Cricket: What is Momentum and how relevant is it?

Mark Nicholas in Cricinfo

What exactly is momentum in sport and how relevant is it? Do New Zealand's cricketers have enough momentum to carry them past Australia this weekend? Can momentum overcome talent?

Essentially momentum is form and confidence. It is usually associated with a winning streak, a succession of performances that either truly reflect ability or, better still, lift that ability beyond its norm. This is presently the case with Brendon McCullum, whose bravado is driven by the need to prove to his team that anything is possible. He wants them to play without inhibition of any kind and if that means breaking boundaries (metaphorically and literally) then so be it. This is because most cricketers play with traffic in their head. The game bares heart, mind and soul. Insecurity, affectation and failure are the enemies. The enemies play tricks and cause confusion. A clear head is the holy grail.

McCullum might as well be saying: "If you think you can or you think you can't, you are probably right."

In Riding the Wave of Momentum, American author Jeff Greenwald says: "The reason momentum is so powerful is the heightened sense of self-confidence it gives us. There is a phrase in sports psychology known as self-efficacy, which is simply a player's belief in his or her ability to perform a specific task or shot. Typically, a player's success depends on this efficacy."

I once asked Andy Flower what he thought was the most important part of his job as the England coach. He said it was to have the players ready and able to make the right choices under pressure. This caught me off guard but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Single moments define cricket matches. At critical times these may be any one of a brave shot made, or one not attempted; a brilliant ball that outthinks the batsman; smart anticipation by a fielder that leads to a run-out; a masterly move by the captain who understands what the opponent likes least.

Flower felt that for a period under Andrew Strauss, England consistently made good choices. This led them to become the No. 1 team in the world. The flaw in Strauss' team was the formulaic nature of the play. If an opponent had the mind to challenge it, and the efficacy to pull it off, the England team seemed oddly unable to react. Witness Hashim Amla's 311 at The Oval, during which Graeme Swann, a key figure for Strauss, was so comfortably played from a guard on and outside off stump. In all the time I watched Swann bowl, I never saw him so witless in response. And by such a simple tactic!

During a momentum shift, self-efficacy is very high as the players have immediate proof of their ability to match the challenge. They then experience subsequent increases in energy and motivation that lead to a feeling of enthusiasm and control. The corollary is that a sportsman's image of himself changes. He feels invincible, which, naturally enough, takes him to a higher level.

David Warner is a good illustration of this. First a devastating T20 batsman, then a prolific Test batsman and now an intimidating 50-over batsman. With the various ages of Warner have come a variety of changes - some to technique and application, some to attitude, others to fitness, health and lifestyle. His momentum has run parallel to the improved performances by the Australian team. This is no surprise. They go hand in hand. The trick for Warner now is to retain - some might say regain - humility.

In his formative years Robin Smith was coached by the highly intelligent former Natal player Grayson Heath. Probably Robin was over-coached. Heath grooved technique and shot execution. But he did not free the mind. This is less a criticism than a reflection of the time. It was a more respectful age, both in society and of bowlers, whose examination of technique was greater than it is now.

Heath - a wonderful man, with cricket set deep in his soul - would marvel at McCullum, or AB de Villiers, as much for their carefree approach as their inspirational effect. Heath preached an equation: A + H = C. Arrogance plus humility equals confidence. Both de Villiers and McCullum perfectly reflect the equation. Humility in a sportsman is paramount. Without humility, momentum will easily be derailed. After all, momentum is winning and no person or team wins all the time.

The key to not losing momentum is to retain perspective and to remain grounded. Why do Chelsea, dominant in the Premiership, suddenly concede four goals and lose to Bradford in the FA Cup? I wasn't there but the fair bet would be indifference (inexcusable) or complacency (believable). Hard as José Mourinho must work to avoid this, even he cannot invade the heads of his players and correct them in a season of some 60-odd matches.

The other explanation for such a defeat is fatigue. Mourinho watches this closely but tends to play his MVPs for long stretches. No sportsman can beat fatigue. It is inevitable. The point is that you will lose some time. How you lose is what matters. Did you cover all bases? If so, momentum need not be lost.

The test for New Zealand, though it may not apply to Saturday's group match, will be to deal with the pressure of an event that troubles the mind. Australian cricketers trouble the mind. McCullum's assault against England was a real f*** you of a performance. It said to his men: "They are not worthy." Had he got out cheaply, it would have said the same dismissive thing - like his approach in the chase against Scotland. Had New Zealand lost, it would have been awkward and may have derailed the team. But he didn't think for a minute they would lose and his innings sent that message loud and clear.

