My first brush with Brussels - but why I'm still IN

My first collision with the European Commission was over a planned directive to impose a interim analogue TV transmission standard on all European broadcasters. It was loaded in favour of European electronics companies Philips and Thomson, it was a means of attacking Rupert Mudoch's SkyTV and it was driven in a thoroughly technocratic way by an EU commission officer called Eamon Lalor.

As I tended to in my journalistic life I got rather obsessed with the story. I even door stepped Francis Ford Coppola at a trade show in America and got a quote from him on the madness of what the EU was trying to do and the harm it would do to the development of the television industry.

I say this because I know that Brussels bureaucrats can drive businesses and policy makers demented with rules and regulations.

But. There was always going to be a but. Lalor was defeated. The dead hand of the Commission does respond to reason. Good policy can follow bad. British influence in Europe won the day.

I've also dealt with the petty minded officials in local authorities and in regulators in the UK government, procurement rules in the NHS, the regional development agencies and other regulators.

So as we approach this decision on the UK's membership of the European Union I don't support REMAIN out of naïveté.

I'm also not playing any kind of games. This week I've heard it said that Nicola Sturgeon says she's in favour of voting REMAIN, but secretly wants England to vote LEAVE. That Jeremy Corbyn wants us to leave, but it's all part of his bigger plan to shift the debate to the left. That Nigel Farage secretly wants an IN vote, to sustain his sense of purpose. Don't even get me started on what George Galloway is up to.

No, I'm for staying IN because I genuinely think it's better for our economy, our standard of living and for being a full part of a global community where we can exercise our hard and soft power. 

I've done a debate tonight on PURE FM in Stockport with Louise Bours UKIP MEP and had a foretaste of what's to come. Fear, hyperbole, exaggeration and a dismissal of facts that don't suit. To be fair, she brushed off the rubbish that Iain Duncan Smith came out with about Britain being more at risk from terrorism in favour of more positive vision of the future. But she was still wrong.

I just don't think I understand (Paul Lambert)

Small consolations first. I've been lucky enough to have seen Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, David Silva, Fernando Torres, Thierry Henry and Gareth Bale play against Rovers at Ewood Park. I can today add Dmitri Payet to that list. He is absolute class and we witnessed him at his peak today.

And in all the time I've been going regularly to Ewood Park since 1977 I've seen Rovers stick 5, 6 and 7 past teams, including West Ham. I've also been a consistent away follower and have seen us get tonked by 5, 6 and, just once, by 7 goals to 1. I can take it.

But today was a first because I've never seen Rovers ship 5 at home before. It's happened in my lifetime, but I wasn't there to see it. Even when we were destroyed by rampant Arsenal we at least had the guile to shut up shop and limit the damage. 

I didn't think we could have matched West Ham today when I saw the 4-5-Chris Brown formation. A lone forward who has never scored for us and a midfield with Chris Taylor and Hope Akpan in it. Yet it was a very enjoyable opening 20 minutes.

After that, honestly, we were taught a lesson in football and reminded how big that gulf is between the side we had out and theirs. This is the mystery of Paul Lambert. Why rest three Premiership quality players? Gomez, Graham and Hanley could have made a difference today. Two of them are his signings so he can't complain about the dross he's saddled with. 

Speaking of which, I quite like Chris Brown and Chris Taylor, but they do rather represent the depths to which we've fallen. Brown gives all, but that's not much. Taylor runs about a lot and get stuck in too, but he showed how useful that isn't today when he got himself sent off. 

In the 1999-2000 season Graeme Souness took over, was underwhelming, we finished mid-table. It was always about building for the next campaign. I would like to think we're in a similar place now, but to be honest I don't think Lambert knows what to do in the flurry of games coming thick and fast.

No, this was another rotten day to be a Blackburn Rovers fan.

It has been pointed out that Danny Graham was cup tied, though Tony Watt wasn't.

Losing to Hull. Grim.

Jordi Gomez bossed midfield and at last showed we have a midfield player who can turn his opponent. In the first half.

Elliot Ward proved he is a fit, elegant and intelligent centre back. In the first half. 

Tony Watt causes defenders problems and brought a tricky aggression to our front line. In the first half.

You've got the message by now. In the second half Rovers fell apart against a decent Hull City side today. Bringing Chris Brown on with a half an hour to go shows the depth of the problem. He put himself about, but he's Chris Brown. The games are piling up thick and fast now and the pressure is mounting. 

How I got my political mojo back

Tristram Hunt and me in Manchester

A couple of weeks ago I felt I'd got my political mojo back. I was asked to speak at the Manchester leg of the Progress grassroots tour, speaking alongside my colleagues Amina Lone and Tristram Hunt MP on the future of the centre-left.

I've always been impressed with Tristram's ability to see the bigger picture and to provoke and cajole the Labour movement to search our history in order to imagine a better future. I also really like Amina's willingness to grasp nettles - especially on how we confront fears over immigration, as she did as candidate in Morecambe and Lunesdale. That's partly what they spoke about, but it was the responses from the activists and members there that I found so uplifting.

