TRYING to guestimate the next move Fenway Sports Group will make over the position of Liverpool Football Club manager Brendan Rodgers is as tricky as determining which numbers will make you a millionaire on the next Lotto draw.
Yes, and appropriately enough, it may all come down to the numbers.
No, not the six goals that the Reds shipped on Sunday in one of the most embarrassing, calamitous performances in living memory. As bad as that capitulation at Stoke City was - and yes, it was bad - it wouldn't ultimately determine the manager's fate.
There's every chance that decision has already been taken by the FSG hierarchy and the Northern Irishman will, in perhaps a matter of hours, learn whether he still has a future at Anfield.
In their history dealing with managers, FSG have shown both tolerance when things aren't going so well as well as being fearless if they feel a change in the managerial hotseat is required.
The recent history of their two big sports teams - Liverpool FC and the Boston Red Sox - provides the evidence for this.
When FSG took over the reins at Liverpool in the autumn of 2010, Roy Hodgson was already the Reds manager. He was not their appointed man, Hodgson having been in the post since July 1 of that turbulent year.
But a series of awful performances culminating in a dreadful display at Blackburn Rovers in January 2011 led to Hodgson being relieved of his duties. FSG had shown to Liverpool supporters that they were listening to their concerns and were unafraid of making the biggest of changes at a football club.
There was plenty of clamour from supporters to have club legend Kenny Dalglish restored to the dugout. Whether FSG truly wanted Dalglish in the job is perhaps open to argument, but there was no doubt that the majority of fans had been appeased.
And over the next 14 months, Dalglish manfully helped to steady a ship that was listing badly. A first piece of silverware in six years was achieved when the Carling Cup was won in March, 2012, and the team also reached the FA Cup Final only to narrowly miss out to Chelsea.
But it was clear by the time the end of the season was reached, FSG were looking to install their own man at Anfield.
Just 11 days after the Wembley loss to Chelsea, Dalglish was gone and barely two weeks later, FSG announced his successor - Rodgers.
The former boss of Watford, Reading and Swansea City was yet to celebrate his 40th birthday but FSG's faith in him to lead their plan to bring success and silverware back to Anfield was total.
So, FSG have had 'their man' in the job for a total of 155 games in all competitions. The club under Rodgers has been unbeaten in 115 of those contests, winning 80 of them. That's double the amount of losses he has overseen - 40.
Across the Atlantic, the pattern of managerial moves at the Boston Red Sox does have echoes of what's been happening at Anfield.
FSG took control of the Massachusetts ballclub early in 2002. The team, with a fanatical fanbase stretching well outside the State's borders, had not won the sport's coveted World Series crown in more than eight decades.
One of the new owners' first moves in the Spring Training of 2002 was to send packing manager Joe Kerrigan who had presided over a difficult end to the 2001 season when the team missed the playoffs.
In Kerrigan's place, FSG installed Grady Little.
It was a move that almost, but not quite, brought glory to Fenway Park again.
In 2002, the Red Sox enjoyed a brilliant year winning 93 games - usually enough to earn a place in the post-season playoffs. Sadly for Boston, they finished a distant second to the New York Yankees and missed the party.
A year later, they did make the playoffs but in an infamous clash with the Yankees where the fate of the American League pennant was on the line and a place in the World Series, the Red Sox came up short.
Little's tactics came into sharp focus when a decision not to take out tiring pitcher Pedro Martinez with Boston holding a 5-2 lead late in the contest backfired with the worst possible outcome. New York tied the game at 5-5 and in the second extra inning, a home run from Aaron Boone won it for the team in pinstripes.
The heartbreaking loss to their deadliest rivals only strengthened FSG's resolve, and despite Little's fine numbers across two seasons - he oversaw 188 victories - the owners acted once more and the manager was gone. And rapidly too.
It was seen as a ruthless decision by some commentators, but given the widespread anger directed by Boston's fans who laid the blame for the crucial loss squarely at Little's feet and not veteran pitcher Tim Wakefield who had given up Boone's homer, there was no way back for him.
If anyone doubted the determination FSG had of finally claiming a World Series title, they had no reason at all to question it now.