His captaincy does much the same: "We are all over you and don't forget it." His tactics challenge prosaic thinking. His bowlers are empowered to take wickets. His fieldsmen are inspired by his own startling fielding performances. This style is more All Black than Black Cap. But for Richie McCaw read Brendon McCullum.



All Black or Black Caps? © Getty Images





The journey has not been easy. Ross Taylor was popular and the fall-out from McCullum's obvious desire to take his job was unpleasant. Taylor withdrew into himself, a loss of cricket expression that New Zealand could ill afford. Former players raged against the machine. McCullum had to deliver or he was toast.

Like Taylor, he is a good man. Arguably, he is more secure. This tournament will define him.

In the face of Australia, the Black Caps must, and surely will, continue to play McCullum's game. This means sticking to the flow, not overthinking or overanalysing. The minute you change approach, or even marginalise, you screw up. If you focus too much on the outcome, it becomes difficult to play so freely. An attacking mindset can all too easily become a defensive mindset. The outcome needs to be a given. Concern for the consequences diverts attention from what must be done.

Australia are the more talented team but they have been sleeping for a fortnight; the captain has been immobilised for three months. This is the time to get them. Momentum should carry New Zealand over this line because the consequences are not a major issue. Come the knockout stage, the traffic will creep in. Creep, creep until the brain is scrambled. Can McCullum's bold interpretation of cricket remain New Zealand's force when the stakes are at their highest? Or will momentum suddenly count for nothing?

Failing the Tebbit test - Difficulties in supporting the England cricket team

by Girish Menon





The article by second generation British writer Kishan Koria applying the 'cricket test' to examine the behaviour of Britons of Asian origin was interesting and revelatory but it may be a case of blaming the victim and not the perpetrator. So, I am going to raise some issues which are never raised in the politics of Tebbit's followers. 

Firstly, why should it be a natural assumption that if you have resided in England for years you must support the English cricket team? If England's home advantage against India is reduced to fixing the pitch to suit its bowlers then so be it. The English cricket team must earn the support of the ticket buyers with its acts on and off the pitch.

The spectator in a cricket match has paid a high price to be there. That s/he should cheer for the England cricket team was never a condition of the contract. She is a free agent and can support whoever she pleases. 

The manner in which the English cricket establishment has treated players like Pietersen and Panesar gives the outsider an impression that they don't care about the views of their followers in any case. I'm sure even Bopara may be surprised at the number of times he has been in and out of the England team. 

The cricket blog The Full Toss has often highlighted the uncaring way the ECB deals with the supporters of the English cricket team. So, will it not be natural for cricket lovers to express their disgust in manifold ways? 

As far as citizenship in a land goes so long as residents pay taxes and obey the laws of the land then they are free to do what they like with the rest of their lives. This is usually the argument of free marketers like Tebbit, so why then do they wish to deny choice to these consumers of cricketainment with the nanny state telling them who to support in a cricket match? 

So, the likes of the ECB should be happy that it is the English citizens of Indian origin who are putting the bums on stadia seats and the brown pounds in their coffers. Many English bums (pun unintended) stay away from cricket stadia for a variety of reasons  including ticket prices, poor team selection policies etc. Hence the ECB should not further risk their luck by telling these high fare paying spectators who to support. Instead they should earn their support by fair minded policies and listening to the voices of their dwindling support base.

Personally, I fail the Tebbit test every time England play India and I have been unable to understand why. This is funny because in my growing years I supported the Mumbai team against other Indian teams even though my parents were immigrants from the state of Kerala (far away from Mumbai), and despite there always existing  a violent campaign against immigrants in Mumbai. 

It maybe out of alienation in a land where me and my family's future fortune lies. It maybe the jingoism in the highly conservative media. It maybe the 'institutional racism' referred to in the Macpherson report. It may be the 'barging of Gavaskar by Snow'; the negative lines bowled by Giles; the Zaheer Khan jelly beans incident; the failure to criticise Anderson for his foul mouthed pronouncements in the quest for victory; the failure to understand the invalidity of the predicted path in a DRS while castigating the non believer as a Luddite; or invoking the spirit of cricket argument selectively.  As for the booing of Moeen Ali, a fine prospect, to my mind this appears to be a continuation of the Indo-Pak rivalry which has been carried forward by the diaspora. 