Marshalled by Progress director Richard Angell, it was a frank, honest and refreshing discussion. No one was called a Tory, or a Trot. No one was heckled and no-one made any aimless blustering speeches. I wasn't called "far right" "hard right", or anything right wing. We are on the centre left. Richard didn't want questions for the panel, our job was to issue provocations for everyone there to contribute their thoughts to a constructive dialogue. Which brings me on to what I spoke about.

Amina Lone

In The Guardian recently Polly Toynbee spoke of her desolation at not having a political project she could believe in for the first time in her life. Given that those projects have included Ed Miliband and the SDP over the years, I won't shed too many tears for Polly's loss.

I do know what she means though. I too hold no hope for the Corbyn project. At every step it is politically doomed, ideologically bankrupt and organisationally incompetent. I don't for a minute believe that Jeremy Corbyn will lead Labour into the 2020 General Election. His mission doesn't strike me as that of a future prime minister of this country and with a plan to make it a modern socialist republic. He doesn't think in short parliamentary terms, he thinks in decades. This is a step toward re-casting Labour as a left wing party. A Podemos, or a Syrizia. He has no interest in power. Triumph is having the debate, or rather changing internal structures to build a party based on policies to fit his own interests and world view. And why wouldn't he? After all, he was elected as leader by a large margin.

The MPs I speak to are in despair. The atmosphere amongst the PLP is described as "toxic", "awful" and "dysfunctional". But they are in such a mood of hopelessness because of his "mandate" from the membership. But he doesn't have a mandate from the electorate. Every single Labour MP was elected on a manifesto and a platform far away from that of the leadership. Few of them share his platform, many of them are either keeping their heads down or appealing for party unity. It's a position I understand but don't think is in any way tenable.

I would whole heartedly support a coup in the Parliamentary Labour Party to oust the narrow cabal of Jeremy Corbyn, the awful Diane Abbott and John McDonnell. They have their mandate to lead the party, but not in Parliament. They aren't up to the job. They are an embarrassment and are unfit to perform their constitutional duty to provide effective opposition to this mediocre Conservative government. Already the key interventions are at committee stage. The best performances at the despatch box have been from Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle. It has to change.

Here's why. The most common conversation I have with non-Labour friends is this. "Isn't politics interesting?" they say. "Love him or hate him, doesn't Jeremy Corbyn represent something new and different? At least you know what he stands for."

My next question back at them is always answered with a big fat no. Well, would you vote Labour with him as leader? "No, no, no and once more for good luck, no, of course not," and that's the polite version. They just won't. In fact they laugh. The opinion polls also show this. The response on the doorstep is the same. Our answer is either to apologise for him, or to plead for a vote despite him, as we successfully achieved in Oldham.

It's understandable that you'd want to give up. But, the trouble is, unlike Polly Toynbee, I do have a zeal for a project - devolution. It may be flawed, it may lack democratic accountability thus far, but it has the potential to vastly improve the life chances of my children and to address the chronic imbalance of the UK's London-centric economy and political life. To dismiss it as a Tory trap is beyond stupid.

I could get depressed about how little recognition Labour in local government gets from successive leaderships, but instead it should motivate us to give the rest of the country a better example of how our party is responsible, capable of great innovation and demonstrates that Labour is a party that understands how to win power and use it, even in a cold climate.

But this is why I have my enthusiasm back and a restored sense of mission. There is important work to be done. Far away from Westminster we all face the challenge of getting colleagues elected to local councils, where we can see Labour governing in the interests of the people who put them there. It's never easy, but it is an example of how to use power. It involves compromises, hard choices and compassion. Campaigning to earn the right to do that involves persuasion, empathy and graft. It is a world away from the Facebook groups, Twitter timelines and comments section of the Guardian. And frankly it has been made immeasurably harder by the behaviour of a leadership team completely out of touch with the mood and the needs of the country.

Beyond May, there will be an evaluation of how it's going so far. More than ever it is vital we enter that period with the spirit of optimism, determination and no little anger.

Boro away, days like these are ones to savour

Wow. What a difference. Against the team at the top, who just stole our top scorer, I have to say we bossed that game.

1-1 was a good point for Middlesbrough because frankly Rovers deserved to win. Jordi Gomez is the player we've missed all season. Tony Watt is more tenacious than Jordan Rhodes. Saw a decent shift from Cory Evans and Tommy Spurr too.

With ten minutes to go the line of defence was on the half way line. Pushing, pressing and looking forward. Even when we beat Preston in Paul Lambert's first game in charge we desperately parked the bus. Not today. We could have and should have won. If those late loose balls had fallen to anyone but Hope Akpan or Elliot Bennett it would have been in the back of the net.

In town pre-match it's clear this set of fans think they are a team on the up. And all around us as we stood in the home end agonising as we disguised our amusement at such an excellent performance, the home fans grew more frustrated. They may still go up, fair play to them if they do, because as a group of fans they are supportive to the end. 

But not on this evidence. I thought David Nugent is so similar to Rhodes it's a mystery why they spent so much on him. And what an insult to him to be introduced as "Jason Rhodes". You had one job, Mr Announcer.

