Polish leader criticises David Cameron’s plan to cut EU budget and ‘language of state protectionism’ Poland is to spearhead a drive to encourage “more and more” eastern European countries to join the EU when it takes over the presidency of the 27-member union in July, the prime minister has said. In an outspoken interview with the Guardian and its European media partners, Donald Tusk said the growing European preoccupation with the south should not come at the expense of the east. He also criticised David Cameron’s plan to cut the EU budget and seemed to take a swipe at British and French leaders when he chastised “certain European politicians, who at a time of crisis speak the language of national egotism and state protectionism”. Such leaders “do not understand the European idea”, he said, adding that the Anglo-French push for military action against Libya was “yet another example of European hypocrisy”. He said it was inevitable that some of the focus of Poland’s forthcoming EU presidency – Tusk takes over from Hungary’s Viktor Orban on 1 July – would switch to the “south”, given the implications for southern Europe of events in north Africa. But he added: “We cannot allow the events in north Africa to block the enlargement of the EU. “Can someone explain to me why Croatia [should suffer because of] Gaddafi? And can anyone for instance defend the point of view that, given the events, the negotiations with Turkey have become less, rather than more, important?” He added: “I believe that today Poland is a very good example of a country that was worth investing in, a country which for historical reasons had for many years been outside the European Union.” Therefore, he said, “the eastern partnership is going to be a very important task and challenge for Poland during the EU presidency but also after the presidency”. Tusk vehemently denied that the EU’s welcoming approach to Belarus and Ukraine had failed, given that there was a dictator (Alexander Lukashenko) still in power in the former, and that the historically undemocratic Viktor Yanukovych has won elections in the latter. “Just imagine this sort of conversation 30 years ago if someone in Paris – or London for that matter – had said, after the introduction of martial law and the suppression of Solidarity [in Poland in 1981], ‘it’s not worth giving them anything, it’s not worth investing in them because they have already lost’,” said Tusk, referring to the Gdansk trade union movement he once belonged to, which rebelled against Poland’s Soviet overlords 30 years ago. “As far as Belarus is concerned, we see very effective ways of dealing with the dictator, military and secret police. Anyone who visited Belarus five years ago and then today knows how many more troubles are now posed by the people to the dictator. Listen, just how many people believed that it would be possible to build a western-style democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan? So why would it be impossible, if we act wisely, for western European democratic values to also be adopted in states such as Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and the Balkans?” he said. “We should believe in the strength and vitality of the values which constitute the EU and which neighbouring states can believe in and aspire to join.” It should be an aspiration of the EU to have “more and more neighbours wanting to join”, he added. Tusk, who has been prime minister since November 2007, admitted he was disappointed last autumn when David Cameron proposed cutting the EU budget, of which Poland, as a large, relatively poor member, is the biggest beneficiary. In the current seven-year budget, Poland gets far more money than the other 27 EU member states, netting some €6.5bn. Cameron’s proposal led to several months of extremely frosty Anglo-Polish relations. The Poles believe the British PM wanted to cut so-called “cohesion” funds , which allow countries to build motorways and pay for expensive environmental projects, such as reforestation. Most of Poland’s EU money comes from this source, which is the second biggest item on the EU budget after the common agricultural policy. But Tusk said that any suggestion that big spending on cohesion funds had precipitated the financial crisis was absurd. “Let us recollect the true reason for the current crisis,” he said. “Where are the villains of that piece? Where do they reside? Where were those institutions that led to the financial crisis? Are they in Bucharest or Vilnius? Or in New York and London? Therefore what is it that we are talking about? If we are talking about preventing the financial crisis then let us leave the budget alone. It is actually quite easy to prove that EU spending is the best remedy against the crisis in the majority of countries.” Rather than cutting funds, Tusk proposed the “reinstatement” of some common values into the EU: “Common sense, decency, courage to take action – and also to live within your own means and not on credit.” He said Poland was in “no hurry” to join the euro, but was committed to doing so at some point. Tusk said he envisaged meeting the Maastricht entry criteria by 2015, but that was not to be taken as the date for Polish accession to the eurozone. “I can confirm that Poland should become a eurozone country, and not just because of the treaties that have been signed, but because I consider it of strategic interest both for Poland and the EU,” said Tusk. He added that “today Poland meets many of the Maastricht criteria better than some eurozone countries”. Tusk admitted his dismay in February when the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, proposed a separate EU summit for eurozone members. He