However, I have also noticed periods when I begin to like the English team but then something happens and the old English superiority biases surface in the commentariat and I am driven once again to dislike the team, probably wrongly, probably not due to the players' actions. But, most importantly, the overriding reason is the brand of cricket the team plays. I have for long been a fan of the Pietersen, Botham and Gower brand of English cricket. But, so long as the clones of Boycott and Tavare dominate the approach to batting it is a trifle difficult to stay awake let alone support the England team. 

How to make hard choices : Ruth Chang

Here's what you can learn by living on £1 a day

Rowan Williams in The Independent

When Christian Aid asked me to take up the Live Below the Line challenge by living on just £1 a day for five days, I readily accepted. Well, fairly readily. But I felt it was something I had to step up to – a unique chance to learn and to enlarge my horizons.

There’s the thing about testing yourself: what do I actually need, what can I genuinely do without? 

But more simply, there’s learning a little bit about the experience of around 1.2 billion people around the world, not completely unlike you and me, who every day face the challenge of living on the tightest of budgets, and will still probably go hungry.   

On the face of it, it’s simple – spend no more than £1 a day on all your food and drink, in solidarity with those who live on less in the developing world.

As a Christian, I’d got a bit of experience of fasting in Lent and so on. The lack of treats, or giving up my favourite muesli in the morning didn’t seem so terrible.

The first thing that hit me, and it hit me quite hard, was just how expensive fresh fruit and vegetables are if you’re starting from £1 a day. The five-a-day goal (let alone more recent recommendations of seven or ten) was more or less impossible.

This really brought home what so many people in the UK, as well as overseas, struggle with on a daily basis - the basic issue not just of satisfying hunger but about proper nutrition.

I’d been vaguely aware of this in theory, but the reality is that it isn’t just a matter of eating cheaply and cheerfully. I hadn’t appreciated how difficult it would be to plan and put together meals that were nutritionally balanced. How on earth do you manage a balanced diet on such a limited budget?

In prosperous bits of Britain we live in a fast-paced, consumer-friendly world where planning an evening meal involves a quick stop at the local supermarket to pick up something tasty and often already prepared.

But that is not how it works when you’re on £1 day. You have to put aside time to prepare, time to think about your options and to work out how you can make this small sum stretch to something resembling three meals a day.

If you’re doing this challenge, you’re forced to think about what it’s like relying all the time on cheap staples. It is not just about giving up luxuries; having the freedom to choose nutritionally sensible food, whatever the price, is not to be taken for granted.

And then there is the monotony. Relying on cheap food probably means a lack of variation and flavour. Quite simply, eating becomes far less of a pleasure, not so much an experience to savour but something just to keep you going.

One of the items I bought was a very cheap can of tomato soup so that I could decant a spoonful or two into my otherwise plain meals. The tedium can be tough, and you will likely feel tired or headachy as a result.

Still, learning that you can live without certain things is a positive experience. With the treats we have to get us through the day you think to yourself, "I don’t actually depend on that, I can think again about whether I need to buy this or that in future".

Fasting or giving up some of your luxuries can be liberating - which is one of the reasons it is common across many faiths. But it doesn’t take much to forget that while you have a choice about this, most don’t. 

Liberation for them is having the possibility of security about their food and some guarantees of nutritional quality.

I found it difficult to do this challenge alone. Watching your family tuck in to a tasty-looking feast while you’re eating your routine dish of rice and vegetables is not a great deal of fun. 

But at the same time, you know that for once you’re sharing a little of the challenge faced by millions around the world who live in this way all or most of the time.

Every moment during the five days I was acutely aware that I could walk away and pack it in whenever I wanted. I chose to take up the challenge and I only had to live through it for a finite period. 

For me, it was much more of a spiritual exercise rather than something imposed. But most people who have to live on £1 or less every day can’t walk away.

Doing this may bring a sense of unity that’s spiritually positive; just remember that it’s not so spiritually positive if you haven’t chosen it.

Practical advice for anyone taking up the challenge? Keep reasonably busy. If, like me, you have a rather sedentary job there’s more of a temptation to think about food, to get frustrated and to listen to your stomach rumbling. 

If you deliberately walk around and vary your position, it’s easier to keep going. And if you close your eyes, a cup of boiled water can go some way to convincing you that you’re having a nice cup of tea! 

It can be done; and you’ll learn what nothing else can teach you – about yourself and the world you live in.

Live Below the Line is a fundraising initiative which challenges the public to live on just £1 a day for five days. Participants can take on the challenge until 30 June 2014, and all money raised will support the work of 33 charities including Christian Aid and Global Poverty Project.