The time between Boone's big blow and Little's departure was just 11 days. You might have seen that number earlier...
Speaking after the ballclub decided not to renew Little's contract, Boston's then general manager, Theo Epstein, commented: ''All I can tell you is the truth, which is quite simply that the decision was made on a body of work after careful contemplation of the big picture. It did not depend on any one decision in any one postseason game.''
And team president and chief executive, Larry Lucchino, added: ''We did assure him that this decision was not made based on a single decision in a single game."
The next period of the FSG ownership of the Red Sox was without question the most successful.
Under new manager Terry Francona, Boston famously, gloriously, claimed their first World Series crown in his first season at the helm. It was the team's first title since 1918.
A year later they made the playoffs only to lose at the first hurdle to the eventual World Series champions, the Chicago White Sox.
In 2006 the Red Sox failed to make the playoffs, but there was plenty in the bank for Francona given the successes over the previous two years and he held onto his job.
There was no doubting it was the right decision by FSG as the following autumn, the Red Sox roared to their second World Series triumph in four seasons defeating the Colorado Rockies in four straight games.
Francona led Boston all the way to the American League Championship Series in 2008 but they fell to the Tampa Bay Rays in a seventh and deciding game.
In 2009, once more Boston had an excellent year winning 56 of their 81 home games, but the Yankees were again their nemesis and they missed out on the playoffs.
The 2010 season also saw the Red Sox fall short of the post-season, and after a dramatic ending to the 2011 season where Boston lost a pivotal final game to the Baltimore Orioles while Tampa Bay were beating the Yankees, they also missed out that year too.
The loss also led to Francona deciding to call it quits - just a matter of a few hours after the defeat to the Orioles.
Speaking after his departure, Francona said: "To be honest with you, I didn't know, or I'm not sure, how much support there was from ownership. I don't know if I felt real comfortable. You have to be all-in with this job and I voiced that today. There were some things that maybe - going through things here and to make it work - it has to be everybody together and I was questioning some of that a little bit."
There was no doubt about it that for the first time in the best part of a decade, FSG were in a fix with the Red Sox.
There then came the tenure of Bobby Valentine as the ballclub's manager. His appointment was announced about a month after Francona's exit - and it was to be an utter shambles.
After years of stability and success under Francona, Valentine's reign was simply dreadful.
Boston slumped to the bottom of the American League East Division with their worst record in almost half-a-century.
Twenty-four hours after the conclusion to the 2012 regular season, FSG fired Valentine.
It was a decision greeted with universal approval across 'Red Sox Nation' as fans hoped the owners would find someone to lead them back to glory once more.
And that man was John Farrell. He took the job at Fenway Park 17 days after Valentine went.
The following October, Farrell led the Red Sox to their third World Series title in the FSG era, when an improbable late run into the playoffs culminated in a victory over the St Louis Cardinals in six games.
If truth be known, most Boston fans would say this achievement was totally unexpected but Farrell managed to galvanise the team late in the season to make the playoffs - and once there, they proved there was no-one to stop them.
Looking to defend their crown in 2014, however, the Red Sox failed - and on a massively embarrassing scale.
They plummeted back down to the foot of the American League East Division earning just two more wins than Valentine had garnered in 2012.
Alarm bells must have been ringing for FSG and the chequebooks came out over the winter as a number of players were signed to significant contracts.
Gone was the 'moneyball' concept - buying cheaply and building success via statistical analysis of players' achievements on the field (not that the team really employed this idea strictly to the letter) - and instead some major multi-million dollar deals were sanctioned by FSG.
Not least were the eye-watering contracts inked by Hanley Ramirez (four years, $88m) and Pablo Sandoval (five years, $95m), both agreed less than a month after the 2014 World Series ended.
These were two marquee signings and FSG were doubtless banking on the pair to deliver from the get-go in 2015.
Which brings us to where we are now with both Liverpool FC and the Boston Red Sox.
And it's more than an interesting time for FSG.
Rodgers's third season under the FSG ownership has been something of a rollercoaster - but for Liverpool fans, it was a ride that ultimately ended dreadfully.