But days like today are about so much more than 90 minutes of football. Lunch and a tour of the town with an old mate, meeting his son, stories, nostalgia, memories and hopes for our families and their bright futures. That is if we survive the heart attacks induced by a Parmo, the Middlesbrough signature dish of a chicken escalope smothered in cheese.

I rather think I've tortured my lads Louis and Joe by taking them to an away game and standing in the heart of the home end. Promise we won't do it again lads. Certainly not at Burnley.

Oxford banana skin avoided, Banana Tree enjoyed

Sometimes it can be better to travel than to arrive. 

Not today. 

Dressed as I was for a hike up the north face of the Eiger, the Cross Country train to Oxford was crowded, hot and claustrophobic. The bus trip along Cowley Road to the Kassam Stadium was tortuous and slow. Same after the match and so we missed our direct train home, the bonus being a pit stop at the awesome Birmingham New Street station. Truly jaw dropping to have transformed a space that was once, and so recently, so ugly.

None of that matters though. Hooking up with a couple of pals, me and Louis had a delicious Indo-Chinese lunch at the Banana Tree, another of these well executed mini-chains themed restaurants that burst out of London at a fair old rate, and a mooch around Oxford. Bustling, prosperous and steeped in history we enjoyed our amble. We laughed as we crawled along Cowley Road, the student strip, where David Cameron once lived and we spotted a bar called The Bullingdon, though not one called the Roasted Hog. 

And the match was great. We've hailed far too many false dawns over the last few years, but this was a high, because the expectations were so low.

The full house of Cup Giant Killing Cliche Bingo was lit up. Ex manager Michael Appleton in Oxford's dugout, alongside him Rovers legend Derek Fazackerley, low morale at Rovers, the loss of Jordan Rhodes, a team full of new faces. What could possibly go right?

To be fair, it all did. Of the new faces Tony Watt will be pleased with a debut goal. Simeon Jackson was a handful for the home defence all afternoon. But for me Elliot Ward stood out as the strongest starter. Solid, commanding and intelligent. All the attributes we lack in abundance.

It's always an added pleasure to watch football in a full stadium. Full in the sense that all three stands were fully occupied, odd in that one end isn't finished ("shall we build a stand for you?").

Another of the official 92 notched up, reinstating Oxford makes it ground number 69 and the 142nd stadium I've watched football on. Hoping for Shrewsbury or Peterborough away in the next round.

Hinterland - Nordic Noir Welsh style

I haven't found the time to lose myself in Nordic noir, though I have little doubt that I'd like it. The closest I've got has been the raw and aching melancholy of Hinterland, the Welsh contribution to this particular televisual challenge.

The bilingual BBC Wales version appeared on iPlayer last week and I have just binge watched the second series over the weekend. As has been widely reported, the series is shot in both the Welsh and English languages. Even though we don't learn too much of the professional career story of the central character of detective Tom Mathias, played by Richard Harrington, in this hybrid version he doesn't speak any Welsh but his colleagues do when he's not around and to members of the public. I'd have felt let down if it had all been English.

The light, the tone, and the landscape make it an unforgettable and distinctive visual spectacle, like absolutely nothing else on British TV. The understated brooding intensity of the characters hint at new layers of mystery and the bitter hurt of a hard life. The particular pain of Mathias as he battles demons and unbearable pressure make it a sometimes unsettling viewing experience, but his flaws are far outweighed by his powerful moral instincts and the sometimes extraordinary lengths he goes to in order to champion the bullied, the excluded and the victims.

Every character reveals more of themselves as the episodes roll on. The detectives Elis and Owens with their recent losses, community ties and hints at minor complications of growing up in the community you serve and protect offer more as we go on. And it is a drama about how police people proceed with life, not a police procedural drama. I don't think I've seen anyone being arrested, just questioned. Using the scarce time to get to the point of the drama, the conflict, the clash and the pressure points.

There are deficiencies. Anytime the police go to interview someone in a murder case, if the relative, neighbour, or witness, carries on insolently doing their work, they've usually got something to hide. It's something I first noticed in Broadchurch, but partly due to the prevalence of dirty industrial trades it's even more in your face in the harsh demanding terrain of west Wales.

Is there a more unhelpful chief of police than CS Prosser, the most senior copper in Aberystwyth? Embedded almost certainly corruptly in his community he offers no insights, just warnings. Everything is conditional, but what does he actually do except stare out of a window and narrow his eyes?

There's also a recurring character in the second series called Euan Thomas, who I have completely forgotten about. He was in the first episode, but I can't recall him. That can't be right. It's possibly a symptom of the tightness, the closeness of the whole enterprise that it is hung together by a master plan, it will come together again. But while this may stand the test of time and make for an impressive body of work to be consumed in one weekend, I'm going back more than a year and I'm too old and busy to retain detail.

But that's not vital, not really. This is an ambitious production made for the people of forgotten rural Wales. And it is the people and their stories who provide the living backdrop to Hinterland that make it so unique and special. Blokes struggling to keep a bus company going, boatbuilders, farmers, mechanics. Often working amidst struggle and grime with broken down machinery, cracked Windows and peeling paint. These are the people who are often invisible from literature and television, but here they are presented in a way that understands them, without patronising or by passing comment.

