba) In the mixer! Green's goalkick on to Ba's head. He cushions header to Noble who rampages up the right wing, cuts back his cross to Ba by the penalty spot and he scores with a loopy diving header.

45min +2: "Oh lord, Demba Ba" is the Boleyn chant of choice to the tune of Kumbaya.

Half-time: A very assured performance from the Hammers going forward and though they've left themselves a little unmanned at the back after the first goal, they've been industrious and inventive. Liverpool are struggling to contain the thrusts down the left of their defence and were outnumbered in midfield. If Parker, O'Neil, Hitzlsperger and Noble have the stamina to keep pressing like they have, then it's a long road back for Liverpool. Back in ten minutes.

Email musings: Here's Richard Johnson: "This match highlights why it is so exciting to be a West Ham supporter. One never knows what the game might be like ?
I'm watching a Danish feed ? that's an Internet broadcast from Denmark, not and eating contest ? and they refer to Mr. Dalglish as 'King Kenny' as well. My Danish isn't that good, but is Stevie M$E playing? Also, regarding Tomkins at 35 minutes, could one not say he Carraghered Suarez?" He absolutely Carraghered him, Richard. Graeme Neill is from the other camp: "If Liverpool are to pull this back, Kenny needs to stick Gerrard on the right and play Meireles in his best position as he is clearly the better central midfielder. Either that or Gerrard will play a blinder from the centre in the second half just to spite me." And David Goldstone sees a cloud in the claret and blue sky: "Will be interesting to see the effect in the second half of one of Avram's famous half time team talks." Maybe he'll just let Parker do the honours again, David.

46min: Perhaps they'd be better putting Kuyt on the right and let Meireles play off Suarez instead of sticking either the Portuguese fella or Gerrard out there. They're off and Cole is free on the left and chips a cross across goal and Kuyt can't get there.

48min: Piquionne misplaces a clearance straight to Kuyt who plays it out to the right where Meireles hits a deep, dangerous cross after Bridge failed to close him down. Tomkins is paying attention, though, and dives to head over.

49min: Meireles limps off after his first-half injury. Ngog comes on for him.

49min: Ba, as the ex-professionals always put it, "looks a player", good feet and really fine control on his rangy dribbling bursts. Joe Cole cleans him out in a tackle, which looks a foul, but Liverpool get the benefit of the doubt and regain the initiative.

51min: Bridge plays an almost perfect hospital pass across from the left to Tomkins that Suarez is a toe-clipping away from nicking and the centre-half has to belt it into touch under pressure from Kuyt. From the throw West Ham win it back and Parker threads a pass to Ba, who runs across goal and clips his shot just wide.

53min:v West Ham corner after another Parker inspired attack. Short to Noble whose cross is headed clear by Carragher.

54min: Liverpool are all over the place positionally and keep giving the ball away. Parker whacks a pass forward that comes to Hitzlsperger who shapes to shoot with his left but is closed down and his right-foot shot is deflected for a corner. The German takes it and whips it in menacingly but Liverpool clear by sheer number of bodies.

56min: No signs of a Liverpool comeback or any coherence this last five minutes. They can't get any time on the ball ? until now when Gerrard bombs forward on the right but Upson reads his intentions and belts the cross away.

59min: West Ham's workrate would have Mick McCarthy talking about 10 shifts being put in. They're absolutely hounding Liverpool's midfield who can't get the space to play.

60min: Glorious 40 yard diagonal pass from Hitzlsperger to Piquionne who saunters past Wilson then changes the ball on to his left and rolls it to the German. Lucas does well to hassle him out of shooting with his left s0 he hits it with his swinger instead and it sails over the bar.

63min: Excellent Liverpool move at last, started by Lucas's clipped pass to Gerrard in a central position with his back to goal and he turns it round the corner to Suarez who tries to curl it in at the far post but Green dives to his left and saves well. Two Liverpool corners get the crowd going but are snuffed out by West Ham who bomb up the other end and O'Neil fools Wilson by shaping right and cutting in on his left to shoot. Reina clears for a corner that is looped back to the keeper.

65min: "Demba Ba could have gone home after his diving header and I would have been pleased with his performance," writes Andrew Stricker. "But now he's spinning and twisting and doing dribbling tricks ? I would also like to add how much I love diving headers." If you're tired of diving headers, Andrew, you're tired of life. Gary Naylor, an Evertonian, has a theory: "The way this match is going and the performance Wolves yesterday makes me think Blackpool are going down, but will Blackburn join them? It could be a Lancashire trio with Liverpool ? sorry, Wigan, joining them."