Sir John Major gets his carefully-crafted revenge on the bastards

Tory former prime minister's speech was a nostalgic trip down memory lane, where he mugged the Eurosceptics

• Simon Hoggart
• The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013 16.46 BST

Sir John Major made a lunchtime speech in parliament in which he got his revenge on the Eurosceptics and other enemies Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

John Major, our former prime minister, was in reflective mood at a lunch in parliament. Asked about his famous description of Eurosceptics as "bastards", he remarked ruefully: "What I said was unforgivable." Pause for contrition. "My only excuse – is that it was true." Pause for loud laughter. Behind that mild demeanour, he is a good hater.

The event was steeped in nostalgia. Sir John may have hair that is more silvery than ever, and his sky-blue tie shines like the sun on a tropical sea at daybreak, but he still brings a powerful whiff of the past. Many of us can recall those days of the early 1990s. Right Said Fred topped the charts with Deeply Dippy, still on all our lips. The top TV star was Mr Blobby. The Ford Mondeo hit the showrooms, bringing gladness and stereo tape decks to travelling salesmen. Unemployment nudged 3 million.

Sir John dropped poison pellets into everyone's wine glass. But for a while he spoke only in lapidary epigrams. "The music hall star Dan Leno said 'I earn so much more than the prime minister; on the other hand I do so much less harm'."

"Tories only ever plot against themselves. Labour are much more egalitarian – they plot against everyone."

"The threat of a federal Europe is now deader than Jacob Marley."

"David Cameron's government is not Conservative enough. Of course it isn't; it's a coalition, stupid!"

Sometimes the saws and proverbs crashed into each other: "If we Tories navel-gaze and only pander to our comfort zone, we will never get elected."

And in a riposte to the Tebbit wing of the Tory party (now only represented by another old enemy, Norman Tebbit): "There is no point in telling people to get on their bikes if there is nowhere to live when they get there."

He was worried about the "dignified poor and the semi-poor", who, he implied, were ignored by the government. Iain Duncan Smith, leader of the bastards outside the cabinet during the Major government, was dispatched. "IDS is trying to reform benefits. But unless he is lucky or a genius, which last time I looked was not true, he may get things wrong." Oof.

"If he listens only to bean-counters and cheerleaders only concerned with abuse of the system, he will fail." Ouch!

"Governments should exist to help people, not institutions."

But he had kind words for David or Ed, "or whichever Miliband it is". Ed's proposal for an energy price freeze showed his heart was in the right place, even if "his head has gone walkabout".

He predicted a cold, cold winter. "It is not acceptable for people to have to make a choice between eating and heating." His proposal, a windfall tax, was rejected by No 10 within half an hour of Sir John sitting down.

Such is 24-hour news. Or as he put it: "I was never very good at soundbites – if I had been, I might have felt the hand of history on my shoulder." And having laid waste to all about him, he left with a light smile playing about his glistening tie.

-------

Steve Richards in The Independent

Former Prime Ministers tend to have very little impact on the eras that follow them. John Major is a dramatic exception. When Major spoke in Westminster earlier this week he offered the vividly accessible insights of a genuine Conservative moderniser. In doing so he exposed the narrow limits of the self-proclaimed modernising project instigated by David Cameron and George Osborne. Major’s speech was an event of considerable significance, presenting a subtle and formidable challenge to the current leadership. Margaret Thatcher never achieved such a feat when she sought – far more actively – to undermine Major after she had suddenly become a former Prime Minister.

The former Prime Minister’s call for a one-off tax on the energy companies was eye-catching, but his broader argument was far more powerful. Without qualification, Major insisted that governments had a duty to intervene in failing markets. He made this statement as explicitly as Ed Miliband has done since the latter became Labour’s leader. The former Prime Minister disagrees with Miliband’s solution – a temporary price freeze – but he is fully behind the proposition that a government has a duty to act. He stressed that he was making the case as a committed Conservative.

Yet the proposition offends the ideological souls of those who currently lead the Conservative party. Today’s Tory leadership, the political children of Margaret Thatcher, is purer than the Lady herself in its disdain for state intervention. In developing his case, Major pointed the way towards a modern Tory party rather than one that looks to the 1980s for guidance. Yes, Tories should intervene in failing markets, but not in the way Labour suggests. He proposes a one-off tax on energy companies. At least he has a policy. In contrast, the generation of self-proclaimed Tory modernisers is paralysed, caught between its attachment to unfettered free markets and the practical reality that powerless consumers are being taken for a ride by a market that does not work.