The fact that the Reds reached both domestic cup semi-finals - the only club to do so - will likely count for very little when it comes to FSG. They know the bottom line is success in the Premier League and by definition qualification for the money-spinning Champions League.
An incredible and very positive 2013-14 campaign has been completely overshadowed by the one that has just ended, and with a sizeable number of Liverpool supporters demanding Rodgers to be sacked, there's no doubt FSG will have heard those calls.
Meanwhile, at Fenway Park the Red Sox have endured a very indifferent start to the season. They have losing records both at home and on the road. Already this season, the ownership decided to fire pitching coach Juan Nieves to try and turn things around in that part of the game where the numbers, to use American parlance, were ugly.
In a tightly-contested American League East Division, Boston are still well within touching distance of the early pacesetters, the Yankees, but the consensus among many fans is the team is not playing well at all. They may have the bats, but ultimately a below-average pitching staff will, more likely than not, prove to be their Achilles heel. Already some fans are questioning Farrell's leadership, despite the fact it's less than two years since the World Series was won.
It could be that the 2013 World Series triumph will ensure Farrell stays in charge - for this season at least.
But with Rodgers, it's literally an entirely different ballgame. With no silverware to fall back on, his position could be seen as shaky.
Yes, he is FSG's man, but given their track record of firing their own appointments in the past - Dalglish, Little and Valentine - it shows they will pull the proverbial trigger if they think it will benefit the team in the long run.
Francona, certainly, and Farrell to a point, have proved that course of action to be right.
Which is why the next moves made at Anfield and Fenway Park will be of great interest to millions of fans around the world.
For both Farrell and Rodgers, 2015 may well be defining years in their careers.
And for FSG as the owners of two of the biggest sports teams in the world.
Wednesday 27 May 2015
Tuesday 19 May 2015
Time to cash Sterling in?
SO, farewell, then, Raheem Sterling?
The saga concerning Liverpool's talented young attacker appears to be approaching an endgame that many Reds supporters had foreseen months ago.
With the news breaking yesterday that the 20-year-old had reportedly told his agent he would not be putting pen to paper on a contract extension - he had already agreed one tying him to the club until the summer of 2017 - it has led to more than one or two comments on social media.
So, what the hell, I'll have my two pennyworth too.
Or should that be my one hundred thousand worth?
For that is the sum of money - in pounds sterling, naturally - that the player is believed to have rejected as a weekly wage at Liverpool Football Club.
That's £595.23 per hour, every single day of the year,
By anybody's standards, even players with more experience in the game than Sterling, a salary of £5,200,000 doesn't appear to show the club were being cheapskates.
In my lifetime watching football, I have become more and more disillusioned with the way the game is at its highest level.
Yes, there are some fabulous players who would be stars in any era of the game - obviously Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo head that list - but in so many ways, money is ruining the sport.
In years past, a talented 20-year-old player having already signed his decent contract would have just got on with his game, developed and improved it so by the time came for him to renew his deal he could quite rightly suggest he was worth more than the club were currently paying him and sign a more lucrative one.
Nowadays, though, it seems the contracts players put their names to mean less than zero.
When Luis Suarez signed that big contract in December 2014 - to stay at Anfield for another four-and-a-half seasons - my immediate thought was he was going to be sold before that deal expired.
As it turned out, he was off before the ink had barely had time to dry when he went to Barcelona last July. Clearly, the infamous biting incident with Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup played its part in that story, but it only reinforced my belief about the worthlessness of contracts.
So now we come to Sterling. It's a sorry mess, if truth be told, with faults on both sides.
But my belief is the greater blame lies with the player - and his agent.
When Reds manager Brendan Rodgers hailed Sterling as "...the best young player in European football at the moment..." following the victory over Norwich City on Easter Sunday last year, in some ways the boss - and by definition the club - were almost making a rod for their own back.
And Sterling's agent, Aidy Ward, must have taken this on board.
For before the year was out, there were rumours of the player being unsettled with his current contract, despite talk of his present deal being upped from £35,000 per week to £100,000.
This came to a head when Sterling, without the club's knowledge, went to the BBC to give his side of the story - on, of all days, April Fool's Day.