67min: Some worries over Parker's fitness before a West Ham corner, taken by Noble after he inadvertently knocked the ball out first time with his toe and picked the ball up. It should have been a Liverpool free-kick but wasn't. He gets a second chance with his corner and puts it on Piquionne's head. Should have scored as it was essentially a free header and he glances it wide.

69min: Cole takes up a more central position and turns a pass to Gerrard on the right of the Hammers' box. He shoots first time but Parker's there with a block.

71min: Suarez's neat feet almost got him a shooting chance in the box from the edge of the D, dribbling it past two but then being crowded out. From the breakdown Ngog runs forward and Suarez crosses to the back post, invitingly but to no one.

73min: Gerrard free from a West Ham throw in that came straight off Bridge's face and should have gone Liverpool's way. The ball bounces high in front of him but he gets his leg above the perpendicular to hit a dipping volley that Green tips over. From the corner West Ham break and Ba races on to Hitzlsperger's pass into Liverpool's box but Reina is sharp and gets there first. "West Ham certainly don't appear to be a team in the relegation zone today. Has Hitzlsperger made that much of a difference? From what I've seen, they appear to be winning this game in the middle of the park," writes Nick White. He certainly has, Nick, and the underrated O'Neil whose also played very well. Both players are very comfortable on the ball and keep possession in a way West Ham's other midfield alternatives don't always manage.

76min: Gerrard goes down in the box but doesn't appeal for a penalty but he still takes stick from West Ham's fans. Green kicks it up and Piquionne takes the long ball, turns, shoots and the ball slides under Reina but he's done enough to take the pace off and he twists and regains the ball a yard from the goalline.

78min: Sean D writes: "Stevie G's legs have completely gone. I wonder if there's a club on the continent that will still buy him for big(gish) money in the summer based on his reputation alone." Is it his legs, lack of an established role or positional discipline?

80min: Getting very bitty now as Parker tires a little and Liverpool start to get more ball but can't find a way through West Ham's defence who have been able to read the game very well thus far and pop out to intervene at crucial times, which always helps if you're attacked primarily and somewhat predictably through the middle.

82min: West Ham substitution. Piquionne off, Spector on.

83min: Liverpool start to push West Ham back for the past two minutes but penalty box pinball plays into West Ham's hands when Upson and Tomkins are reading the game as well as this, getting first to the knockdowns.

GOAL!! West Ham 2-1 Liverpool (Johnson) Just as I wrote that West Ham were defending well they blow about six opportunities to clear as the ball pings around the box and a sumptuous turn and cross from Suarez on the left flies across the six-yard line and Johnson bursts in to tap the ball into the net.

86min: Chris Coleman is pondering how good a partnership Suarez could make with "Big Carroll". There's something about the way he says it in that Swansea accent that makes Big Carroll sound like the queen of Mumbles nightlife.

88min: Gerrard free kick 30 yards out, fairly central but curled to the far post. It's overhit and West Ham have a goalkick. Off goes Ba and on comes Carlton Cole.

89min: Peter Ranger writes: "Has Steven Gerrard ever had any positional awareness to lose? Also Lucas is slowly becoming quite a good player, which I think is partly down to being used more than just as a Makelele-esque holding player, he's certainly not worse than Arsenal's step-over less Denilson." I think you may be on to something there, Peter. Noble is now on the right and gets a shooting chance he puts to Reina's left. Reina dives to catch.

GOAL!! West Ham 3-1 Liverpool (Carlton Cole) When Reina tried to clear after saving, Cole came too close to block his clearance and Liverpool got a free kick that Reina kicks straight to Bridge, I think. The ball is played to Cole in the inside left channel, he spins Skrtle and leaves him on the floor, looks up and hits a fine low shot past Reina.

90min+2: The Hammers almost went to sleep straight after scoring and Suarez was left free to shoot, wide as it turned out.

Final whistle: West Ham 3-1 Liverpool. Wigan go bottom, the Hammers up to 18th and that was a deserved victory, full of commitment, good passing, energy and some intelligent movement from Ba. That midfield, if it can play the next 10 games, will give them a fine chance of avoiding relegation. Noble, Parker, O'Neil and Hitzlsperger were all outstanding as were Upson and Tomkins at the back, Jacobsen looked tidy, and Ba is a handful. As for Liverpool, they were woeful. The five at the back, three at the back, whatever, didn't work after the first 15 minutes when the Hammers four v three in midfield took the game away from them. A really enjoyable match, not for the Liverpool fans, of course, but better than most. Thanks for your emails. Please join Jacob Steinberg for the League Cup final now where I expect he'll be happy to talk about West Ham for a few minutes. For happy, read ecstatic. Bye

Rob Bagchi

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/27/west-ham-liverpool-live-report

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