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Mike's BlogJune 17 Britain's Got A Bunch of ShistersA selection of some of the alleged claims made by Members of Parliament.
Firstly, I give you, in the Blue Corner, all the way from the benches of Her Majesty's Opposition, the following contestants.....
Crispin Blunt (Bet his school days were fun) The Conservative home affairs spokesman was told to stop claiming thousands of pounds of second home allowances on his London home because he lived there with his children, the Daily Telegraph said. In response, the Reigate MP asked if he could take out a second mortgage against his constituency home in Surrey and claim for that. When this was refused, he sold the house and bought a bigger property costing nearly twice as much, and charged £16,000 to the taxpayer in stamp duty and fees. Way to go, Crispy
Michael Ancram Former shadow defence secretary Michael Ancram, who is the marquess of Lothian, (so he's had it tough) is reported to have claimed almost £100 for the repair of a swimming pool boiler. He also asked for reimbursement of £1,117.43 for a gardening bill which included "cleaning up moss etc" at a house in Wiltshire. The Telegraph said none of the three properties owned by the Ancram family has a mortgage.
The public feel for you mate.
Sir John Butterfill Sir John did not pay capital gains tax after making a profit of £600,000 from a house funded by the taxpayer, the Daily Telegraph said. The Bournemouth West MP reportedly lodged claims under second home allowance for his six-bedroom country house, complete with swimming pool and extensive grounds. He was reimbursed to the tune of £17,000 for servants' quarters. Servants quarters ?? Well, we've all been there eh !!
John Selwyn Gummer
Dear old Gummers, claimed £9,000 a year for gardening, according to the Sunday Telegraph. It says he charged the taxpayer hundreds of pounds for treating insect "infestations", removing moles and jackdaw nests from his Suffolk property, and for an annual "rodent service", the paper said. It was reported Mr Gummer initially claimed around £200 a month towards the interest on the £60,000 mortgage on his constituency home but that when other expenses were added he claimed close to the maximum of over £20,000 most years.
Who hasn't had worries over Jackdaw nests.
Sir Patrick Cormack
The Staffordshire South MP claims over £1,000 each month for rent on his second home in London, according to the Telegraph. Other claims by Sir Patrick have included £329 on a TV, £200 on a radio & £349.97 on replacement reading lamps.
That's a lot of "reading lamps" Paddy.
Sir Nicholas & Ann Winterton
The Tories very own "dream team" couple - MPs for Macclesfield and Congleton respectively - claimed more than £80,000 for a London flat owned by a trust controlled by their children.
And there I am worrying about paying my bills, small world eh !!
Brian Binley
The Northampton South MP is accused of claiming more than £50,000 to rent a flat owned by his own company, BCC Marketing. According to the Telegraph, Mr Binley moved into the flat in early 2006 and began claiming £1,500 a month. When Commons' rules changed two months later, banning MPs from renting properties from businesses in which they had an interest, Mr Binley appealed to
the Fees Office. Speaker Michael Martin reportedly took two-and-a-half years to process that appeal, during which time Mr Binley kept claiming the money.
Well done my son, that's a touch of class.
Chris Grayling
The shadow home secretary claimed thousands of pounds for renovations to a London flat 17 miles from his family home. The Telegraph also alleged he delayed putting in claims so he could received the maximum in Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) over consecutive years. It said he owned four properties within the M25, including his constituency home in Ashtead, Surrey, and the Pimlico flat for which he claimed his expenses.
Top drawer, Chrissy Boy. Top drawer.
Now, in the Red corner, representing Her Majesty's Government (for what it's worth) it's the turn of The "New" Labour Party.
Margaret Beckett
The Caravan lover found herself in trouble with the Fees Office after attempting to claim £600 for hanging baskets and pot plants. She claimed second home allowances of £72,537 from 2004 to 2008, despite having no mortgage or rent to pay on her constituency home in Derby. As environment secretary and foreign secretary, Mrs Beckett was living at the grace and favour Admiralty House in Whitehall, which enabled her to rent out her London flat.
Nice work if you can get it.
Hazel Blears
Leather loving Haze claimed for three different properties in a single year, spending almost £5,000 of taxpayers' money on furniture in three months, the Telegraph reports. She also claimed for stays at London hotels after selling her flat. In March 2004, she declared her property in her Salford constituency was her second home and spent £850 on a television and video and £651 on a mattress. In April, she switched her second home to a flat in south London, claiming £850 a month for the mortgage.