This is a brave and demanding piece of television that promises more and hints at a journey to a place you aren't really sure you want to go to.

Leavers pies and that losing feeling, a flat Saturday at Rovers

We have our rituals at the football. Sometimes they are thrown off course by delays on the way, our favourite parking spot is full, people we speak to at the front before the game aren't there, or Leavers of Bolton Road run out of pies.

It was the pies that disrupted my match day flow on Saturday. Possibly because Brighton have the kind of following that seeks out tips from fanzines and websites about local culture and flavours of the match day experience. Or maybe it was just cold. 

We have a new match day ritual now though. Groaning and booing at the final whistle. Not an angry, splenetic anti-Steve Kean boo, not a we-was-robbed boo, just a moribund and depressed woeful cry kind of boo. There was nothing to cheer on Saturday, it was awful. And cold.

There is no optimism, no feeling being transmitted back from the players that there is a plan that will come together. Nothing. None of the new faces shone. The fear to turn an opponent in midfield is palpable. The backwards option always preferred to taking a risk. It's not a lack of effort either, just a lack of belief and a team seemingly bereft of any quality to win a game in the Championship. And bizarrely the player I suspected would get man of the match did. The much mocked Chris Brown. Not because he was any good, he fell on his backside a lot. He challenged for balls, but he's not a footballer at this level, God bless him. 

Rhodes on the other hand has been found out. He holds no fear for opposition defenders. The others fit into four categories - they are good enough in a poor performing team (Hanley and Steele), they aren't as good as they seem to think they are (Akpan, Marshall), are of League One quality (Spurr, Kilgallon, Brown) or they've just fallen apart (Conway and Rhodes). It's too early to judge the new signings and debutants.

On the radio after the game I thought Lambert seemed confused rather than angry or deluded. His next couple of weeks are going to be crucial, but we need to restore that winning ritual pretty quickly. 

The reading pile 2016

This is the current reading pile. A fair old mix of politics, sociology, power, football and religion. Apart from the Tintin collection, I've not looked at many graphics novels, but the Walking Dead has become a ripe old obsession. 

Two of the pile are library books which are due back - the book on the English which I needed for a chapter I was writing for a forthcoming collection. The other is Stephen Dorrill's incredibly detailed history of British fascism, which has been fascinating and rich in direct accounts.

I've got slightly more than a passing interest in three of the books here. My friend Richard Pennystan has produced a deeply personal account of his relationship with God. As an Anglican vicar he also has a few things to say about "hollow religion" which I enjoyed discussing with him at the launch. James Bentley has written about Bury's 1984-1985 team in the Forgotten Fifteen and I was proud to be asked to contribute some observations. 

Tucked in there is the bumper edition of Monocle, the world's greatest magazine. Still setting the pace.

I'll let you know how I get on with these and hope to finish them all, but as ever I've got distracted by a late entrant, this time it's Free Agent by Jeremy Duns.

David Bowie's Life on Mars in Lars von Trier's Breaking The Waves

It is almost 20 years since I sat, tears streaming down my cheeks towards the end of one of the most raw, devastating and emotionally draining films I've ever seen. Then, at a crucial crux in the film's harrowing conclusion came this. Life on Mars by David Bowie, written in 1971. Genius.

Rain stops play in Wales - not an entirely wasted day

It was meant to be ground number 69 out of the current 92 on my quest to visit every ground. It would have been the 142nd stadium in which I'd watched competitive senior football.

But it rained in Newport. It rained and rained and rained. And then it rained so much that with just 45 minutes to go before kick off (picture above from the Lancs Telegraph). We didn't even get chance to look around at the ground, its aesthetics, the layout of the stadium. No, we weren't able to do any of that as it was just chucking it down. Don't even know if we'll get refund on the tickets. There is no chance of getting down for the re-arranged date, unless it gets kicked along the road until the next available Saturday.

But to be reflective for a moment, it wasn't an entirely wasted day. I spent the day with my Rovers supporting sons. I wrote about the importance of this in this piece for Sabotage Times here. We played cards on the train, we had lunch in their favourite chicken shop and I caught up with a couple of pals on the train down there who I hadn't seen for a while.  But it was a lot of money and a lot of time to spend for a Nando's. We thought about doing something else with our day in Newport, but opted to jump on the first train home instead and enjoy an evening at home with the other people we love.

Rovers at Bolton, hopeless, clueless and ripe for a shakedown

Help me out here. Bolton Wanderers must be the unluckiest team in the division. Bust, bottom of the league, manager up to his neck in a sordid scandal, two days after getting thrashed 4-0 by Rotherham where the fans turned on the team, they have to face Paul Lambert's resurgent Rovers, who were spared a testing Boxing Day clash against Middlesbrough because of the weather, and were therefore fresher and injury free.

Why then have I just seen that excuse for a performance at Bolton just now?

I heard reports that Blackburn Rovers were pretty hopeless at Reading, but this was as bad as I've seen them this season.