said it was correct that he had said: “Why are you trying to show divisions? Are we getting in your way? You are humiliating us,” as quoted in the Economist last month. But, he said: “I’m plain incapable of getting angry with Angela Merkel and likewise. The truth is that I was convinced then and am convinced today that an attempt to divide Europe in two clubs, where for example the eurozone countries would form one separate club, is definitely wrong. I guess I would not breach any confidences here if I were to say that the absolute majority of leaders from eurozone countries claimed that I was right.” He also suggested Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy were wrong to commit to military action in Libya. While stressing that Poland would help on a humanitarian level, Tusk said the logic for intervening in Libya and not against other dictatorships was flawed. He said: “Not all of the arguments for military intervention in Libya are convincing to us. Do you actually believe that Gaddafi had not been shooting his people before? Do you really believe that Bahrain is a softer regime? Do Sudan and Chad not also face drama that is comparable to what is happening in Libya?” Poles were well aware of the need to protect innocent people from violent dictators, said the former Solidarity activist, because “we have experienced it ourselves, in the flesh. The authorities in Poland were also shooting at their own people, so there is no need to teach Poles sensitivity on that issue.” But, he said, Europe was now in an awkward position. “I asked this question in Brussels: is Europe prepared to defend human rights of citizens in all those countries where rights are violated? Shall we be as determined in all other cases as we are here? Libya’s case is fully justified as far as the need to protect people from the violence of the brutal regime is concerned but still, isn’t this yet another example of European hypocrisy if we take into consideration the way Europe had been treating Libya and Gaddafi through many of the previous years?” He added: “When the armed forces are used in the face of an ideal, such as human rights, no one should assume we would be relieved of our responsibility should another case arise elsewhere. We should avoid this ambiguity at all costs, this sense that Europe only takes action when it is comfortable to do so or where the oil is. “If we want to protect people against dictators or repression or torture, don’t you need that rule to be universal so as to not end up with a situation where we do so only when it is comfortable, profitable and safe?” Tusk said that Poland was a respected member of the EU, “whether or not we send troops to one of the Arab countries”. The Polish deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated that it was willing to help the right cause, he said. In the past year there have been around 3,000 Polish troops in Afghanistan, and at its peak there were 2,500 in Iraq. Poland Europe European Union David Cameron Libya Middle East Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
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Leave half a million pounds to a cat sanctuary? How I would love to have the courage Oh, I love a good inheritance row, don’t you? I enjoy the ones involving multimillion-dollar fortunes, of course, like the one currently being scrabbled over by the bereaved children of Tony Curtis . Sometimes the thought of so much waste – such
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‘Every now and then my mobile phone would light up as someone rang. I’d claw at my seatbelt, trying to reach it, then give up in pain’ It was 20 September 2007 and I had just finished the night shift at a local supermarket near my home in Maple Valley, Washington. I
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The Nolan sisters have lived through a lot – sexual abuse, cancer and a series of fall-outs – all in the glare of the media. We meet four (but not all) of them It is difficult, frankly, to know where to begin. In the 32 years since the release of their career-defining song, I’m in the Mood For Dancing, the Nolans, Ireland’s most famous singing siblings, have endured everything from musical ridicule to philandering husbands, breech births to bereavements, the early onset of Alzheimer’s in one parent, the revelation that the other was once a sexual abuser and no fewer than three cancer scares. There have been suicidal lows, unlikely rescues by daytime television, an awful lot of panto and the kind of family fallouts that should perhaps have remained private rather than played out within the pages of the tabloids. One way or another, the Nolans have made very heavy weather out of light entertainment. It is a Monday afternoon in central London and the four most instantly recognisable Nolans – Maureen, 56, Linda, 52, Bernie, 50, and Coleen, 47 – are gathered together in the boardroom of their publisher’s office. Up close, they are coiffed, rouged and perfumed, as vivid as Technicolor on the biggest of cinema screens, and similarly loud. Two years ago, they were offered the chance of a reunion tour. The tour went well – “Better than we could have ever imagined,” says Linda – and so began a revival of sorts. A publisher contacted them shortly afterwards, asking if they would like to tell their soap-operatic story in book form. Anne and Coleen have published individual biographies before, but they had never done so as a group. They tried to make it as candid as possible. “What’s the point otherwise?” argues Coleen. This, she confesses, meant it was often painful. “Admitting I cheated on my husband before he cheated on me wasn’t easy, but it was the