A few weeks ago John Terry was reinstated as captain of the England football team. Such a decision raises many questions: Do we as a nation believe that time spend in the wilderness is a qualifier for redemption? Can the urge for a strong leader outweigh our misgivings towards said leader? And why on earth would anyone want to captain our bunch of overpaid also-rans on two separate occasions?
It was just over a year ago that it was revealed that John “Daddy of the year” Terry was found to be taking his work home with him and filling in for his absent left back colleague Wayne Bridge, by sleeping with his former girlfriend, allegedly. Capello promptly met with Terry and striped him of the captaincy – being stripped in public was quite embarrassing for Terry, as he normally gets stripped in the Wayne Bridge’s old bedroom.
People understandably felt sorry for Bridge, being publicly embarrassed through no fault of his own can’t have been pleasant – and to laugh at a man being publically embarrassed through no fault of his own would have only been fair if Bridge was appearing on a reality TV show.
No doubt Bridge will now want to put Terry and Chelsea behind him; to this end he has bagged himself a new girlfriend, none other than Frankie Sandford from the Saturdays. I would question the wisdom of him on this point – if you want a new start and to forget Terry and Chelsea… don’t enter into a relationship that will be referred to as “Sandford-Bridge” by the tabloids…
Nonetheless, the whole reinstating of Terry shows really how important a strong, charismatic and inspirational leader is. Such people can be a rare commodity, looking at the Tory party between the years 1990 to 2005 shows how difficult things can be. Fortunately for them, the Labour party recently found a leader who fulfils all of the above– but they decided to elect his brother instead.
Ed Miliband does however appear to get an unnecessarily large amount of criticism from the press, whilst he is busy trying to unite the Labour party; the press make accusations that he is trying to UNITE the Labour party. That said, Ed Miliband doesn’t appear to be the most charismatic and fired up person in the world – on the eve of the recent protests in London about the Governmental cuts he Tweeted:
“Speaking at the march today for a real and credible alternative to this Tory-led Govt. See some of you there. #march26”
I’m not really sure that when the Egyptian protestors descended into Cairo recently and rallied against the former Government led by President Mubarak that the rallying cry was “See some of you there”. But whether they did or not, ultimately they were successful and the Government was toppled – that said, most dodgy Pyramid schemes tend to collapse at some point.
I suppose the latest protests were designed to be more peaceful and to this end, Miliband had to be cautious not to stoke the fires (especially the ones burning on Oxford Street) too much. Prior to the off, it was said that anyone there with the sole purpose of partaking in violent and unruly acts were not welcome… but despite that the Metropolitan Police turned up anyway.
The pressure on a leader can be immense at times, Miliband himself has recently announced that he’s getting married to the woman he loves/the person his spin doctors have told him to marry in order to appease Middle England. Interestingly though his brother David will not be the Best Man. However David is invited, along with certain member of the Shadow Cabinet, there’s no need for anyone to officially RSVP though – the invite just says “see some of you there”…
All of this criticism is for a man who is ultimately in opposition, the pressures on David Cameron, like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major before him, must be immense. Recent troubles in Libya called for clear and decisive action, that is well thought out and planned efficiently – this was somewhat undermined when we got confused with the time difference and sent our SAS men into Benghazi in the middle of the night, so when they landed in the middle of nowhere in a helicopter, they didn’t have a clue where they were. The idea that going in the middle of the night as a clever disguise was quite preposterous; I might not be the sharpest chisel in the box (although I am pretty good at the wordsearch in the Times – I am not good enough to do the crossword yet) – but I think would competently spot a helicopter landing in the dark, the fact that something has 50 foot rotating blades and travels at 150+ miles per hour means that it will be quite noisy and therefore easy to spot, even at 3 in the morning.
In this respect I do feel for Cameron, as the situation in Libya does appear to be a bit of an unknown. The people of Libya clearly want Gadaffi out*, but the international community do not really appear to know their objectives – or indeed how to even achieve the objective that they’re not even sure of. A lot of the current debate is currently centring on whether the UK army currently have “Boots at ground level in Libya”… obviously if there isn’t, then our servicemen and woman will have to get their toiletries from another place, such as Lloyds Pharmacy or a more general retailer like Tesco.
The opposition facing Gadiffi is intense – irrespective of whether there are many Boots stores in Libya or not. He must live in fear and that fear will be greater than the fear felt by Terry when he opens the News of the World. With Gadaffi being hounded out by his people, he could be forced into exile from Libya – if that is that case, then you should watch out for him appearing on the well known Middle Eastern TV property show Home Under the Hamas.
The key thing for a leader however, is often the quality and unity of their lieutenants… if the people around you are of good quality and have faith in you, you will often succeed. Gadaffi recently had ignominy of having his Foreign Minister walk out on him and flee to the UK. The Foreign Minister in question, a man named Moussa Koussa (a man who is also presumably friends with Jack Black, Shaquille O'Neal, Jacques Chirac and Evil Knievel), took a bold move to flee to the UK, as he is said to have been involved in the Lockabie bombing and there was a real chance of him getting arrested when he arrived… that said… he was promptly questioned by Scotland Yard in respect of the Lockabie bombing… to which Moussa Koussa confirmed he was involved… so he was released and allowed to walk free…
Not really anything to do with the main body of this ‘blog post, but about 2 months ago I happened upon a protest against Gadaffi’s regime and the protestors were chanting “1,2,3,4… Gad-af-fi no more” which was good, but the word “Gadaffi” could easily been substituted for anyone else’s name. If they had chanted “1,2,3… remove Gad-af-fi” then it would give the impression that they were putting in a lot more effort. If you would like me to think up any chants in an attempt to remove any tyrants form power, please let me know.
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