It's worth pointing out that Rodgers gave Sterling a chance to recharge his batteries over the festive period and after netting the only goal of the match against Burnley, he went back to his native Jamaica for a few days over the New Year.
That was man-management at its finest.
And what happens next? The player decides he's worth more than the club are offering and believes his chances at winning trophies will be better elsewhere.
Well, it might have escaped his memory, but he is already at a club that came mightily close to lifting silverware this season. Reaching the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions - the only side to do so and a first for Rodgers as Reds boss - was a decent enough achievement by a team desperately lacking a recognised strike force this season.
And to be fair to Sterling, his high point of the campaign came in the first-leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final with a fantastic leveller against Chelsea.
But moments like that have been too few and far between, and for a good number of Liverpool fans the sight of him spurning several chances in front of goal - many laid on a plate - have hardly endeared him.
I don't even think he's got his own chant on The Kop.
So now the ball is likely to be in the court of the club's owners Fenway Sports Group.
It will be interesting to see how John W Henry, Tom Werner and co play this one.
It's a scenario they are unlikely to have come across often, if at all, at the Boston Red Sox. Don't get me wrong; sports agents in the United States are just as ruthless - arguably more so than they are here - but I cannot for the life of me imagine a 20-year-old 'phenom' , as Sterling might be called across the Pond, holding a ballclub, almost to ransom.
So the way things are, it seems obvious that Sterling has had enough. Maybe he craves a return to his spiritual home in London and maybe we'll hear Mr Henry once again enquire what they are smoking down the Emirates way when a bid for £20m emerges from there in the next few weeks.
I'm sure Messrs Henry and Werner would prefer not to sell him to a perceived rival team in the Premier League, but the way things are just now I cannot see the four big hitters on the continent - Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and PSG - racing out with their chequebooks.
Of course, all this could change markedly, especially if David De Gea moves to the Spanish capital and Gareth Bale ups sticks from there for Salford.
If we were to sell Sterling, I think a base figure of £40m-£45m for a 20-year-old established England international is a decent ask by today's over-inflated standards.
And if we were to invest that wisely in a striker who won't spend most of the season on the treatment table while guaranteeing 15-20 goals, I'd be more than happy with that.
It's a real shame it has come to this for Raheem Sterling, but sadly it just symptomatic of modern football.
Players come and players go - more often than when I was a kid, I reckon - but us supporters always stay loyal to our team.
Unless your name is David Mellor...
The saga concerning Liverpool's talented young attacker appears to be approaching an endgame that many Reds supporters had foreseen months ago.
With the news breaking yesterday that the 20-year-old had reportedly told his agent he would not be putting pen to paper on a contract extension - he had already agreed one tying him to the club until the summer of 2017 - it has led to more than one or two comments on social media.
So, what the hell, I'll have my two pennyworth too.
Or should that be my one hundred thousand worth?
For that is the sum of money - in pounds sterling, naturally - that the player is believed to have rejected as a weekly wage at Liverpool Football Club.
That's £595.23 per hour, every single day of the year,
By anybody's standards, even players with more experience in the game than Sterling, a salary of £5,200,000 doesn't appear to show the club were being cheapskates.
In my lifetime watching football, I have become more and more disillusioned with the way the game is at its highest level.
Yes, there are some fabulous players who would be stars in any era of the game - obviously Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo head that list - but in so many ways, money is ruining the sport.
In years past, a talented 20-year-old player having already signed his decent contract would have just got on with his game, developed and improved it so by the time came for him to renew his deal he could quite rightly suggest he was worth more than the club were currently paying him and sign a more lucrative one.
Nowadays, though, it seems the contracts players put their names to mean less than zero.
When Luis Suarez signed that big contract in December 2014 - to stay at Anfield for another four-and-a-half seasons - my immediate thought was he was going to be sold before that deal expired.
As it turned out, he was off before the ink had barely had time to dry when he went to Barcelona last July. Clearly, the infamous biting incident with Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup played its part in that story, but it only reinforced my belief about the worthlessness of contracts.
So now we come to Sterling. It's a sorry mess, if truth be told, with faults on both sides.