truth, you know?” Survivors reads less like a typically ghosted celebrity memoir than a series of breathlessly delivered monologues, and the exhausting rollercoaster ride they describe would surely have seen off many lesser mortals. “Life has certainly been eventful,” says Linda, beaming with something resembling a soldier’s pride. They were born in Ireland to Tommy and Maureen Nolan, a husband-and-wife singing duo who would have eight children altogether – six girls and two boys. “It got to the stage,” Bernie says, “where they didn’t talk about whether the new baby was going to be a boy or a girl, but whether they could sing.” The majority of them could and did so professionally from an early age. Like the Jacksons and the Osmonds, they were a family troupe who performed endlessly on back-to-back tours and on television, and to hell with the requirements of a normal upbringing. “Oh, but it was a fantastic childhood, really,” says Maureen, by far the most serene of the sisters. “Yes,” interrupts Bernie, easily the sharpest, who chops out words the way a bad-tempered chef does a carrot, “but it was also abnormal. You look back on our childhood, and that’s what you have to say about it: it was abnormal.” They would regularly play nightclubs during the week, she says, while their father/manager would wait for them at the bar, drinking himself drunk. Then, at 3am, he would drive them home, and leave it to their mother to wake them the morning after for school. “As a parent now,” Coleen says, “you do think, ‘How on earth did they do that to us?’” “It was totally wrong,” says Bernie. “No wonder the child working laws are so much stricter now.” Throughout much of this time, though none of them knew it, their father was also sexually abusing his eldest daughter, Anne. He was frequently violent, too. Anne and his wife – his preferred victims – elected to suffer in stoical silence. Tommy Nolan died, aged 78, in 1998. A year later, Anne unloaded her secret on her sisters, and in 2008 wrote a book about it. “Until that point, we were the kind of family that always swept everything under the carpet,” says Coleen. “But you realise after a while that, actually, you don’t want to sweep everything under the carpet. You want to be able to stand up and speak out, you know?” While three of her sisters nod in agreement, Bernie, lips pursed, doesn’t. “I personally wouldn’t have made that public,” she argues. “I’d have kept it private.” Linda: “It must have been difficult for Anne all those years, because everybody loved our father, absolutely loved him. She must have been seething. People say it was probably cathartic for her to write the book, and I’m sure it was …” If the publication of their elder sister’s book caused a rift within the family, then resentments had already been festering, they suggest, for some time. The rift promptly widened, to include the second oldest sister, Denise, when a record company requested that their reunion tour comprise only the four most successful Nolans. Denise had long since retired, claiming a life of showbiz was not for her, but Anne was actually the longest serving Nolan, singing with the band for a full 40 years. But in 1980, she took two years off in order to have children. It was during that time that the four of them made their biggest splash, particularly in Japan, where they quickly sold more records than the Beatles. The quartet’s late reunion turned into an excuse for all manner of ill feeling to bubble to the surface. “One too many glasses of wine were drunk,” is how Coleen puts it. “Things were said.” The result was a family meltdown. “Anne went to the press after we announced our tour and said all these horrible things about us,” says Linda, looking pained. “That was a shame, but then I suppose I’d have been devastated if I hadn’t been asked.” “Yes,” says Bernie, “but how do I put this politely? I think she would have retained more self-esteem if she hadn’t done it quite so publicly. OK, she may have been dying inside, but she could have done it privately.” But the Nolans never really did anything in private. When one of them went bankrupt, for example, they sold their bankruptcy story to the red tops in order to cover their debts. When Maureen got married, OK! Magazine offered to pay for it. “It seemed a good opportunity,” she writes in the book. “We decided to get married in Spain.” This latest souring made the rift a seemingly irrevocable, but last year it was Bernie who capitulated. “That kind of thing happens when you get cancer,” she deadpans. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, though she looks indomitable today. She explains that the two older sisters sent the four younger ones a letter saying that they should all be friends again, if not for one another then for the sake of the wider family. “But the letter was typed and not signed,” Bernie says. “Typed, and not signed! Can you believe it?” Nevertheless, she and Maureen responded affirmatively, while Coleen and Linda chose not to. Family get-togethers, then, remain awkward affairs, their poor brothers desperately attempting to establish a lasting peace, or at least a temporary ceasefire. “Oh, relations will never be the same again,” Linda says. “Not now.” The conversation then goes full circle, and the sisters talk among themselves about their father again, his drinking, his violent tendencies. “Why didn’t our mother just leave him?” Coleen wonders. “You didn’t, back then,” Bernie states. Maureen, looking sad, sighs. “All this bad talk about him makes me feel sorry for him,” she says. “It’s difficult. You don’t forgive a parent when they do the things he did, but you do continue to love them regardless. And for three quarters of the time, he really was a fantastic father. The good memories,” she decides, “stay with me far more than the bad ones.” Linda aside, the Nolans all have children themselves now, which means that the prospect of future Nolan entertainers looms large. Bernie is already trying to rein in her 11-year-old daughter, who daily demands an agent, and her own moment on the stage. Have the women learned from the mistakes of their parents and will they exercise excessive caution with their own offspring? “Have we learned from our parents’ mistakes?” Coleen says. “I’ll say. My mother had eight children. I stopped at three.” Survivors: Our Story is published by Pan Macmillan for £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846 Family guardian.co.uk