It wasn't just the defeat, and it wasn't for lack of effort, it was the sheer incompetence that was so frustrating. Watching from a high position behind the goal the movement and positioning and passing was just dreadful. Jason Steele in goal punting a long kick straight at Bolton's centre backs while Rhodes and Koita lingered thirty yards away. Koita was hopeless, Akpan all over the place, Henley lightweight, Olsson missing, Marshall just lacking in basic footballing awareness. Worse though, never have I seen Jordan Rhodes so out of sorts. If the usual transfer window circus sees big money being offered for him in January, then snap their hands off. They won't have a riot on their hands, not on this showing.

Even when we were winning a few games Paul Lambert wasn't getting carried away. He said there was work to be done. Now we know quite how much. Forget the play-offs, there's a rebuilding job to be done here.

The 2015 reading pile - how did we do?

I've always had a pile of books I've hoped to get through. It's rare that I've ever finished every one, but here's the pile from the second half of 2015.

Fiction

I absolutely loved all three novels on the list which I read on holiday in Croatia back in August. My mate Dave Chadwick's historical novel Liberty Bazaar was my favourite of a strong three and the full review from August is here.

Dave Eggers' The Circle is a terrifying dystopian journey into the cult like world of Silicon Valley. Every time I've shared a moment on Facebook or Twitter, or even this blog about what books I've read I've thought about the twisted purpose behind the "free" Internet model we've all signed up for.

Anyone familiar with Roddy Doyle's writing will be both amused and moved by The Guts, a sometimes tragic return to the lives of the characters in his earlier masterpiece The Commitments. Cancer, post-crash Dublin, family strain. But still very funny.

Collections

The Blue Labour collection was published before the disastrous General Election and where ideas of community and Labour's traditions were trashed by a collective unwillingness to face up to the challenge of a Summer of hard truths. Same goes for Hope Dies Last, an inspiring collection of stories of community organising recommended by John McTernan. The Talk Like TED collection was good too, but I've only dipped in and out, to be honest.

Manchester 

The two books on Manchester are both by writers I know well - Phil Griffin and Jonathan Schofield. They present the city I love through very different lenses and with a different intended outcome. Nevertheless they both really capture the quirks and optimism really well.

The rest

I enjoyed Paul Vallely's biography of Pope Francis and something I kept returning to as the Holy Father continued his transformative mission throughout the Church. It was a good accompaniment to Terry Eagleton's superb revisiting of the Gospels and the view of Christ the radical.

I rediscovered Charlie Brooker's TVGoHome in the attic and enjoyed the old TV listings, Daily Mail Island and Nathan Barley - a real loo read.

A confession

There were loads that made it on after the photo was taken, including at least three Jack Reacher books by the prolific Lee Child, these are properly addictive. I didn't get round to to Rob Parsons Heart of Success or Michael Sandel's What Money Can't Buy. I honestly wasn't in the right place or frame of mind for either. I think I am now, so I'll give both another go when I get stuck into the new job.

Wipe our mouths and move on - life's too short

I've been reminded this week of the importance of embracing peace in our lives.

Feuds, rivalries, hostilities and resentments can eat us up. They provide a cruel spectacle for outsiders looking in, they can also be distracting and all-consuming. Sometimes we can be driven by a sense of justice and fairness, that our determination to right a wrong grows and grows. But all that really grows is negativity and bitterness.

I've witnessed this week a humbling and brave act of reconciliation, dwarfed though by the enormity of the life of a departed friend. Funerals tend to focus our minds on what is truly important, to reinforce our sense of humility.

Forgiveness is an important part of faith. It's right there in the Lord's Prayer - forgive those who trespass against us. Our friend Father Edmund Montgomery, former priest of our parish, describes purgatory as like a waiting room where you can't leave until you've made good all those feuds, conflicts and arguments.

You don't even have to be religious to see the sense of this. Even a stark utilitarian assessment of it tells us that we can have achieved so much more, but for the distraction of settling scores.

To me the greatest reconciliation is within our own hearts. We say to our kids, "come on, make friends, play nicely". I think about the people I've fallen out with and that's clearly impossible. You can't go back to what you used to have and in a busy and changing world it's important to recognise that what was once working, maybe now doesn't. Saying sorry can help, but it's become rather devalued once you attach the caveats of "if you were offended". No, maybe it's better to just wipe our mouths and move on.

I'm in the privileged position of looking back at an extraordinary year in my life, truly bizarre, but also looking to the future of a new challenge and purpose with hope and great expectation. Thank you all for your support, friendship and occasional comments on these Friday missives. I look forward to renewing our conversation in January.

Peace be with you this Christmas.

Chris Brown and the number 9 shirt at Blackburn Rovers

Every now and again during a dull and lifeless game at Ewood Park, I drift off. Sometimes I day dream. I lose myself in the mystery of my footballing faith. I recall the spirits, I evoke the memories and sometimes I truly have to pinch myself and say, yes, that really happened. 

Yes, we really used to watch a centre forward called Alan Shearer on that pitch. A player so good and so strong that defenders would bounce off him (except in the penalty area when his body transformed into a ragdoll whenever he made human contact). But he also had a burst of pace, a powerful shot, it was said that his only failing was he couldn't get on the end of his own crosses. 