In August, she sold the flat, making a £45,000 profit, and stayed
in hotels over the following two months. In December, she bought another London flat for £300,000, claiming a monthly mortgage of £1,000 and a grocery bill of £400.
Ooh, what a girl.
Stephen Byers
Ex Trade Secretary used the expenses system to claim more than £125,000 for the London flat owned by his partner, it is claimed. Over the past five years, Mr Byers is said to have spent more than £27,000 on renovation, redecoration, maintenance and appliances at his flat in Camden, north London.
Now there's a man who knows a thing or two about trading !!
Ed Balls & Yvette Cooper
Absoluely determined not to allow the Winterton's to have it all their own way, the Governments very own "dream team" couple are bang on form.
Old Balls-UP & the missus have it sewn up, “Ms” Cooper re-designated, or "flipped", her second home from a property in South Yorkshire to the London home she owned with her husband in 2005. After that, The Telegraph says the couple each claimed half of the share of their £1,468 mortgage interest costs. In May 2007, the couple moved to a larger home in London and began claiming £1,031 each in mortgage interest as well as £2,000 in moving costs. According to the paper, the two submitted the same claim twice in July 2006. Additionally, Mr Balls was said to have charged £33 for two Remembrance Sunday poppy wreaths, although the claim was turned down.
Well, the cost of Cavier & Smoked Salmon is on the rise
Sir Gerald Kaufman
Old Jerry is alleged to have claimed £1,851 for a rug imported from a New York antique centre and tried to claim more than £8,000 for a television. The Telegraph also said he entered a claim for £28,834 - more than £15,000 of which was paid - for improvements to his London home, after telling officials he was "living in a slum".
You have to feel for the poor “Knight of the Realm”.
Ruth Kelly
Ruth “I’m not a geezer, honest” Kelly according to The Telegraph claimed £31,000 of taxpayers' money for flood damage to her second home, even though she had a building insurance policy at the time. Not content with this, the gravel-voiced genius (sic) went for glory by trying to claim £3,600 for a sofa and chairs, £2,355 for a dining table and chairs, and £2,000 for a plasma screen television but they were reduced by the fees office for being excessive.
Her response is even better than the claims she made.
She told the BBC that "my claim was neither ludicrous claim nor a phantom claim", unlike others featured in the Telegraph. She argued that the furniture which she claimed to replace was "worthless" since it was 30 years old having been inherited from her parents - and so could not have been claimed on insurance. She says that the rebuilding work was handled in her absence whilst she was juggling being a minister and the mother of four young children. She concedes that she did not explore whether she could have claimed on her building insurance. I love that last bit particularly.
The idea that it didn’t occur to an MP to look into the idea of using the insurance system you & I have to use is, frankly, brilliant.
Shahid Malik
The, & I love writing this bit, “Justice” Minister Shakey has rather brought his position into question. Consider the following allegations, he claimed £66,827 from the second home allowance - the maximum allowed - over three years towards the cost of his London flat - bought in 2001 before he was elected.
The Telegraph state that the “Justice” Minister claims over the period included £2,100 for a flat screen television, £1,420 for a bathroom, £671 for a fireplace and £730 for a massage chair. It says the Fees Office rejected the TV claim - ultimately granting the MP £1,050 for a TV and £250 for a DVD system, oh, & a further claim for an iPod. Mr Malik is also reported to have claimed for a £65 court summons for not paying council tax. While claiming the equivalent of £443 per week for his London flat, the Telegraph says Mr Malik was paying less than £100 a week to rent a property in his constituency from a local businessman.
Hmm, might be all above board of course, tee,hee.
Lord (love it) Mandelson
The business secretary claimed for improvements on his constituency home after he announced he was leaving Parliament to become an EU Commissioner. Oh, he later sold the property for a profit of £136,000.
"The fact is that these allowances would not have been paid if they weren't within the rules," he told BBC Radio Scotland.
Well done Mandy. I think it's the fact that they ARE the rules that is hacking people like me off so much mate.
David Miliband
The 14 year-old looking Foreign Secretary (the mere thought makes me shudder) claimed almost £30,000 for doing up his £120,000 constituency home over five years, it was reported. He spent up to £180 every three months on the garden at the property in South Shields. Additionally, he paid the husband of former Labour MP Meg Munn for tax advice.
But to fair to the lad, it's a hell of a step up from paper boy to Foreign Secretary.
Keith Vaz
Old Keithy, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee claimed more than £75,000 to fund a second home in Westminster, even though his family home is just 12 miles away in Stanmore.