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Chelsea striker tells Stuart James he has more than football on his mind – his father is caught up in the Ivory Coast conflict Salomon Kalou has a huge weight on his mind and it has nothing to do with Chelsea’s Champions League defeat against Manchester United in midweek. The prospect of finishing the season at Stamford Bridge without a trophy is hard to contemplate but it pales into insignificance compared with the heartache Kalou feels when he turns his thoughts to his family and friends caught up in the conflict in the Ivory Coast. The bitter and bloody fallout from last November’s presidential elections has plunged the country where Kalou spent the first 17 years of his life back into civil war. Thousands have been killed and the harrowing images of the street battles in Abidjan, where his father, Antoine, and other members of his extended family live, together with the stories of food and water shortages in what was once West Africa’s most prosperous country, plague Kalou’s conscience. “It’s very hard to go on to the pitch and say I’m not thinking about people dying every day, I’m not thinking about my friends not eating, my dad not getting help,” Kalou says. “To be honest, I worry every day. I am thinking more about that than anything else. Any chance I have to go on the phone or to go on the news and check I do, because that’s my main priority. I need to make sure my family are safe. “I got my mum and five sisters out four days before it started. When we played against Benin in Ghana last month with Ivory Coast [in an African Cup of Nations qualifier moved to a neutral venue because of the violence], I got them to come and watch the game and from there they went to Togo. They can stay there until the end of the situation. My dad was going to come as well but the war started on the day he was going to come.” Kalou acknowledges he is in a fortunate position to be able to afford sanctuary for his mother and sisters in Togo for as long as they need it, but he feels “helpless” in relation to his father’s predicament. The problems in Abidjan mean that, at the time of this interview, which takes place at his home in Surrey on Thursday evening, Kalou has gone three days without speaking to his father. He is desperate to hear news of a peaceful resolution. “I don’t want to take any sides and I don’t want to get involved in the politics of the Ivory Coast because politics is for politicians, but it hurts me to see my friends, my brothers, killing each other,” he says. “Some of my best friends are from the north, I’m from the west, I have friends from the south – I have a lot of Ivorian friends. Ivorians don’t have problems with Ivorians. Politics are dividing people. But is that a reason for people to kill? Why not stop that now and talk. People from outside should help to bring peace. Bring food and water to people. That’s what I call worrying about the civilians. Then I can have respect for that and say those people really care. If your priority is to say one side loses and one side wins, then you are not stopping anything. They will keep
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Lib Dem peer says ministers must back proposals from the independent commission on banking, due to be published on Monday at 7am, as ‘radical reform was why we signed up with the Tories’ The coalition faces a “high noon” over its plans for the major banks as the government’s independent commission on banking prepares to set out ideas for a possible wide-ranging reform of the industry following of the financial crisis. Analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted Barclays could be most affected by proposals from Sir John Vickers and his four commissioners, followed by the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. HSBC and Standard Chartered are likely to be least affected by the reforms, which could force banks to dramatically change the way they run their operations. Lord Oakeshott – who resigned as a Lib Dem Treasury spokesman in the Lords over the failure to crack down on the banks – is keeping up the pressure on the coalition on Friday to adopt the recommendations, despite warnings from the major banks that they could quit London if reform is too radical. “Radical reform of the banks is right at the heart of the coalition agreement and a key reason why Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and the rest of us signed up with the Tories. It’s high noon for the coalition if we bottle out after Vickers’ final report,” said Oakeshott. The 200-page interim report was handed confidentially to senior ministers and their advisers as well as regulators tonight, ahead of formal publication at 7am on Monday. The banks will receive a copy an hour earlier. Such is the sensitivity of the report, every page of every copy has been stamped with the recipient’s identity. The commission, which was