He was truly the greatest centre forward the world has ever seen. Alan the king. And he wore the number 9 shirt for Blackburn Rovers Football Club. It is fitting that a road near the stadium is to be named after him, Alan Shearer Way.

Tonight's dull and lifeless encounter with Rotherham United was brightened by the appearance of another remarkable presence in the number 9 shirt of Blackburn Rovers Football Club and his name, was Chris Brown. At first I thought he had the appearance of an eager Dad at a Dads v Lads end of season game. Determined enough not to make a fool of himself, but still in possession of a few deft touches.

As the game wore on it was clear that was an unfair comparison and as we saw him close up it was clearer he instead bore a remarkable resemblance to the comedian Lee Mack, a fellow Rovers fan. In fact, that's not only who he looked like, but that's what his half hour on the pitch resembled. Lee Mack in a charity Rovers XI. To have earned the right to wear that shirt he has to possess some modicum of footballing talent, some latent ability that justifies his presence on the pitch and on the payroll of a club. Otherwise, Gary Bowyer wouldn't have bought him, would he?

I liked what Paul Lambert is doing, talking him up. That's what I'll do too. Chris Brown, number 9 Blackburn Rovers Football Club. The January transfer window opens in 21 days.

Finally, I am incredibly proud of Blackburn Rovers for stepping forward and hosting Carlisle United's game against Plymouth on January the 2nd while Brunton Park recovers from flood damage. It's not an ideal situation for everyone concerned, but it's a lovely gesture on the part of Rovers. 

Manchester doesn't need to be edgier, just better

Some things get said so often they become accepted wisdom without a passing thought. Take the idea that an ever changing Manchester needs to stay "edgy".

I disagree with that, but first some context.

I did one of my "In Conversation" events for law firm Slater Heelis yesterday. It's a simple format, I interview on stage a senior Manchester person, there's no agreed script, I'm not hostile, but I'm not supine either. The idea is to present the audience with new and fresh insights. So far we've done regen lead Eddie Smith, Sir Howard Bernstein and the interim Mayor Tony Lloyd.

On a dark Thursday morning, that was wetter than an otter's pocket, I sat down at the front of Cinema Two in Home, Manchester's newest cultural asset, with Michael Ingall from property developer Allied London. I don't know him well, but I've always been impressed by his willingness to admit he doesn't know an answer, or has previously been wrong. You can do that when you take enormous calculated risks that prove you are usually right. This, lest we forget, is the man who has delivered Spinningfields as the established new Central Business quarter.

Three years ago at the MIPIM property conference he conceded that he doesn't know who will occupy the commercial buildings his business are constructing now. We have run out of large firms of accountants, large banks and firms of lawyers seem to be shrinking. That means reduced demand for large floor plates within glass boxes. Seeing that and still believing fervently that work will continue to be done in shared spaces but in very different forms takes some forethought and sets a tough test for your team.

Since then, within Spinningfields, he's had to admit - as he did in our conversation - that high end retail hasn't worked. Armani and Flannels have done OK, but the Avenue will become a home for the quirkier end of the well planned, well branded dining market - Fazenda, Comptoir Libanais and the Oast House, probably the unlikeliest success story of Manchester food and drink recently.

He also wants to transform the old Granada site into a place to live - really live, not piles of investment apartments - and to sit alongside the Factory, a World Class arts installation. I asked him about culture - especially as we were at HOME and although I don't recall his exact words I'll use mine instead. HOME is alright. It's badly needed, it's an improvement on the Cornerhouse, but in Paris they've got 50 of them and in Budapest about a dozen. 

So a frighteningly intelligent bloke who has been humble, bold, wrong and entirely correct also challenged the notion that Manchester needs to be edgy. I agree with him.

Being edgy is too often used an excuse for things that are a bit rubbish. Hulme in the 80s was "edgy". I remember a student inviting us to a party that would be full of "Hulme people". She didn't mean brewery workers or the unemployed and certainly not the criminal gangs. I'm sure a lot of good music and art got created there, but it was uninhabitable. I don't look around at people sleeping in doorways in the city centre and think that's "edgy". I think it's bloody awful that anyone should have a life reduced to that. I hate seeing it because it offends my sense of humanity. 

I don't walk through Piccadilly Gardens and think "this is good". To celebrate it as "edgy" as I'm sure no-one really does, is a cop out. It's scruffy, a magnet for criminality and it's ugly. I didn't even get round to asking Michael Ingall about it, it's not his immediate problem, but I wish it was someone's.

I'm willing to test this theory to destruction over the next week or so and invite you to do so as well. It's one of those things you start to see everywhere once you start to think about it more. Is it edgy, or actually just a by-word for a bit rubbish.

It brings to mind that Pulp song about the Common People, where the art school ponce is slumming because she thinks that poor is cool.

He also spoke fairly bluntly about the acquisition of the London Road Fire Station, opposite Piccadilly station and a gorgeous but derelict husk. The Friends of the building have done a remarkable job of keeping up the pressure on the owners, Britannia Hotels, who have rather let it rot. Now that Michael's Allied London own it, hopes will be high. But he will not be preserving it as a museum piece. It will be a significant statement of the city's willingness to be a grown up world class city. It will impress. It could include a boutique hotel, a high end gallery, somewhere that impresses big hitters when they get off the train from London. It will without question be better. But it won't be edgy.