Nice one.
Old Woody (former Tory MP, jumped parties without having the decency to stand for re-election) let us taxpayers contribute almost £100,000 to help pay the mortgage on a £1.35m flat he owned. A man who is married to a member of the Sainsbury family and worth an estimated £15m .
All credit to you me old mucker.
Just a small selection of alleged claims from our esteemed Members of Parliament’s
Naturally enough in most cases the MP’s have claimed they have done nothing wrong & have always acted “within the rules”.
Parties like the BNP have recently seen electoral success despite their vote actually dropping in numbers, a crazy indictment of just how far our political system has allowed itself to be dragged into the gutter.
Petrol has gone back up to 103.9 in my area.
I pay £100 a month gas & electric bills.
It’s good to hear that the “Benefit Fraudsters, we’re onto you” commercials are back on the radio !!
They did say life wasn’t fair though.
June 09 Euro Sceptical ??So the people (or at least those who could be bothered to) have spoken with their crosses & it looks grimmer than a certain Mr G. Reaper for Mr Brown (the one of the non-tanned variety). If you look firstly at Europe as a whole, the clear picture that emerges is that most worryingly of all for Brown, the majority of Europe has refrained from giving their respective Government’s an almighty kick in the Ballot Box. This despite the worst economic conditions in living memory. Even Berlusconi seems to have done well. If you want concrete evidence of the mess this Govt find themselves in, you need look no further than across the Severn Bridge, where for the first time since the end of World War One, the Labour party has failed to come top in a nationwide election. When you have the Tories topping the polls in Wales things have gone beyond Serious, & are on a train journey where the next station we are calling at is Calamity Central. Such a disaster in the Principality simply serves to demonstrate just how damaging a time this has been for the Labour Party. Maybe they have committed the ultimate political sin & taken the ordinary man for granted for too long. Charles Kennedy summed up the mood in Britain by stating there was an “anti-politics feel about things” which is a clear indication of the public’s reaction to the expenses scandal. Though, that said, there is also the danger that the Labour Govt. will effectively take the flack whilst it’s clear that members of all the major parties are “bang to rights” too. Writing in The Gruniard, Polly Toynbee rightly surmises that the expenses issue has caused a wave of public anger as it has “opened up the enormous inequality” in Britain. Meanwhile the “fringe” parties have reaped the benefits of such a clear demonstration of public anger & apathy towards the Government, most notably UKIP & the BNP. Whatever your views on these organisations, there is little doubt that UKIP have a valid point when they chastise Brown for failing to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. It’s Gordon Brown’s Achilles heel, similar to Scargill & his refusal to hold a ballot for the miners in 1984/5, it’s coming back to bite him on the old behind. Not that the incredibly annoyingly smug Nigel Farage should get too carried away. A lot of people might well share his views on the EU, but to come second in the elections might well be a tremendous propaganda coup, it’s as much to do with the current political & economic climate as anything his party actually stand for. I’ve long held the view that the vast majority of people in Britain have little interest in politics, a sad indictment of our nation, but there you go, as a result people use elections to register frustrations or disapproval as opposed to any warmth they might feel for a particular parties doctrine. This is especially true with the emergence of the BNP. Their electoral success are actually a victory for voter apathy, not for pure democracy. There is no doubt that the BNP now have both the national & European political platform hey have craved for so long, but it has far more to do with the current climate & just how dramatically the Labour vote, in particular, has fallen away. Griffin is in the position he finds himself in because of the serious political failings of all of the other major parties. The biggest gain for both BNP & UKIP is really in propaganda. Evidence is crystal clear if you take a look at Burnley in Lancashire, voters have pretty much rejected them on this occasion. They’ve had a taste of power there & the public have rejected them this time round. The new Health Sec. has described the BNP successes as being a “sad day for British politics”. Hmm, how about politicians being, by & large, completely out of touch with the realities of life of the very people that have elected them in the first place mate. Sort that little issue out before you take the easy & lazy option of criticising other targets. The Green party have, predictably, criticised the voting system in Britain after their support increased somewhere in the region of 50%, yet they still only have 2 MEP’s to show for it. Leader of The Green Party, Caroline Lucas, rightly points out that a similar voting system to that operated in Germany would have increased their number to at least eight members.