set up in June, is regarded as a key concession to the Liberal Democrats – particularly Vince Cable, who called for a break-up of the banks to separate their high street branches from their “casino” investment banking arms ahead of the election. However, Treasury sources were insisting that there were no divisions between Cable and George Osborne. “George and Vince set this up. Both went into the election arguing against the status quo,” a Treasury source said. The commission has two remits – to address the stability of the banks in the wake of the taxpayer bailout and to tackle competition following the Lloyds rescue of HBOS, which left the enlarged bank with a 30% share of current accounts, 24% of mortgages – more than any other bank – and a 23% share of small business banking, second only to RBS. Monday’s report will whittle down the wide-ranging ideas set out in an “issues paper” published by the commission in September and tackle structural changes, the new forms of loss-absorbing capital as well as the competition issues. It could also raise the possibility of a full-scale competition investigation. Barclays faces potential changes as the commission is expected to suggest capital is ring-fenced rather than allowed to swill around an entire bank supporting high street business and its Barclays Capital investment bank. RBS will be affected by such ideas but also by any proposals to inject competition into the high street – which will most affect Lloyds. Lloyds, which must already sell 600 branches to appease the EU, has hired consultants McKinsey to help with any restructuring demanded by the report. Oakeshott said: “Barclays is the biggest risk for the British economy because they are openly trying to build the biggest investment bank in the world on the back of a taxpayer guarantee. The right solution is for Barclays to demerge so shareholders get one share in Barclays Bank and one share in Barclays Capital. RBS must also spin off or sell its investment bank.” Vickers has stepped back from the most radical break-up options but said in January that he wanted to know “whether, and if so how” structural reforms could work and also set out ideas for subsidiarisation – where capital is ring-fenced either around business lines, geographic areas or operations such as cash machines. Any reform is not expected to take place until 2012, after a cabinet committee chaired by Osborne considers the final report – which is due in September. Industry leaders were urging the coalition to consider the impact that any overhaul to banks might have on the economy. John Cridland, CBI director-general, said: “To achieve economic recovery and growth the UK needs a strong banking sector that can provide credit and other essential financial products to businesses. Banking reforms must focus on building a stable and competitive sector for the future, free from taxpayer support.”. Banking Barclays HSBC Lloyds Banking Group Royal Bank of Scotland Standard Chartered Financial crisis Vince Cable George Osborne Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Newt n’ Bob And the Capitol Hill Follies Of 1995. Click here to view this media With yet another Government shutdown looming, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the last one – the one that lasted a while in 1995 . The last time the Republicans had a majority and got everyone in an uproar. Finger pointing everywhere. Accusations flew like confetti and the Government shutdown and sent some 800,000 workers home. It ended badly and it will most likely end badly again, but there are those who just loves them some chaos. So, as a reminder . . .here is the news via NPR’s Morning Edition for November 14, 1995.
Continue reading …Meredith Vieira Lets Donald Trump Spread Birther Lies — So NBC Scrambles to Fact-Check Him Afterward
April 8, 2011 No CommentAs reports that Meredith Vieira is planning an exit from NBC’s “Today Show” swirl, the anchor has sparked controversy over her failure to question a number of unsubstantiated challenges to the U.S. citizenship of President Barack Obama that Donald Trump floated in an interview with Vieira this morning. Trump–the billionaire real estate tycoon and reality TV figure who is flirting with a 2012 presidential run–again sought to suggest that Obama was not born in the United States. “Birther” activists on the right have circulated the unsubstantiated claim in an effort to depict Obama’s presidency as the outgrowth of a shadowy, constitutionally illegitimate conspiracy. The birther position has been thoroughly debunked , and it hasn’t gained traction within the journalistic mainstream. But Trump has nonetheless been on a media blitz in recent weeks promoting it. When the issue came up on “Today”–which airs on the same network as Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice”–Vieira didn’t exactly hold his feet to the fire. “His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth,” said Trump, reiterating a claim that has been proven false , as Vieira sat by silently. Critics took note.”Trump simply steamrolled over her challenges, for instance, on Hawaii’s policy as to what birth documents it makes available,” writes Time’s James Poniewozik . “But she also let him make the claim that Obama’s grandmother said she saw him born in Kenya–an old, and long-debunked, chestnut of birthers that ranks up there with the fake Mombassa birth certificate –without questioning it. So now millions of Today viewers are invited to take it as fact.” NBC quickly followed up with a “Fact Check” segment debunking all of Trump’s nonsense: Of course, the question is: Why couldn’t the interviewer have pointed Trump’s lies out to him in real time?