The power of an idea - creativity, common good, Cottonopolis and the joy of good mates

There is something quite special about an idea that inspires and sparks the public's imagination.

We've had passers-by stop in the street and point up at our office this week. We've had TV crews reading the news as a backdrop and we've had tourists make a trip to come and look at the action. No, this isn't a shameful protest of intimidation against an MP, but a wonderful and uplifting visual campaign to commission original artwork and to raise money and awareness for the incredible work of the Wood Street Mission, a local charity helping poor and vulnerable people.

24 Lever Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter has been transformed into a massive Advent calendar, showcasing the creativity of the agency True North and hopefully brightening up what has been a scruffy corner of town. If you'd like to buy one, follow the whole campaign on the 24 Days of Lever Street website.

I ran a conference this week in Liverpool for the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ICAEW), an organisation always looking to explore, push and challenge the future. Despite every prejudice you have ever had about the profession, trust is such a solid foundation from which to build. 

The keynote (and standout) speech of the day was from Mike Emmerich, who I'd invited to come and share his story about Manchester's journey to devolution and to weigh up the reality of the Northern Powerhouse from his new berth as the founder of Metro Dynamics. 

Having been at the centre of Manchester's recent triumphs and as architect of the devolution agreements and other economic development projects, like the renaissance of textiles in Greater Manchester, Mike is very much of the view that you have to create and drive ideas to make the future work. We are, in short, in control of more of our destiny than we sometimes dare to admit.

Mike's plea was for businesses in the North to "own the challenge" that the Northern Powerhouse presents. I still hark back to George Osborne's original speech at the Museum of Science and Industry where the three most important words were "You Tell Us."

By way of an example Mike evoked the Manchester textiles project he kicked off in his previous job at New Economy Manchester, which has now resulted in matched investment, a fund to back textiles innovation and the return of cotton spinning to a mill in Dukinfield. 

So I want to end this week's blog by paying tribute to two of my best pals, Mike Emmerich and Martin Carr, the principal at True North, the agency driving the Advent campaign. Not only do the pair of them regularly amuse me in ways that only good mates can, but they have also been there for me to advise, support and challenge in ways only good friends can. 

Between us we started DISCUSS, a debating forum where the best ideas can be explored, probed and challenged. We honour Manchester's spirit of innovation, but also the quirks of creativity, the pursuit of the common good and the combination of all of the above that make this city such a special place.

Viva la Rovers - and why music is ruining football

Who chooses the music at football stadiums? I ask this because I noticed today that Blackburn Rovers walked out to the instrumental bridge of Coldplay's Viva la Vida, a rousing soaring anthem about a guilty liberal wrestling with his childlike understanding of religion.

Maybe this has been the case for a while, I've stopped noticing. I find the whole invasive and intrusive use of loud music to create "atmosphere" to be symptomatic of football's vacuous loss of real soul.

At Old Trafford on Wednesday I was both repulsed and impressed by the use of the Stone Roses. Impressed because the writers of the song are at least United fans, repulsed because the song is utterly fantastic and yet it's just joined the same pile of advert fodder.

My personal nadir for pumped in, pumped up music was the use of Status Quo's Rockin' All Over the World in February 2002 at Cardiff as Rovers paraded the League Cup. It spoiled a genuine moment of joy.

Later that year I stood at Celtic Park as 60,000 Celtic fans were prompted to sing You'll Never Walk Alone by the tannoy. They didn't need to be told, it made something majestic just a little less so.

The match today was good. There was a greater professionalism about Rovers. Paul Lambert clearly sees the need to impose the team's strengths on a game. But at 70 minutes they looked shattered and are clearly not fit enough. It reminded me of how it took Mark Hughes a few games to tune his charges up in 2004. Maybe they need some better music in the dressing room. I'd just be happier if they'd drop it from before the match.

The inspiring life of Kevin Wilson and a Mao quote I hope it's alright to use

The trajectory of history sometimes shows how the smallest of events can have the most profound and positive of consequences.

First, a Mao story. Chairman Mao was allegedly asked what course history would have taken if it had been President Krushchev who had been shot in 1963 instead of President John F Kennedy. 

"I don't think Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Krushchev," he said.

This regular Friday blog is usually a summary of the week that was. This week it will be shorter than usual for reasons that will become apparent. 

Talking to people at the Bionow awards at Mere Country Club on Thursday night it was clear that the understated and modest Kevin Wilson, who died aged 64, deserves to be stated rather more.

This week I was involved in another Knowledge Exchange event. These thought leading seminars promote a greater level of understanding of issues to do with workplace design, productivity and culture. We held it at the Soapworks development at Exchange Quay next to where TalkTalk are building a major presence and a significant employment base. 

Had Kevin not met Ian Currie at Charlton Seal stockbrokers in the early 80s then the direction of Manchester as a financial centre may not have taken the successful route it has. RedX Pharma, a winner last night following a successfully flotation, was backed by Ian's business Seneca. My friend Neil McArthur was pondering this - Kevin's advice in 1998 took his telecoms business on a road that eventually saw the formation of TalkTalk.