Major went much further, outlining other areas in which the Conservatives could widen their appeal. They included the case for a subtler approach to welfare reform. He went as far as to suggest that some of those protesting at the injustice of current measures might have a point. He was powerful too on the impoverished squalor of some people’s lives, and on their sense of helplessness – suggesting that housing should be a central concern for a genuinely compassionate Conservative party. The language was vivid, most potently when Major outlined the choice faced by some in deciding whether to eat or turn the heating on. Every word was placed in the wider context of the need for the Conservatives to win back support in the north of England and Scotland.

Of course Major had an agenda beyond immediate politics. Former prime ministers are doomed to defend their record and snipe at those who made their lives hellish when they were in power. Parts of his speech inserted blades into old enemies. His record was not as good as he suggested, not least in relation to the abysmal state of public services by the time he left in 1997. But the period between 1990, when Major first became Prime Minister, and the election in 1992 is one that Tories should re-visit and learn from. Instead it has been virtually airbrushed out of their history.

In a very brief period of time Major and his party chairman Chris Patten speedily changed perceptions of their party after the fall of Margaret Thatcher. Major praised the BBC, spoke of the need to be at the heart of Europe while opting out of the single currency, scrapped the Poll Tax, placed a fresh focus on the quality of public services through the too easily derided Citizens’ Charter, and sought to help those on benefits or low incomes. As Neil Kinnock reflected later, voters thought there had been a change of government when Major replaced Thatcher, making it more difficult for Labour to claim that it was time for a new direction.

The key figures in the Conservative party were Major, Patten, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and Douglas Hurd. Now it is Cameron, George Osborne, Michael Gove, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Oliver Letwin and several others with similar views. They include Eurosceptics, plus those committed to a radical shrinking of the state and to transforming established institutions. All share a passion for the purity of markets in the public and private sectors. Yet in the Alice in Wonderland way in which politics is reported, the current leadership is portrayed as “modernisers” facing down “the Tory right”.

The degree to which the debate has moved rightwards at the top of the Conservative party and in the media can be seen from the bewildered, shocked reaction to Nick Clegg’s modest suggestion that teachers in free schools should be qualified to teach. The ideologues are so unused to being challenged they could not believe such comments were being made. Instead of addressing Clegg’s argument, they sought other reasons for such outrageous suggestions. Clegg was wooing Labour. Clegg was scared that his party would move against him. Clegg was seeking to woo disaffected voters. The actual proposition strayed well beyond their ideological boundaries.

This is why Major’s intervention has such an impact. He exposed the distorting way in which politics is currently reported. It is perfectly legitimate for the current Conservative leadership to seek to re-heat Thatcherism if it wishes to do so, but it cannot claim to be making a significant leap from the party’s recent past.

Nonetheless Cameron’s early attempts to embark on a genuinely modernising project are another reason why he and senior ministers should take note of what Major says. For leaders to retain authority and authenticity there has to be a degree of coherence and consistency of message. In his early years as leader, Cameron transmitted messages which had some similarities with Major’s speech, at least in terms of symbolism and tone. Cameron visited council estates, urged people to vote blue and to go green, spoke at trade union conferences rather than to the CBI, played down the significance of Europe as an issue, and was careful about how he framed his comments on immigration. If he enters the next election “banging on” about Europe, armed with populist policies on immigration while bashing “scroungers” on council estates and moaning about green levies, there will be such a disconnect with his earlier public self that voters will wonder about how substantial and credible he is.

Cameron faces a very tough situation, with Ukip breathing down his neck and a media urging him rightwards. But the evidence is overwhelming. The one-nation Major was the last Tory leader to win an overall majority. When Cameron  affected a similar set of beliefs to Major’s, he was also well ahead in the polls. More recently the 80-year old Michael Heseltine pointed the way ahead with his impressive report on an active industrial strategy. Now Major, retired from politics, charts a credible route towards electoral recovery. How odd that the current generation of Tory leaders is more trapped by the party’s Thatcherite past than those who lived through it as ministers.

Choice is simply code for class

Janet Street Porter in The Independent

Social mobility tsar Alan Milburn is concerned that the gap between rich and poor is increasing. But if we want equal opportunities for all, we need to stop introducing subtle forms of social demarcation in every walk of life.

It's a particularly British obsession, this determination to create mini-castes emphasising our differences rather than celebrating our strengths. The majority of us claim to be middle class, but offer us "finest" fare over "budget" and we're hooked.