But my belief is the greater blame lies with the player - and his agent.
When Reds manager Brendan Rodgers hailed Sterling as "...the best young player in European football at the moment..." following the victory over Norwich City on Easter Sunday last year, in some ways the boss - and by definition the club - were almost making a rod for their own back.
And Sterling's agent, Aidy Ward, must have taken this on board.
For before the year was out, there were rumours of the player being unsettled with his current contract, despite talk of his present deal being upped from £35,000 per week to £100,000.
This came to a head when Sterling, without the club's knowledge, went to the BBC to give his side of the story - on, of all days, April Fool's Day.
It's worth pointing out that Rodgers gave Sterling a chance to recharge his batteries over the festive period and after netting the only goal of the match against Burnley, he went back to his native Jamaica for a few days over the New Year.
That was man-management at its finest.
And what happens next? The player decides he's worth more than the club are offering and believes his chances at winning trophies will be better elsewhere.
Well, it might have escaped his memory, but he is already at a club that came mightily close to lifting silverware this season. Reaching the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions - the only side to do so and a first for Rodgers as Reds boss - was a decent enough achievement by a team desperately lacking a recognised strike force this season.
And to be fair to Sterling, his high point of the campaign came in the first-leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final with a fantastic leveller against Chelsea.
But moments like that have been too few and far between, and for a good number of Liverpool fans the sight of him spurning several chances in front of goal - many laid on a plate - have hardly endeared him.
I don't even think he's got his own chant on The Kop.
So now the ball is likely to be in the court of the club's owners Fenway Sports Group.
It will be interesting to see how John W Henry, Tom Werner and co play this one.
It's a scenario they are unlikely to have come across often, if at all, at the Boston Red Sox. Don't get me wrong; sports agents in the United States are just as ruthless - arguably more so than they are here - but I cannot for the life of me imagine a 20-year-old 'phenom' , as Sterling might be called across the Pond, holding a ballclub, almost to ransom.
So the way things are, it seems obvious that Sterling has had enough. Maybe he craves a return to his spiritual home in London and maybe we'll hear Mr Henry once again enquire what they are smoking down the Emirates way when a bid for £20m emerges from there in the next few weeks.
I'm sure Messrs Henry and Werner would prefer not to sell him to a perceived rival team in the Premier League, but the way things are just now I cannot see the four big hitters on the continent - Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and PSG - racing out with their chequebooks.
Of course, all this could change markedly, especially if David De Gea moves to the Spanish capital and Gareth Bale ups sticks from there for Salford.
If we were to sell Sterling, I think a base figure of £40m-£45m for a 20-year-old established England international is a decent ask by today's over-inflated standards.
And if we were to invest that wisely in a striker who won't spend most of the season on the treatment table while guaranteeing 15-20 goals, I'd be more than happy with that.
It's a real shame it has come to this for Raheem Sterling, but sadly it just symptomatic of modern football.
Players come and players go - more often than when I was a kid, I reckon - but us supporters always stay loyal to our team.
Unless your name is David Mellor...
Saturday 9 May 2015
Things can only get worse...
WELL, as I glance at the clock it's approaching 8.30pm, nearly a full 24 hours after the polls closed on the 2015 General Election.
And just like receiving any sort of bad news, I'm still in a state of shock.
Shock that the result could have been so bad.
If I'm truthful, in my heart of hearts I really didn't believe Ed Miliband could win an overall majority for the Labour Party.
Friends who have known me for decades or maybe a few years know precisely where my colours have been nailed since I first became politically aware in the early 1980s.
I was brought up in a loving home in 'leafy Lydiate'. This outpost of North Merseyside could likely be considered conservative in both senses of the word. It is just 10 miles from Liverpool City Centre but in many ways it could conceivably be a million or more.
Crime was low, things were quiet and people just got on with their lives without fuss. My Dad was in full-time employment as an overseas business manager of a successful and long-established Liverpool-based company, and although we just went on one major holiday for a fortnight away in all those years, me and my Sister wanted for nothing. Life wasn't easy, I'm sure, for my parents, but they provided everything we needed. So it really should have been a Conservative home when it came to elections.