But I've heard this week some profoundly personal ways in which Kevin Wilson will always be remembered. A maverick character who developed board games as a sideline, he trusted the judgement of a young admin assistant at Zeus Capital who was made to feel more confident and inspired by him as a result. Sally Williams is now the fantastic client services manager at Liberty, the pensions business I'm on the board of, and is one of the many who is reflecting on the special effect Kevin had.

I said this would be brief. But take any time you may have set aside to read this to instead go and read this tribute to "my funny and kind friend" Kevin Wilson from Steven Lindsay. Whether you know any of the people or not, it matters not. Just think of this: to have lived a life where you have friends who love you quite like this is a great life indeed. Just horribly short.

Why I feel terrorised and what the former head of MI5 told me about leadership

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5
(pic from JLA, speaker agency)

Are there things you know, that we couldn't know, but if we did know, maybe we'd think better of our leaders?

That was the question I put to Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, at an event I hosted in Manchester in 2012. Given she'd been on duty and in charge during the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 and we were discussing leadership it seemed a fair question to ask. It's at the forefront of all our minds now.

I'll admit this, I am terrorised. I shouldn't be, I can rationalise the numbers. And I'll sign up to any amount of "not afraid" pledges. I genuinely wasn't afraid when I lived in London through the early 90s. You just accepted it. Maybe I was younger and more reckless, but you always sensed the IRA usually intended to make life inconvenient and uncomfortable. That somehow the coded warnings would get us out of danger in time. That's how it felt. The deeper sense of fear and anger started when I made a trip up to watch Russia v Germany at Old Trafford during the Euro 96 Championships. That was the day when I heard a large boom in the distance - it was the IRA blowing up a big part of Manchester city centre. Warning or not, it made me angry and scared.

Three years later, while I was on constant standby for the birth of my first son, London was hit by bombings in three different spots - two of which were regular haunts, Soho and Brick Lane. The fourth target, before the maniac was stopped, was to have been Stamford Hill, the large Jewish area close to where I lived.

On September the 10th 2001 I looked around the Capitol building in Washington DC, visited Arlington Cemetery and gazed over in awe at the Pentagon building. Without illusions, but with great pride I enjoyed a few days steeped in the best traditions of a multi-cultural democracy. I flew home from Dulles Airport where I may well have been within feet of the murderous crew who hours later were flying the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles into the Pentagon.

On the 7th of July 2005, my sister's birthday, I awoke to the awful news that London was under attack. I later found myself on a train from Manchester Piccadilly to Cardiff Central that day, both stations were closed due to security alerts, no coded warnings, no tactical avoidance of loss of life.

I mention those days of clammy mortal fear and anger, not just as a personal recollection, but to explain that I am terrorised. And that my pride for our society, how we congregate freely and how we celebrate diversity, universal human rights and the pursuit of love, however flawed, is who we are.

The London bombs were the work of Nazi nail bomber David Copeland. No one tried to say we were "reaping the whirlwind" of a society that was alienating him and turning him into what he was. Or that there was any basis to his justification that he was fighting the degeneracy encouraged by the Zionist Occupation Government. He is a murdering arsehole who deserves to rot in jail and so should the authors of the brainwashing garbage that turned him.

Likewise, I have no time for mealy mouthed moral relativism over terrorism, militant Islam and guilt about the West or that we "had it coming".

During a painful and emotional review of the Saturday papers for the BBC last weekend I could only conclude that being who we are, living as we do, is why they hate us. Why those people in Paris eating in an ethnic restaurant, watching football and going to a concert is an affront to a murderous death cult. It's who we are. I'm proud of who we are.

So, to come back to the point about leaders and what they know and how they react. I was fairly appalled by a paralysed George W Bush in the aftermath of 911 and impressed by Mayor Giuliani. Eliza Manningham-Buller confirmed I was right to be impressed by Tony Blair on all those occasions in London as well as all the threats we didn't get to hear about.

I'm not being mean spirited when I say I don't recall the statements of the leaders of the opposition back then.

Why then does it matter quite so much what the leader of our opposition says and does in the wake of the Paris attacks? It sort of matters to me because it's my party. And it matters because of everything he's ever said about terrorism, every caveat he's ever attached, every flaky position that the awful Stop the War Coalition have espoused, every element of the relativistic anti-Western "yebbutery" and "whataboutism" that has to find common cause with enemies of the rest of us.

Yet it wasn't really what Jeremy Corbyn was going to do or say this week that had me sitting up awake and anxious at 3 in the morning. I harbour a lack of confidence in David Cameron and don't yet feel he's gripped Britain's role in the world and has a strategy for a response to confront the threats we face, or to successfully project British values and Britain's interests effectively.

It all comes back to a point Eliza made three and half years ago in answer to my question - leadership is not about command and control, but vision and strategy. "You must be honest about difficulties, but demonstrate your confidence in the future and in your people."

That is quite some yardstick by which to measure our present leaders, is it not?