So the upshot of all of this has left Europe with a clear leaning to the right of centre after the lowest ever turn-out in the history of European elections, just over 43%. A 20% drop from the first elections in 1979. British voters turned out roughly 1 in 3 to vote with the fringe parties reaping the benefits. All in all, poor results for the centre to left of European politics with those parties to the right of centre gaining, hence UKIP & the BNP here in Britain.
Me, I voted with 150,979 others as a whole in the United Kingdom & 15,483 others in the South East for the Socialist Labour Party. Making up 0.7% of the vote in the South East & 1.1% of the people of the UK. Actually not that bad considering only just over 4 million voted Conservative & 2.1 Million casting their support for “New Labour”. Full credit though to the Wai D party who polled just 789 in the South West, campaigning on a platform who, if elected, would have ”undertaken at their own expense the creation of an internet site where citizens will have the chance to express, at any moment, during the entire legislative process, their own opinions And they couldn’t convince the good people of the United Kingdom, honestly, this country !!
May 28 Another Glorious Trophy Winning Night At AnfieldSo the 20th anniversary of Arsenal finest moment in their illustrious history has been marked in just about the best possible manner, namely a trophy win for Arsenal. Steve Bould must love this date, not content with being part of the title winning thirteen from 89, the folicily challenged one returned to Anfield this time as Arsenal youth coach to see his lads carry on from where they left off at The Grove last Friday evening. Starting with a 4-1 advantage, in truth it never looked likely that the Micky’s would overturn the deficit. Arsenal ran out 2-1 winners on the night, giving Bouldie’s young guns a 6-2 agg. win. Sultana’s coverage included a post match chat with professional Scouser Jason McAteer & one Michael Thomas. He might have played for both sides during his career but Micky is most certainly a Gooner. So all in all yet another satisfying May 26th in Liverpool. Good to note a decent sizable travelling support up there as well, brilliant also to see a “Respect for the Ninety Six” banner unfurled by said Gooners. A touch of class lads, a gesture which was warmly received by the home supporters.
Whilst the match was live on Sultana, I opted to watch Arsenal TV & their “Arsenal Pure Gold” programme, a regular look back at “classic” Arsenal matches. No prizes for guessing which “classic” had been chosen for viewing on this occasion. The only downside was that the whole 91 and a bit minutes weren’t shown, more like around 75 minutes of highlights, but well worth the watch anyway. Deciding to get into the full spirit of Anfield 89, I donned the yellow away shirt, well as best I could, twenty years on. I’m pleased to report although it seemed a little on the short side, it was still a reasonable fit, though admittedly if I stood sideways on & you chopped my head off, you’d most probably be wondering when the due date was!! Twenty years on though, I have to say that 1989 Adidas polyester football shirts itch like buggery. Perhaps Susanna & Trinny should’ve done something about that !
Still I got into the game & waited until Micky T missed a glorious chance to score some twenty minutes from time, before cracking open the nicely chilled Piper Heidseick (sod the recession & one wage, this was 20 years to the day since the finest moment I’ve experienced in a football stadium, bar none !!) & raising a glass as Kevin Richardson dispossessed Barnes & worked the ball back to Lukic to set Brian Moore on his way. “Arsenal come streaming forward in surely what will be their last attack” Dico, to Smudger & onto Micky T for surely the most dramatic moment in domestic football, for me, defiantly the finest. It’s quite amazing how much of the match I’ve actually forgotten, yet much of the day & evening still remains so vivid in the mind. The thing for me about the achievement that night, was that it had been so long since we had won the league – 18 years in fact. In 70/71 I was just 7 & whisper it quitely, an Evertonian (Alan Ball & all that) & to be honest, can’t remember too much about the season apart from the cup final at the end. So the feeling of becoming champions was something virtually unknown for Arsenal fans of the day, and a footballing Holy Grail. Winning it finally set us apart from the Spuds, having traded cups and league finishes over the years. We were the undisputed Champions of England, something they haven’t achieved in my lifetime, &hopefully/ probably never will. We were officially even better than Liverpool a side that appeared almost unbeatable &impossible to dislodge). Anfield 89 was just like a fantastic dream! Zoom forward 20 years, and of course the whole footballing dynamic has changed. Arsenal fans no longer have to worry about Tottenham achieving more than us, even Spuds fans themselves accept their