Is the English Premier League in Freefall?

Pep about to go?

Klopp in full voice

The news that Pep Guardiola is to retire as Manchester City Manager, and the Premier League likely to be won by an Arsenal team that never fails to depress you with time wasting, professional fouls and a multitude of 1-0 victories, suggests that the halcyon days of the Premier League are in freefall. Liverpool have abandoned Klopp's heavy-metal football, with Arne Slot and his team of coaches now having them play ambient house football. Manchester United and Chelsea continue to spend millions and sack managers in quick time. The most enjoyable team to watch this season has been Bournemouth, and their manager, Andoni Iraola, is also leaving. 

What a contrast to watching teams like Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Barcelona, who play offensively with speed, passion and without the negative defensive traits of the Premier League. It is reminiscent of the 1990s, when Serie A was the go-to league for exciting football. Think Zola, Maradona, Van Basten, Batistuta, Zidane, Weah and superb defenders like Maldini, Baresi, and Nesta. 

It is time to forgo Sky, Football Focus, and Amazon with their ever-increasing platitudes served by their dirge of commentators. They have relegated coverage of the Championship, a real fan's league, which is withering as the Premier League accumulates almost all the TV and sponsorship money, creating a huge inequality in salaries for managers, players and agents who exist in the bubble of avarice that dominates the beautiful game. Paris Saint-Germain are showing us that football is best served in a spirit of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Let's hope that they put Arsenal to the sword.

Gianfranco Zola, Napoli Days

Keir is no Seer

As we begin to consume the journalistic flotsam from the elections, our journalists have given us a short menu of ready explanations for the seismic shift in voting patterns. There is little analysis of the policies of the parties or the burning issues at Scottish, Welsh or English local levels. It is all about the personalities and the roulette table of who has run out of chips. None more so than Sir Keir Starmer.

Even respected journalists like Pippa Crerar of the Guardian seem more fixated on bringing down Prime Ministers; she has already claimed the scalp of Boris Johnson, by exposing the profligacy of dodgy whisperers like Dominic Cummings and has now outed Peter Mandelson. Keir Starmer is in her sights, as he is for most other Parliamentary journalists, who are scouring the corridors of power and adjacent bars to gather details of plots from their secret cast of contacts. They are behaving like diary correspondents, but their celebrities are politicians. Unlike film and TV stars or game show contestants who are lionised, politicians are demonised. No wonder we have had five prime ministers in the last seven years. Mature functional democracies like Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland have had one, two, three and three respectively in the same period.

Meanwhile, the jackboots of populism are on the march. Keir Starmer accepted a suit, declared it and was hammered for corruption. Nigel Farage accepts £5million of cryptocurrency for his own personal use, which he doesn't declare, but it is already factored in as part of his cheeky chappie appeal. The fourth estate has lost its moral compass and is becoming guilty of hubris that is damaging our fragile democracy, which has no protection from a written constitution. 

Keir Starmer's government has shown fortitude in introducing an impressive array of policies to address priorities such as young children, health reform, housing, rent control, the minimum wage, and financial stability. After years of Austerity, Brexit, and Covid, the country needed measures to eradicate income inequality and improve public services that have been hollowed out since 2010. However, these policy changes have not been explained or reported well, nor have they progressed at any pace, as government processes become clogged by interdepartmental disputes and parliamentary inertia. They had also failed to set a positive agenda of change before the 2024 election, and by promising no changes to taxation, they thwarted their ability to make radical changes to the taxation regime that were necessary to create the headroom for radical policies.

The government has made mistakes like national insurance increases, removing winter fuel payments and making several U-turns, some of which show a lack of courage. It has created the sense of a government in office but not in power. There is a lack of a strategy, and Starmer's attempts to explain his decisions fall flat, devoid of any charisma, crispness or consistency as he wades through the attacks from the opposition parties, the media and his increasingly vocal MPs. 

Keir Starmer is basically honest and hard-working; he has had some success in his foreign policy, and the changes he promised to make have become bogged down in the Westminster inertia. He has lost or dismissed too many advisers and civil servants, which suggests that he is struggling in a job that has become almost impossible in the glare of the media and political inertia. The role of PM requires someone with a clear vision and the ability to communicate about the things that matter to the electorate, and with a veneer of pragmatic optimism. Unfortunately, Keir is no seer, which is why he is on the back foot defending the lack of progress and offering no alternative to incremental change.

Tiree

 

Tiree Flags

Saturday 2 May - Monday 4 May 2026

We departed Coll for Tiree on Saturday morning. The CalMac ferry was full of cyclists and runners for the May Bank Holiday Half Marathon and 10k Races. As always, it was a rueful experience to be leaving Coll, which was Aileen's special place. I spoke to the people running Tigh na Mara before leaving, and they confirmed their dismay at their view having been ruined by the construction of Controversial Cottage. Robert Sturgeon Jnr. still owned Tigh na Mara, and he had let it to them to run the B&B. It was only a kilometre to the ferry terminal; I could freewheel most of the way there with my rucksack, holdall and bag of provisions. As we waited for the ferry, we chatted to Uschi, a German woman and her daughter, whom we had spoken to on the ferry going to Coll and on a couple of other occasions as we cycled round the island. She had lived in southern Bavaria until moving to Halifax, Yorkshire, 15 years ago. She summed up her move by saying it was by serendipity that she had moved from the location of The Sound of Music to Happy Valley.