But it never was.
My Dad could see the bigger picture. He and his family might be doing OK, if not spectacularly, but others - millions of others - around the country patently weren't. So I became aware of where my parents' political allegiances lay - and I understood them.
Fairness for all was paramount.
I'm too young to remember the General Elections that happened in my early years - 1970 and the two in 1974 - but I can recall the one in 1979 and distinctly remember my 41-year-old Dad berating Margaret Thatcher as he watched her on the TV give her infamous 'St Francis Of Assisi' speech from the steps of No10 Downing Street.
By the time the next Election came around in 1983, I was approaching my 16th birthday and was beginning to have a much firmer grasp about politics. It seemed obvious that the Tories' victory that year was built solely on the bedrock of support garnered from the appalling and completely avoidable Falklands War 13 months before. Because domestically, the country was going to the dogs.
So 1985 arrived and the only major holiday we went on as a family - Jersey for a fortnight. I guess it must have cost my parents a fortune because it's not a cheap place to go to, even today. It was a great two weeks away, a holiday I will always remember with much fondness
And 1985 was also the year when I first heard Billy Bragg.
I can still remember him singing Between The Wars on Top Of The Pops. In many ways it was a 'Road To Damascus' moment. Two days later I bought his four-track EP on a seven-inch single, and the rest, as they say in clichéd terms, is history.
My political left leanings grew over the years. I was distraught after the 1987 General Election when the loathsome Thatcher someone got voted in for a third term. And when 1992 came around and those of us on the left thought Neil Kinnock was going to win for Labour after what appeared to be a magnificent campaign with all the right arguments to win power, I was absolutely devastated.
Going into the office that Friday morning was grim beyond words, especially when I knew some work colleagues had pencilled their 'X' in the Conservative box.
Five years later, it truly was a new dawn - or so we all hoped. Labour's landslide success across the length and breadth of Britain made me so happy. And for a few years, things were good.
The minimum wage came in for a start and Labour seemed to be showing they really were the party for those who needed help the most.
And then it all started to go horribly wrong.
September 11, 2001 changed so many things and when the war in Iraq began in 2003, Labour's connection with its core supporters was irrevocably damaged.
Yes, they won General Elections in both 2001 and 2005 but things were starting to go sour. The defeat in 2010 was inevitable as night following day. The party were blamed - by the powerful Tory press - for being pretty much wholly responsible for the economic crash of 2008. Which they weren't.
But when you chuck enough mud, a fair amount will stick in the end.
So although the Tories had to rely on a crutch supplied by the Liberal Democrats, I wasn't that shocked when Gordon Brown left office in May 2010.
So now, exactly 60 months later, we've discovered the Conservatives can walk fine on their own.
How did it happen? By my reckoning, things are far, far worse than they were five springs ago. I can't give an accurate number of them, but the mere fact that foodbanks have now entered the lexicon and can be seen in places up and down this 'First World' country should tell you everything.
Shameful doesn't come close.
Chuck in the dire condition our magnificent National Health Service is in - and I'm blaming the uncaring Conservatives completely for this - and that's two examples that make me despair and shudder how David Cameron won a second term in office.
For me personally, my workplace has suffered a swathe of cuts with all its inevitable knock-on consequences, all of them negative.
So it brings us around to last night. Obviously I was more than happy to put my 'X' in the Labour box and, thankfully, Bill Esterson was returned to Parliament - with an increased majority too.
However, away from the 'People's Republic of Merseyside' and one or two other like-minded enclaves, the story was much different.
Labour's messages - and Miliband - just didn't connect with many parts of England.
And Scotland.
There's no doubt in my mind that Labour paid an incredibly high price for siding with the Tories in the referendum for independence vote last September,
The Scottish Nationalist Party - regarded as a bunch of oddballs not that long ago (even in Scotland) - remembered the 'betrayal' by Labour and gave them an incredible hammering winning virtually every single one of the 59 seats on offer.
It was a chastening evening for all Labour supporters north of the border and in many ways, not that unpredictable. Brown might have 'saved the Union' last autumn, but his actions then may well have contributed in a major way to the trouncing Labour received in its natural heartlands.
