Team Nice Gets Political

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice.

26. Lazy or Incapable?

It’s never been easy being a supporter of the England football team. The experience can best be summed up as a periodic frenzy of heightened expectation followed by unexpected and yet inevitable disappointment.

And this week, so it was again.

Should we have learnt our lesson by now? Expectations have been high, particularly with this ‘Golden Generation’. But in the wake of yet another inexplicable disappointment, many feel that it's time England asked some serious questions about the football team:

• Why do they always underperform and disappoint?
  
• Is the Manager not good enough?
  
• Are the team members not good enough?
  
• Are the top players paid too much to really care anymore?

And in a strange way the same questions are being asked at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. The loss of 25 million names and personal details by the government seems incredible in this day and age. In a time when we are constantly reminded about the modern danger of identity theft, a mistake of this sort should not be possible.

As stories emerge of low-level civil servants downloading billions of pounds worth of information then saving a tenner here or there on unsecured or unregistered post, one has to wonder whether the people we trust with our lives and dreams are up to the job. And one has to wonder if they even care?

By Peter Muriuki