The sail across to Tiree takes less than an hour. We disembarked with a peloton of cyclists. Our rented house was at Vaul, near the start of the previous route of the half-marathon, but it had been switched to the old route starting at Traigh Shorobaidh, the beach near An Talla, the community centre at Crossapol. We had a 5-mile cycle to get to our house, so we booked a minibus to take our luggage. Gregor and Emily rode straight to the house, whilst I went to the coop in Scarinish to buy provisions and then cycled to the house. On the way to Vaul, I passed the flat we had rented in 1981 with our eldest daughter, who had her first birthday there. She learnt to walk on the deck of the CalMac ferry the next day as we returned to Oban. Oh, Happy Day.

I arrived at the house as the minibus delivered our luggage, and it then took G&E to Crossapol for the start of the race. I unpacked, had some lunch, and then cycled to Crossapol to watch the race. The start and finish of both the 10k and half marathon were along a long sandy beach, not the easiest surface for running. Emily came 5th  in the women's race; 20 minutes later, Gregor charged across the beach to win the half-marathon in a course record. We retreated to An Talla, G&E had booked a lift back in the minibus. I had an 11-kilometre cycle, but the roads are flat, and there was only a gentle breeze. We loaded up with some carbs before being picked up by the minibus for a night out at the Ceilidh.

With the world in a mess, wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, a rogue President in the United States, and the UK going through a mid-century crisis, we needed some solace. It happened. The atmosphere at An Talla for the Ceilidh was hugely convivial, almost electric and sustained by the bar. We found new friends around crowded tables, the dancing got wilder, and the laughter louder. Tiree was evaporating troubled thoughts, and nurturing fecund friendships and fun. I even attempted to teach Amanda from Shropshire the Eightsome Reel and Uschi the Gay Gordons. They survived.

On Sunday, we had a lie-in, and I then explored the nearby beaches at Vaul and cycled to the north of the island at Caolas, where I bumped into Carolyn, a Glasgow GP, whom I had met on the ferry. She was a Tiree devotee and off for a cold water bathe. In the evening, the clouds had dispersed, and Gregor and I went for a walk to the nearby headland. We were inspired by the light, the frolicking lambs, the distant views to the Sma' isles and the inventive conversions to the original cottages. The ferry back to Oban on Monday was running late and full of tired Tiree weekenders. Retrieving the car from a distant car park and fixing the bikes onto the car for the journey home was the only blight on a perfect long weekend on Coll and Tiree. 

Our rented house in 1981 on our first visit to Tiree

Lots of these

On the beach at the end of the races

Ceilidh

Prize Giving for Half Marathon

Caolas Beach Parking

Lots of these as well

Refurbished cottages

House for One near Vaul Bay

High Point (23m) at An Cap

CalMac ferry for return to Oban - pier by SRC

Isle of Coll

Thursday, 30 April 2026

We had stayed in an Airbnb in Oban and were up at 5:45am to catch the ferry. It was my 7th trip to the Isle of Coll, and the day was as perfect as perfect can be. We had rented Controversial Cottage near the ferry terminal, but we had more luggage than could be carried on the bikes, so it was two trips. The brand-new cottage was opposite the long-established B&B, Tigh na Mara, where we had stayed on two occasions. It had been run by Robert and Ruth Sturgeon. Aileen knew them from her visits as a child, and they made our 10-day stay with three youngish children a holiday to remember. We took bikes and cycled to almost every one of the 21 beaches. Ruth sent us out to forage for wild mushrooms, and Robert took us out in his boat in the evenings to collect lobsters from his creels.

At noon, we set off on the bikes to ride to the north east tip of the island at Sorisdale. On our last visit, just 4 years ago, Aileen and I had sat on the nearby headland and watched an otter, just metres away, as it ran past on its way to the sea. We continued to the nearby beach, Traigh Tuath, two bays of glorious white sand below the dunes with spectacular views to Canna, Rum and Eigg. We had some lunch and dozed on the warm sand for an hour. Gregor played with the drone that he had bought to record sections of his Big Run. 

We returned to the bikes for the return ride and stopped at a beach by the Fishing Gate beach, which has rapid tidal flows, rock pools and some large dunes that can be climbed. It has always been one of our favourite beaches. Gregor had lost his camera lens back at Cornaig, and the local farmer said he would look out for it on his quad bike. Lo and behold, he had found it and brought it to us. He was as friendly as friendly can be, and we spent over half an hour enjoying his tales of life on Tiree. We learnt how Controversial Cottage got its name, Kate Winslett had bought a house on the island and that Lewis Capaldi was a visitor who would give impromptu casual sessions in the bar. He seemed impressed that we had a long association with the island and knew many of the characters.

A meal in the hotel was our reward for a day on the bikes and a fine way to close the day. The next day was dry but overcast, so we whiled away the morning and had lunch in the Urchin Cafe. Gregor had a run, and we had a walk in the evening. It was the day before the Tiree races, so no cycling was attempted. Coll had been a success; it had not been on the original plan, but because we couldn't get the bikes on the boat from Oban on Saturday, we had decided to go to Coll, as there would be room for the bikes from Coll after the Coll traffic disembarked. It seemed a bit bizarre, and this was confirmed by the CalMac staff on board, who told us there would always be room for bikes. Thursday on Coll had been one of those very special 'given' days that reprised many previous happy days on Coll. 

Isle of Mull

Ardnamurchan Peninsular

Sorisdale Beach

Canna, Rum and Eigg from north of Coll

Traigh Tuath Beach

Fishing Gate- Bhuigistile

Torriston