In the evening before last, I joined with my American friend in the park for our little early evening strollwhich we are both beginning to enjoy. The cares of the da are generally behind us and we have a walk around the lake, a sit on or favourite bench and, of course, a chat. I handed over some press cuttings and a spare bottle of cordial. When I had visited Waitrose earlier in the day, the shop were selling two bottles of cordial for only 20p more than the price of one so I bought one for my friend and we shared them between us. Dog walkers often seem quite keen to stop and chat and of course there are always the dedicated runners in their Lycra who are doing their designated circuits. After I returned home, I had a light supper of some cheese and biscuits and a slice of water melon and looked forward to the Germany vs. Paraguay match. The course of the match went pretty much as the commentators had predicted with an incredibly stout and well organised defence by Paraguay and good German approach work which failed to supply the finishing touches. Towards the end of the game in which no goals had been scored, it looked as though Germany had headed a winner only for the goal to be disallowed after a VR review of what was adjudged to be a foul on the goalkeeper. Naturally, the Germans and the commentary team were incensed at what they thought was a poor decision, the bone of contention being whether the slight contact and collision with the Paraguayan goalkeeper was sufficiently serious for the subsequent goal to be disallowed. Whether this was or was not the case the football aficionados will argue about for years and I think one can say that in past, pre-VAR competitions, the goal would have been allowed to stand. But the best one can say is that VAR is being applied consistently in the competition and judged by this standard, the VAR ruling was not out of line with decisions made in other matches and so we proceeded to penalties. But Germany has had an excellent record with this to date but not in this crucial match and eventually Paraguay emerged as spot winners but to evident German distress. The first German player had his shot saved, the first time that this has happened in a German penalty shoot since 1982 which, of course, was over 40 years ago. There will be much soul searching over how German dominance has waned over the years and, it must be said that the tactics of a slow passing build-up but without definitive strikes at the end as cost Germany dear. (Much of the same fate may befall England in a day or so) In the morning, we had a meeting of the clans because my son, daughter-in-law and our domestic help all arrived and excitedly shared all their news with each other. My son and daughter-in-law had had a quick bird-watching break in Suffolk and had a good time with a very rewarding bird-watching experience as well as some excellent food and general hospitality.
In the late morning, I went down for my Pilates class with the normal attendees who have been doing his class for years now. Naturally, the heatwave and how we had survived it all was the dominant head of the conversation we had throughout the class but we all knew that we could not afford to be too complacent because we may well have another spell of hot weather over the forthcoming weekend. To avoid cooking, I had defrosted some mackerel fillets and these I had with some salad accompaniments for my principal midday meal. The political agenda was dominated by the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan over which there have already been some ministerial resignations as the amount of new money needed seems to fall short of what some would regard as essential. The UK will scrap some older weapons and kit, including Storm Shadow cruise missiles and a range of military helicopters, under a major investment plan which falls billions of pounds short of what military chiefs say they need. But it could have been worse. The Treasury agreed to give the Ministry of Defence an extra £1.5bn in the wake of John Healey resigning as defence secretary earlier in the month in protest at a lack of cash. This has pushed the total amount of extra money for the defence investment plan to £15bn in spending power over four years, but only £11.6bn of that amount is new money, with the rest comprising a reallocation of existing resources. In a further sign that Sir Keir Starmer belatedly believes even more money is needed to re-arm, his investment blueprint does say funding and plans behind a goal to push defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next parliament from around 2.3% now would be revealed in the next spending review, expected in 2027, where defence will be the number one priority. One detail which seems sensible is that less money will be spent on new ships (which take a long time to design, build and commission) with some of the diverted funds to be spent on drone technology which is one lesson that the whole Ukraine conflict is teaching our military planners. One bit of important news has emerged today from the US Supreme Court which is heavily dominated by Trump appointments. Trump loses his Supreme Court fight to end birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court has ruled against Donald Trump’s executive order to limit birthright citizenship in the US. Trump issued the order on his first day back as president in January last year as he began a crackdown on immigration. The presidential edict sought to deny citizenship to babies born to illegal and temporary migrants. However, a US court initially blocked it, saying that it went against the 14th amendment of the US constitution – leading to the Supreme Court considering the case. But despite the Supreme Court having a majority of conservative judges, it has ruled against him today. The vote was split 6-3 against Trump’s executive order. Five justices said Trump’s executive order fell foul of the constitution’s 14th amendment, which has long been interpreted to bestow birthright citizenship on almost anyone born in the United States. This is important because Trump is deploying every means he can to disenfranchise parts of the US electorate to attempt to secure victory for the mid-term elections in November which he is predicted to be in danger of losing heavily. Several Republican states have already engaged in ‘re-districting’ which means redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts within a state to maximise the likelihood of Republican success and to minimise the possibility of any Democratic gains. This is the ‘dirty’ side of American politics (is there a clean side I ask myself?) in which either side tries every means possible to maximise its own electoral base and to minimise that of opponents. Control po elections is delegated to each individual state which according to the US Constitution is solely responsible for the conduct of elections and not even the Federal government even in the case of elections for a new US President.