Director of @britishfuture.bsky.social
Author How to be a Patriot https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/how-to-be-a-patriot-why-love-of-country-can-end-our-very-british-culture-war-sunder-katwala?variant=40518936559694
Evertonian
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)
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A third Makerfield poll
Labour 45%
Reform 40%
Restore 8%
Green 3%
Cons 2%
LD 1%
More in Common/UCL
Fieldwork by telephone: 515 voters
nb a long 3+ week period: May 18th - June 12th. (Survation found quite a significant shift between two polls on 18th-22nd May vs 26th May - 1st June).
It seems idiosyncratic to have Whitney Houston blaring out around the ground so loud juet after the hosts went a goal down
My small act of protest, made easier by Ireland’s failure to qualify, is only to watch matches played in Canada or Mexico. Which will clearly not be followed by my sons. Immigrants and their kids, failure to integrate something….
The winner of this group has as soft a path as anyone (except Portugal!): a third place team then probably Portugal for a quarter-final place.
The runners-up get runners-up of Mexico/South Korea, heading to meet Netherlands in last 16.
The Canadian stadium has an Olympics-style enthusiasm of underdog hosts
Portugal, Netherlands and maybe Switzerland [if > Canada] have the softest routes to the last eight
12 groups makes it assymetric and lopsided, re who (4/12) meets a runner-up in last 32 as a group winner (France/Uruguay, Spain), who meets another group winner in last 16. Eg Mexico v England
Mexico and Canada are co-hosting the World Cup in an ideal spirit, despite Fifa, despite Trump.
Switzerland are group B favourites. Canada could win it if they win tonight. This is probably much the weakest ever group in a World Cup finals
Canadian pride & patriotism has many adnirable qualities in its sincerity & softness: quite hard to make a hard jingoism out of it