No Labour MPs in Glasgow? No, surely that's not true?!
Politics in this country has undergone a massive sea-change in the last day. Three leaders have departed - Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage. To my mind, this is unprecedented.
And, somehow, the politics of fear - and total selfishness - have won the day as Cameron has managed to win a working majority. No-one, not even the Tories' biggest supporters, could have predicted that.
But this is what we are left with for the next five years.
The country is more split than the 1980s when it was basically the Labour North and Scotland against the Conservative South.
Today, the only thing that's changed - albeit significantly - is that it's now the Labour North, SNP Scotland and the Conservative South.
As things stand, I really don't think Labour will win enough SNP seats back come the next General Election - likely to happen in the spring of 2020 - to make any impact on a national level.
Mind you, by the time that happens we could have voted to leave the European Union (I hope to God we won't) and have a floppy blond-haired dangerous toff as the resident in No10 Downing Street.
So what am I going to do? At the moment I feel so powerless. I want the Labour Party to throw off its shackles, say a collective 'sod off' to the middle-ground voters and move properly to the left and reconnect once more with its traditional voters who have defected to the abhorrent UKIP.
But I am also intelligent enough to realise that the 'middle-ground' is where elections and therefore power is won and lost.
When D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better boomed out in 1997 as the soundtrack to Labour's overwhelming success, we really thought they would be.
And, for a time, they were.
I cannot for the life of me imagine that with the Tories. In fact, it's going to be completely the opposite.
Unless you're rich, selfish and have no care for people who genuinely need helping in this country.
But then, you wouldn't know that if you're a Conservative, would you?
And just like receiving any sort of bad news, I'm still in a state of shock.
Shock that the result could have been so bad.
If I'm truthful, in my heart of hearts I really didn't believe Ed Miliband could win an overall majority for the Labour Party.
Friends who have known me for decades or maybe a few years know precisely where my colours have been nailed since I first became politically aware in the early 1980s.
I was brought up in a loving home in 'leafy Lydiate'. This outpost of North Merseyside could likely be considered conservative in both senses of the word. It is just 10 miles from Liverpool City Centre but in many ways it could conceivably be a million or more.
Crime was low, things were quiet and people just got on with their lives without fuss. My Dad was in full-time employment as an overseas business manager of a successful and long-established Liverpool-based company, and although we just went on one major holiday for a fortnight away in all those years, me and my Sister wanted for nothing. Life wasn't easy, I'm sure, for my parents, but they provided everything we needed. So it really should have been a Conservative home when it came to elections.
But it never was.
My Dad could see the bigger picture. He and his family might be doing OK, if not spectacularly, but others - millions of others - around the country patently weren't. So I became aware of where my parents' political allegiances lay - and I understood them.
Fairness for all was paramount.
I'm too young to remember the General Elections that happened in my early years - 1970 and the two in 1974 - but I can recall the one in 1979 and distinctly remember my 41-year-old Dad berating Margaret Thatcher as he watched her on the TV give her infamous 'St Francis Of Assisi' speech from the steps of No10 Downing Street.
By the time the next Election came around in 1983, I was approaching my 16th birthday and was beginning to have a much firmer grasp about politics. It seemed obvious that the Tories' victory that year was built solely on the bedrock of support garnered from the appalling and completely avoidable Falklands War 13 months before. Because domestically, the country was going to the dogs.
So 1985 arrived and the only major holiday we went on as a family - Jersey for a fortnight. I guess it must have cost my parents a fortune because it's not a cheap place to go to, even today. It was a great two weeks away, a holiday I will always remember with much fondness
And 1985 was also the year when I first heard Billy Bragg.
I can still remember him singing Between The Wars on Top Of The Pops. In many ways it was a 'Road To Damascus' moment. Two days later I bought his four-track EP on a seven-inch single, and the rest, as they say in clichéd terms, is history.
My political left leanings grew over the years. I was distraught after the 1987 General Election when the loathsome Thatcher someone got voted in for a third term. And when 1992 came around and those of us on the left thought Neil Kinnock was going to win for Labour after what appeared to be a magnificent campaign with all the right arguments to win power, I was absolutely devastated.