inferiority. We live in a state of the art stadium & play in the Champions League every season (though it was looking a bit hairy at times this season !) We have been watching Bergkamp & Henry, Cesc, Vieira, and Pires, Arshavin & Overmars. Recent years have seen two doubles, two other FA Cups, European finals including the Champions League, oh & a style of play that I could only have dreamed of back in ’89. From a long serving fans perspective, the world of Arsenal has been transformed into something beyond imagination compared to what we knew back then. Now we are one of a few genuine world super-clubs; ok, so maybe not the biggest or best right now, but a super-club all the same. And perspective is the thing. This season we have finished 4th and haven’t won anything since 2005. Four whole years &the press would have us believe that everyone is up in arms. Sack the manager! Mind you, we have been to a European Cup final (lost narrowly with 10 men) a League Cup final (with the kids) another Champions League semi final & FA Cup semi, a team that ought to have won the league last season but for injuries, a bit of inexperience & bad luck. What I’d have given for this level of ‘failure’ in the 70’s, 80’s, and most of the 90’s The reaction to our current ‘plight’ leaves me nonplussed. I remember people getting disgruntled with Terry Neill. He won one FA Cup & bought John Hawley& Ray Hankin, but never got the dogs’ abuse that the current Arsenal are getting and rightly so. George Graham won two championships and three cups, then oversaw one of the worst Arsenal teams in my time as a fan with Eddie McGoldrick & John Jensen at the heart of midfield. Still few walked out moaning with half an hour to go when we were losing 3-1 at home to QPR, Dec 31 1994. Whilst I remain as disappointed about our performance this season as the next fan, and whilst I agree that Le Boss has ballsed up by not strengthening the squad after last season’s departures, the perspective that the occasion of the 20 year anniversary brings reminds me of what the club has achieved and where the expectation level now sits - and it’s in a different stratosphere. Like most people, I expect real value for money for my season ticket and demand the right to boo players when they underperform and dive. I want to see Arsenal at the top of the tree and it upsets me to see Man U and Chelsea thumping us at home as easily as they have these last couple of weeks. But everything is relative. The notion that Wenger should be replaced is absurd in the extreme. Replace him with who? Big Sam? Tony Pullis? Sven? My mate Mr Brown ?? C’mon you Gunners. End of SeasonIn the late May sunshine, the season ended in style as Arsenal avenged their defeat in The Potteries last November by running out comfortable 4-1 winners against Stoke on the last day of the season. Out of the blocks as quick as possible, The Gunners were three up in less than twenty minutes. First Beattie turned a cross from Fabs into his own net after ten minutes, five minutes later Shawcross, atypical journeyman clogger as was so evident back in Nov. Upended Van Persie who made a mug of him all afternoon. The Dutchman scoring comfortably from the spot. There can’t be a more clinical penalty taker at the club than dear old Batman, he always seems to strike the ball so well giving the goalkeeper little chance. So two nil up & a few minutes later it was three as Diaby rose unchallenged to head home, Van Persie then rattled the bar with a free-kick before Denilson made an unnecessary & clumsy challenge on Fuller in the penalty area resulting in the deficit being reduced.on the half-hour. The second half saw just one further goal as Delap showed his game has more to it than simply the long throw, as he attempted to head the ball back to his keeper but only succeeded in heading the ball straight to Van Persie to set him up beautifully for his second & The Gunners fourth. Toure also hit a post as Arsenal toyed with their visitors throughout the afternoon. So much so that third choice goalkeeper Vito Mannone had as comfortable an Arsenal debut as he could’ve possibly hoped for. Though it should also be noted that anything he had to deal with, was dealt with well. The crowd showed their support for Wenger throughout the game, it remains to see just how the mood develops as of August though.
So West Brom, Middlesborough & Newcastle are ralegated to be replaced by Wolves, Birmingham & Burnley. Pleased to see Burnley promoted as they try to play football, gave a decent account of themselves against Arsenal in the previous two cup encounters, even though Bendtner missed a hatful of chances ! Nearly beat the Spuds, well would’ve if the away goal rule was applied in the Carling Cup ! Knocked the Chavs out too. So well done to Coyle & his side & one thing looks evermore likely in the Premiership. That is there is a good chance that the newly promoted sides will stay up, Hull & Stoke have proved it this season & with them likely to be in the mix next season it gives the likes of Burnley more hope.
