Johnny Hates Jazz

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6280663.stm




Brown backs England for World Cup

Mr Brown said he was supporting England's bid for 2018
Chancellor Gordon Brown has backed England to host and win the World Cup in 2018 - and not his native Scotland.
Mr Brown, the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said efforts to win the right to stage the World Cup in England would happen "in the next year or two".

When asked whom he would like to see win a 2018 World Cup competition in England, Mr Brown said: "The hosts."

He quickly added: "Of course, Scotland will do well, but let's just see how it all works out."

Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond Sturgeon said the comments made Mr Brown look "ridiculous in Scotland and insincere in England".

He said: "He is obviously trying to ingratiate himself to an English audience, but people in England would have far more respect for him if he was honest about these things and supported his own team.

"Gordon Brown is fast becoming a figure of fun in these matters.

"First he said that Paul Gasgoine's goal against Scotland in Euro 96 was his favourite football moment, then he supported a British Olympic team and now he seems to have completely lost the plot."

It was reported on Friday that Mr Brown would meet Fifa president Sepp Blatter next month.

The meeting has been set up by Sports Minister Richard Caborn for 28 February with a bid for the World Cup at the top of the agenda.

Mr Brown, who is likely to become prime minister when Tony Blair stands down later this year, has firmly attached himself to an England bid.

'Strongly supportive'

The Fifa president's influence will be a major factor in the success of any bid and he said last year he would welcome a bid from England as "the home of football" for 2018.

Mr Brown and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell last year launched a joint feasibility study into a bid.

That study is due to be published shortly and will be strongly supportive of the Football Association bidding to host the 2018 finals.

The chancellor is understood to view a successful World Cup bid as the sort of publicity coup which Mr Blair has enjoyed following London's success in landing the 2012 Olympics.

Questioned in Mumbai by the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson, Mr Brown said: "It will be great. Fifty years after we had it before. It is the right time for England to have it.

"It will mean we would have a most magnificent sporting decade with the Olympics in 2012 and the World Cup in 2018.

"All the effort to win England's place for the World Cup is going to happen in the next year or two."

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O dear, dear, dear.

We know a song about this man don't we children remember Jilted John

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English or British or European ?
- It's time to decide at the 2009 European Elections

Unionist

I can think of dozens of reasons to oppose Gordon Brown. His support for England to host the World Cup would not be top of the list.

g hall

The worrying thing is this buffoon will now be doing anything he possibly can as a photo shoot or stunt - the babies of the UK cannot sleep easy until he's put away

Britannist

It is Gordon Brown who has helped weaken the UK with his support for devolution. And now he has the cheek to warn of the dangers of the Union of the UK breaking up.

He and his Labour colleagues - The Late Donald Dewar, The Late Robin Cook, Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling, Blair, The Late John Smith and many others - all backed devolution (in a shabby deal with the europhile Lib Dims to carve up power between them on the Scottish Executive).

In doing so, they gave a platform to the europhile and anti-UK Scottish so-called Nationalists (SNP) who now could win more seats than Labour in the Scottish Parliamentary elections in May of this year.