Going into the office that Friday morning was grim beyond words, especially when I knew some work colleagues had pencilled their 'X' in the Conservative box.
Five years later, it truly was a new dawn - or so we all hoped. Labour's landslide success across the length and breadth of Britain made me so happy. And for a few years, things were good.
The minimum wage came in for a start and Labour seemed to be showing they really were the party for those who needed help the most.
And then it all started to go horribly wrong.
September 11, 2001 changed so many things and when the war in Iraq began in 2003, Labour's connection with its core supporters was irrevocably damaged.
Yes, they won General Elections in both 2001 and 2005 but things were starting to go sour. The defeat in 2010 was inevitable as night following day. The party were blamed - by the powerful Tory press - for being pretty much wholly responsible for the economic crash of 2008. Which they weren't.
But when you chuck enough mud, a fair amount will stick in the end.
So although the Tories had to rely on a crutch supplied by the Liberal Democrats, I wasn't that shocked when Gordon Brown left office in May 2010.
So now, exactly 60 months later, we've discovered the Conservatives can walk fine on their own.
How did it happen? By my reckoning, things are far, far worse than they were five springs ago. I can't give an accurate number of them, but the mere fact that foodbanks have now entered the lexicon and can be seen in places up and down this 'First World' country should tell you everything.
Shameful doesn't come close.
Chuck in the dire condition our magnificent National Health Service is in - and I'm blaming the uncaring Conservatives completely for this - and that's two examples that make me despair and shudder how David Cameron won a second term in office.
For me personally, my workplace has suffered a swathe of cuts with all its inevitable knock-on consequences, all of them negative.
So it brings us around to last night. Obviously I was more than happy to put my 'X' in the Labour box and, thankfully, Bill Esterson was returned to Parliament - with an increased majority too.
However, away from the 'People's Republic of Merseyside' and one or two other like-minded enclaves, the story was much different.
Labour's messages - and Miliband - just didn't connect with many parts of England.
And Scotland.
There's no doubt in my mind that Labour paid an incredibly high price for siding with the Tories in the referendum for independence vote last September,
The Scottish Nationalist Party - regarded as a bunch of oddballs not that long ago (even in Scotland) - remembered the 'betrayal' by Labour and gave them an incredible hammering winning virtually every single one of the 59 seats on offer.
It was a chastening evening for all Labour supporters north of the border and in many ways, not that unpredictable. Brown might have 'saved the Union' last autumn, but his actions then may well have contributed in a major way to the trouncing Labour received in its natural heartlands.
No Labour MPs in Glasgow? No, surely that's not true?!
Politics in this country has undergone a massive sea-change in the last day. Three leaders have departed - Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage. To my mind, this is unprecedented.
And, somehow, the politics of fear - and total selfishness - have won the day as Cameron has managed to win a working majority. No-one, not even the Tories' biggest supporters, could have predicted that.
But this is what we are left with for the next five years.
The country is more split than the 1980s when it was basically the Labour North and Scotland against the Conservative South.
Today, the only thing that's changed - albeit significantly - is that it's now the Labour North, SNP Scotland and the Conservative South.
As things stand, I really don't think Labour will win enough SNP seats back come the next General Election - likely to happen in the spring of 2020 - to make any impact on a national level.
Mind you, by the time that happens we could have voted to leave the European Union (I hope to God we won't) and have a floppy blond-haired dangerous toff as the resident in No10 Downing Street.
So what am I going to do? At the moment I feel so powerless. I want the Labour Party to throw off its shackles, say a collective 'sod off' to the middle-ground voters and move properly to the left and reconnect once more with its traditional voters who have defected to the abhorrent UKIP.
But I am also intelligent enough to realise that the 'middle-ground' is where elections and therefore power is won and lost.
When D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better boomed out in 1997 as the soundtrack to Labour's overwhelming success, we really thought they would be.
And, for a time, they were.
I cannot for the life of me imagine that with the Tories. In fact, it's going to be completely the opposite.
Unless you're rich, selfish and have no care for people who genuinely need helping in this country.
But then, you wouldn't know that if you're a Conservative, would you?
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