Travel is another example. Budget airlines exploit our need for social demarcation, offering us the chance not to queue – at a price. The chance not to pay for our food – at a price. The chance to choose our seat – at a price. The chance to sit at the front of economy – at a price. All things that were free a decade ago. In fact, "low-cost" air travel is not egalitarian or cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

Rail travel is the same. There's talk of a new category of travel when the East Coast line franchise is offered to private investors: a class below first called "premium economy" – so standard travel will be third class, the rolling stock equivalent of below stairs. Quite soon train operators will ask us to pay to be allowed on the platform first.

I love the new high-speed train to Kent because it's all one class. Passengers are quiet; it's clean and efficient, but it's not cheap. Anyone on a budget opts to travel on the overcrowded and slow old line.

We should realise that, in modern Britain, offering us "choice" is code for implementing a class system based on ability to pay, and (by default) offering an inferior service to the poorest. Now this trend looks likely to afflict our health service.

Michael Dixon, president of the NHS Clinical Commission and chair of the NHS Alliance, says patients could soon be charged for "extras" like comfortable beds and better food. As the NHS faces a funding gap of £30bn by the end of the decade and has to deal with an ageing population, Dr Dixon thinks users should contribute more. Hospitals raise millions through the controversial practice of charging for parking (some extort £3 an hour from visitors) and making us cough up for televisions.

Dr Dixon sees nothing wrong in a two-tier system for inpatients, claiming the wealthy already use the NHS when it suits them and pay for private treatment when they have to, and the principle should be expanded. The NHS is hopelessly overburdened with administrators and this proposal would make it worse. The quality of food varies wildly from one area to another, some trusts spending just £4.15 a day per patient, others up to £15, when the average is about £9.80.

The same differences crop up in ordering supplies: money is wasted through piecemeal and uninformed purchasing. We should all get uniformity of service throughout the NHS, no matter where we fall sick. The NHS is not a bunch of Premier League football clubs, all in competition, nor is it a gang of department stores offering rival services. NHS chief executives earn large salaries and get gold-plated pensions, but the amount they are paid varies wildly, too.

Why has the NHS become like an airline or a train operator, when it should be providing a uniform top service for a classless Britain?

How does a polyamorous relationship between four people work?

BBC News 19 Aug 2013

Imagine one house, with four people, but five couples. How does it work, asks Jo Fidgen.

Charlie is talking excitedly about a first date she went on the night before.

Next to her on the sofa is her husband of six years, Tom. And on the other side of him is Sarah, who's been in a relationship with Tom for the last five years. Sarah's fiance, Chris, is in the kitchen making a cup of tea.

The two women are also in a full-blown relationship, while the two men are just good friends. Together, they make a polyamorous family and share a house in Sheffield.

"We're planning to grow old together," says Charlie.

Polyamory is the practice of having simultaneous intimate relationships with more than one person at a time, with the knowledge and consent of all partners. The term entered the Oxford English Dictionary only in 2006, and such relationships are rare enough that Tom finds himself having to account for his personal situation time and time again.

"The number of conversations I've had with peers where I've started to explain it and they've got as far as, 'so, you all cheat on each other' and not been able to get past that. I've said no, everybody's cool with it, everybody knows what's happening, no one's deceiving each other."

If any of the four want to get involved with someone else, they have to run it by the others - all of whom have a veto.

"We can't use a veto for something as silly as, say, personal taste," says Sarah. "If you were dating somebody and I could not understand why you found them attractive, that would not be sufficient reason for me to say, no, you can't see this person."

What counts as infidelity, then?

"Lying," they chorus.

"For example," explains Charlie, "before I went on this first date yesterday, I sat down with each of my three partners and checked with them individually that I was okay to go on this date. Cheating would have been me sneaking off and saying I was meeting Friend X and not say that it was a potential romantic partner."

The rules and boundaries of their relationships are carefully negotiated.

When they had been a couple for just two weeks, Tom suggested to Charlie that they be non-monogamous.

"It was a light bulb moment for me," she says. 'I had been scared of commitment because I had never met anyone I felt I could fall completely and exclusively in love with. The idea of this not being a monogamous relationship allowed me to fall as deeply in love with Tom as I wanted to without fear that I would break his heart by falling in love with somebody else as well."

But how did she feel when, a year into their marriage, Tom fell in love with another woman?

"Well, Sarah's lovely," says Charlie. "I was just so happy that Tom was happy with her."

Sarah's partner, Chris, was less comfortable with the situation at first. They had agreed that they could have other sexual partners, but forming an emotional attachment with someone else was a different matter.

So when Sarah fell for Tom, she agonised over how to tell Chris.