How poor were Newcastle this season, & at Aston Villa in particular ? I don’t think Owen touched the ball when he can on as sub, in a game they knew they needed to score in to have any chance of saving their Premiership status. But Shearer’s side simply meekly surrendered to their inevitable fate. And on the subject of how poor Newcastle were, didn't that just get Mr Brown out of jail ? Brown said: "We absolutely deserved to stay up and have a second year in the Premier League. "We got more points than the bottom three clubs - it is a simple as that." Now whilst I loathe the bloke, he's absolutely right. But please spare us the wild scenes of celebration, breaking into a song & dance routine, Britain's got talent ? More like Phil Brown's got no humility !! Your team stayed up because of the woeful form of Newcastle & to some extent Boro as opposed to anything you helped to conjure up. Twenty pts from a possible twenty seven to start with was both admirable & deserved, I've openly stated that The Tigers deserved the points at The Grove because they played two up front, defended well, Michael Turner in particular, boy does that fella read the game well or what. Also Hull rode their luck when it was required & fair play to them. But 8 pts from the next 66, & just the one victory in there (& that was an injury time winner at Fulham) tells you all you need to know about the standard of much of the premiership.Hull are a woeful side, Newcastle were, well, woefuller !! Hopefully they will now also let the Fabregas spitting row go too, reading between the lines it's clear Fabs spat at the ground, not something I condone but completely at odds with the rubbish spouted by Brown & Horton. Brown will never be forgiven for his, "for their club captain Cesc Fabregas to spit at my assistant at the end of the game shows you what thia club is all about" rant. Sad to hear such nastiness bile coming so soon after Hull had used Arsenal's training facilities pre play-off final match last May.
May 27 May 26 Remembered & Looking Forward tooAs the anniversary of that amazing night approaches, all sorts of memories flood back. I was lucky enough to be there that night and alongside the birth of my children, it remains the outstanding memory of my 45 years on this planet. My wedding day was great too, but sorry love, Anfield ’89 was something else... I was so fortunate to be there that glorious night, nothing (not even double wins, or winning the trophy at Shite Hart Lane) comes close !! Now onto the future, and Arsenal defeated Liverpool 4-1 in the first leg of the FA Youth Cup Final last Friday evening at The Grove in front of over 33,000, the sort of crowd many premiership sides would be content with. There were many highlights aside from the result.
Jack Wilshere, a name already known & revered by Gooners, simply ran the game. He glided past opponents, turned on a sixpence (even though he wouldn't know what a sixpence was), slipped passes through with an amazing maturity & was still able to evade some hairy challenges, as well as putting it about himself. Jack may have a low centre of gravity and be rather short but he sure as hell never pulls out of a 50-50 challenge. If he doesn't go on to be a top player, then something has seriously gone wrong. It's the first touch that sets him apart. It always propels him forward and at pace. As well as having skill and vision, he's also got a bit of Arsenal fighting spirit in him. He's obviously got a cool temperament as well. He's just about to take a crucial penalty in a cup final, and he stops for a minute to do his shoelaces up! No nerves there, then. Jack was brilliant, but he wasn't alone. Bartley and Ayling were solid in defence ably supported by fullbacks Cruise and Eastmond. Keeper Shea did what he had to do. Coquelin looked classy and solid in central midfield. Lansbury oozed class on our right, clearly toughened up having enjoyed a loan to Scunthorpe. Frimpong, born in Ghana but an England under 16 and 17 international was both tough & determined but was injured in the first half. Captain Jay Emmanuel-Thomas may look like a basketball player but his skills in close control and measured long passes were a joy. Up front Gilles Sunnu our French ace showed his quality speed and confidence. Sunnu was joined by the exciting Sanchez Watt when Frimpong was injured and Arsenal at this point changed from a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2. Our first goal came from a sweet move from Wilshere to Lansbury to Sunnu who stroked home the opening goal to the delight of the kids both on and off the pitch. Our second came from Wilshere's very positive penalty kick after Watt had been knocked over in the box. Maybe the boys thought they were home and dry but Liverpool struck back almost immediately through their Swede Kacaniklic. Rolling over not being on the Scousers agenda the game went up a notch and a helter-skelter, tit for tat, tackle for tackle game ensued. Arsenal gained momentum which continued into the second half when a sweet through ball by Wilshere was latched onto by Watt who coolly chipped the keeper to make it 3-1. Emmanuel-Thomas is good in the air as you would hope for one so tall and it was his header from a perfect Lansbury corner that made it 4-1. Substitute Rhys Murphy was on long enough to torment a few players and have a good goal disallowed for offside. The extra goal would have been useful because this Liverpool side won't make it easy for us at Anfield, they're too good and determined for that. But a 4-1 half time lead in a two leg final must bode well for Stevie Bould's kids. How appropriate Arsenal’s young guns go to Anfield on May 26th You couldn’t make it up.
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