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Boris Johnson and David Cameron have also given in to the helmet brigade, but there’s no legal requirement to do so It is generally accepted that politicians carry a greater responsibility than the average person to lead by example – whether it’s by not fiddling their expenses or not sleeping with their secretaries if they espouse family values. But does this responsibility really extend to adherence to a non-existent law? Before he became mayor of London, Boris Johnson wrote that he refused to wear a cycle helmet on the grounds that he didn’t like “to be lured into any false sense of security” – there are studies suggesting helmeted riders take more risks than those without. But after taking office in 2008 Johnson capitulated to the health and safety police and bought an “undignified plastic hat” . He could not live with himself, he said, if people started to copy his “helmetless insouciance” and thereby put themselves in danger. He was also fed up of people tutting at him at traffic lights – or in the Evening Standard. David Cameron, too, eventually learned that it’s easier to give in to the helmet brigade than rail against them. When he first became opposition leader – those honeyed days when he didn’t have to fill his panniers because his chauffeur was in pursuit – Cameron was occasionally photographed bare-headed, or with his helmet dangling from the handlebars (the cycling equivalent of carrying condoms but refusing to wear them because it “just doesn’t feel the same”). He wouldn’t dare these days. All of this is ridiculous. It is not a legal requirement to wear a helmet in Britain (though Northern Ireland is on the road to introducing such a law ). If Norman Baker was not wearing a seatbelt or had run a red light he could be rightly admonished. But to criticise him for exercising a personal, legal choice is like chiding Andrew Lansley for eating cake when he is health secretary – daft. Helen Pidd’s cycling guide, Bicycle, is published by Penguin. Cycling Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
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Like Liverpool 45 years ago, Tottenham Hotspur found that pace means nothing without the ball The Champions League broadens horizons but it also sharpens perspectives. What may be laudable in domestic competitions can be a handicap on the bigger stage. Aspiring teams, confident of their abilities, are apt to find the Champions League a humbling experience. Wednesday’s opening leg of the quarter-final between Chelsea and Manchester United would have passed muster as a Premier League fixture. It was more entertaining than the series of clinches that are usually the case when these teams meet. The football was fast and eventful and there was plenty of goalmouth action. In Champions League terms, however, the standard of much of the play was indifferent. There were too many unforced errors and the ball was given away with depressing regularity. The one moment of genuine class was the superb touch with which Ryan Giggs met Michael Carrick’s crossfield pass before setting up Wayne Rooney for the winning goal. Perhaps we have all been spoiled by Barcelona. Teams of this quality come along once in a generation, if football is lucky, so everybody else is bound to suffer by comparison. Nevertheless, Barça are the ones to beat and, as Arsenal showed at the Emirates, they can be defeated. Last season, moreover, José Mourinho’s Internazionale found the organisation and the firepower to overcome Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals and Chelsea and Manchester United have each beaten them in recent tournaments. But that was then. The likelihood of a team emerging from a generally fallow season in the Premier League to take on Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and the rest and emerge triumphant was always doubtful. Manchester United are now the only serious candidates. Chelsea are hard to take seriously with their coach, Carlo Ancelotti, who was compelled to play Fernando Torres ahead of Nicolas Anelka as Didier Drogba’s partner in a Champions League quarter-final. Watching Torres fumble his way through the match while TV cut away to Roman Abramovich viewing his £50m signing impassively from the back of the stand, was to be reminded of the moment in Citizen Kane when the great man’s protege is singing her little heart out and the camera pans up to two stage hands on a platform high above. One looks at the other and their eyes meet in silent disapproval. On Tuesday night, Tottenham Hotspur could be said to have joined Arsenal in suffering the Camp Nou experience, except that their conquerors were not Barcelona but Real Madrid at the Bernabéu. Spurs, like Arsenal, had a player, Peter Crouch, sent off. Yet, even if they had remained at full strength, it was difficult to see how they would have been able to retain possession long enough to get the ball up to the tall
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