"We sat down and talked about what it meant to be in love with more than one person, and did that mean I loved him less. Well, of course it didn't.

"It's not like there's only so much love I have to give and I have to give all of it to one person. I can love as many people as I can fit in my heart and it turns out that's quite a few."

Chris and Tom bonded over video games and became firm friends. Before long, Chris had fallen in love with Tom's wife, Charlie.

"It had never crossed Chris's mind not to be monogamous - now he says he could never go back," says Sarah.

This quandary over how to manage relationships is something that couples counsellor, Esther Perel, sees people struggling with all the time.

"You can live in a monogamous institution and you can negotiate monotony, or you can live in a non-monogamous choice and negotiate jealousy. Pick your evil.

"If you are opening it up you have to contend with the fact that you're not the only one, and if you are not opening it up then you have to contend with the fact that your partner is the only one."

So how do Charlie, Sarah and Tom handle jealousy?

Not a problem, they insist, and point to a word invented in polyamorous circles to indicate the opposite feeling.

"Compersion," explains Tom, "is the little warm glow that you get when you see somebody you really care about loving somebody else and being loved."

"There's always a small amount of insecurity," reflects Sarah, recalling how she felt when her fiance fell in love with Charlie. "But compare my small amount of discomfort with the huge amount of love that I could see in both of them, and honestly, I'd feel like a really mean person if I said my discomfort was more important than their happiness."

Jealousy has to be handled differently in a polyamorous relationship, adds Charlie.

"In a two-person, monogamous relationship, it's not necessary but it is possible to say, we just need to cut out all of the people who are causing jealousy and then everything will be fine.

"Whereas when you are committed to a multi-partner relationship, you can't just take that shortcut. You have to look at the reasons behind the jealousy."

If an issue does arise, the four may stay up all night talking it over.

"We do so much more talking than sex," laughs Charlie.

But some argue that it is natural for people to bond in pairs.

Our desire for monogamy has deep roots, says Marian O'Connor, a psychosexual therapist at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships in London.

"As children we need someone who loves us best of all in order to thrive. There's normally one main care giver, usually the mother, who will look after the infant.

"The thing about a monogamous relationship, it can give you some sense of certainty and surety, somewhere you can feel safe and at home."

Sarah, Tom and Charlie agree that a safe base is important, but see no reason why only monogamy can provide one.

"I feel safe and secure, with the ability to trust and grow, with Tom, Sarah and Chris," says Charlie. "It is from the base and security of the three of them that I face the world and the challenges the day brings."

"The way I see it, it's only a problem if I feel like one of my partners is spending more time with all their other partners than with me," says Sarah. "It just leads to people feeling hurt."

A shared Google calendar is the answer.

"We mostly use it for keeping track of date nights," says Charlie. "The couple who is on a date gets first pick of what film goes on the TV and it helps keep track of who's in what bedroom."

Sarah chips in. "So, for example, I have a weekly date night with Charlie. It's us snuggling up, us with the TV, us going to bed together and all that kind of business."

Perel sees polyamory as "the next frontier" - a way of avoiding having to choose between monotony and jealousy.

"We have a generation of people coming up who are saying, we also want stability and committed relationships and safety and security, but we also want individual fulfilment. Let us see if we can negotiate monogamy or non-monogamy in a consensual way that prevents a lot of the destructions and pains of infidelity."

But it's not an easy option.

"We get funny looks in the street," says Sarah.

"And every time you out yourself, you risk losing a friend," adds Charlie. "I'm preparing for 30 years of being made fun of."

Tom is cautiously optimistic that polyamory will become "average and everyday".

"Anyone who is expecting some massive social change overnight is terribly mistaken, but it will happen."

In the meantime, the four of them are planning an unofficial ceremony to mark their commitment to each other.

"Sometimes people just write the relationship off as a lazy way of getting more sex than you normally would. There are easier ways," says Tom wryly.

They all agree managing a multi-partner relationship can be exhausting.

"But we don't have a choice. We're in love with each other," they chime.

Why not... privatise the NHS

 By Brian Wheeler

Politics reporter, BBC News

A look at eye-catching policy ideas that are often talked about but never seem to feature in UK general election campaigns.

The background

The NHS was created by the post-war Labour government in 1948. For the first time, hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and opticians were brought together under one organisation to provide services free to the public at the point of delivery.

The central principle - that health services will be available to all and financed entirely from taxation - has been an article of faith in British politics ever since. David Cameron is the latest in a long succession of prime ministers to vow that the NHS is "safe" in his hands and would not be "privatised".

