Going postal

Some of the biggest ever robberies...

...are:

The EG Buhrle are museum robbery: number 10 at $139m.

You've probably already guessed where this is going, so let's skip a few...

Kinghtsbridge Security: number 9 at £60m.

Dar Es Salaam bank, Baghdad: number 6 at $282m.

The Central Bank of Iraq robbery: number 2 at $1 billion.

Stephane Breitieser stole $1.2 billion, but over a long period of time.

The winner is:

Our government, who have undersold our Post Office (not, actually, theirs to sell) to their mates for over £1 billion less than it was worth after one afternoon's trading. That's a billion quid of taxpayers' dosh they and their buddies have trousered in a few short hours. But Vince Cable says “it's alright” so it must be alright, then, and he said “let's see what the price is in three months time” which I don't understand.

If I sell (say) my car, today for £3,300, and the bloke who bought it sells it on, this afternoon, for £4,550 (the figures are the same as the Post Office share issue numbers, just times ten) then I'm saying to myself “I've been mugged off, there, big time” not “oh well, let's see what it's worth in three months time”. You're talking tosh Vince. Utter tosh. The party of business? The party of feathering their mate's penthouse nests, more like.

Oh and what about this:

Chancellor Osborn's best man works for a hedge fund that was favoured in the Royal Mail float. No doubt he made an absolute killing. Nice one George. Apparently Vince says “it's alright” so it must be.

From Thatcher’s days: sell off the profitable nationalised industries for fun and profit, keep the crap and then say “look at this evidence, nationalisation does not work” through New Tory Labour days that lacked the balls to re-nationalise, to now when they're still insisting that it's somehow good business to sell off the good stuff and continue to subsidise the failures (or, as in the railways, sell it off and continue to subsidise the private companies making commuters' lives an expensive misery, ruining running it). It's just one big con, this democracy lark, designed to keep those in power in the top 5% and everyone else skint.

The FA think tank...

...is rhyming slang. When Gary Lineker, bland enough for the BBC to give him the Match of the Day anchor (more rhyming slang) role, comes out saying that most of the guys on the committee ate irrelevant, well, you've not done so well, have you? Chair? That well-known football technician Greg Dyke. The only surprise is that Robbie Savage isn't in the mix. Perhaps he's first reserve?

Anyway, their first line of approach is that English players only accounted for about 30% of premiership minutes played. That's twenty clubs, 220 total, that's 66 players every round of games to look at. If they're the best of the best, and add in those playing abroad (and we don't tend to do too well with th exports, generally, do we, and maybe that's something we should be looking at in terms of a lack of international success) that's plenty.

However, we're back to the same old rubbish: if only it wasn't for all those foreigners we'd be top of the world. Right. Like we were before the foreign influx, with all those international trophies. The 1966 (home) world cup and...er...bog all else.