But privatisation is a slippery concept. Some see it in the opening up of NHS services to more private competition. Others argue that the word "privatisation" would only apply if Britain dismantled the NHS altogether and adopted a US-style private health insurance system instead - and that the NHS's status as "sacred cow" is blocking constructive debate about its future.

Thomas Cawston: The case for privatisation

Competition is a "bogey" word in the NHS.

Yet this hostility to competition and private providers is a uniquely British obsession.

Diverse providers of healthcare are common throughout Europe.

In Germany for example a third of hospitals are run by charities, a third by for-profit companies and a third by government. Sweden has invited private providers to provide GP clinics and hospital services. By contrast only 3% of the NHS budget is spent by private providers in England.

The reason for competition is that can drive real improvements in care.

To take one current example, patients with chronic back pain in Bedfordshire will soon enjoy a much better service. The local NHS has asked different organisations to suggest the best way to deliver all musculo-skeletal healthcare services for the next five years.

All qualified providers, including NHS hospitals, GP practices and private companies, are invited to submit bids to provide a world class service at the greatest value for money.

The winning bidder will be the one that gets the different parts of the NHS to work together successfully so that patients are treated as quickly as possible. The competition will deliver new thinking and NHS patients will benefit.

Competition also puts patients at the heart of the NHS.

Poll after poll shows patients value their right to choose which hospital to go to and what treatment they receive. Yet without competition patients would have to "like it or lump it" and choice remains the privilege of the rich who can afford to buy their way out of the system.

Opponents of competition argue that it will fragment NHS services.

In fact, those services are already fragmented, which is one cause of the current crisis in A&E admissions.

The Bedfordshire initiative shows that competition can join up NHS services, to the great benefit of patients.

Oliver Huitson: The case against privatisation

It is not clear where the evidence base for competitive, privatised health provision comes from.

This is perhaps why the Conservatives and the private health industry, including the "think tanks" they fund, rely on a handful of soundbites. Respectable economic theory and the evidence from real-life healthcare both disprove their case - competitive markets fit healthcare exceedingly poorly.

When markets are introduced into healthcare provision, providers chase income, costs soar, health outcomes suffer, fraud increases, and the system of universal care coverage collapses.

The public need only look at what's happening to out-of-hours care already - a stream of scandals, capped by an A&E crisis. Blaming this on NHS "fragmentation" is quite extraordinary. The privatised service, with less qualified staff to cut costs, has seen an increase of 50% in the rate of calls referred to A&E since 2010.

Sweden put "competition at the heart" of their NHS. "Choice" grew in affluent urban areas where privately-owned clinics pushing unnecessary care now abound. Of the 196 new clinics that opened in Sweden, all privately-owned, 195 were in wealthy areas.

The newly privatised Dutch system showed similar problems. The GP organisation tried to address it by asking newly qualified GPs to take positions in rural practices. For this "interference with the market" the national competition regulator fined the GP association 7.7m Euros!

Competition puts revenue, not patients, at the centre of care. It's a legal requirement for firms to maximise shareholder value - not patient wellbeing. This is why the public consistently oppose privatisation; it converts a public health service to a "fantastic business", in Cameron's words.

"Choice" is often a fantasy, as commissioners, patients and charities will soon learn; a warm buzzword used to mask the fact the NHS is being changed to a profit-led market without the public's consent.

Cigarette packaging: the corporate smokescreen

Noble sentiments about individual liberty are being used to bend democracy to the will of the tobacco industry

BETA

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 15 July 2013 20.39 BST

'Lynton Crosby personifies the new ­dispensation, in which men and women glide between corporations and ­politics, and appear to act as agents for big ­business within government.' Photograph: David Hartley / Rex Features

It's a victory for the hidden persuaders, the astroturfers, sock puppets, purchased scholars and corporate moles. On Friday the government announced that it will not oblige tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging. How did it happen? The public was overwhelmingly in favour. The evidence that plain packets will discourage young people from smoking is powerful. But it fell victim to a lobbying campaign that was anything but plainly packaged.

Tobacco companies are not allowed to advertise their products. Nor, as they are so unpopular, can they appeal directly to the public. So they spend their cash on astroturfing(fake grassroots campaigns) and front groups. There is plenty of money to be made by people unscrupulous enough to take it.

Much of the anger about this decision has been focused on Lynton Crosby. Crosby is David Cameron's election co-ordinator. He also runs a lobbying company that works for the cigarette firms Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. He personifies the new dispensation, in which men and women glide between corporations and politics, and appear to act as agents for big business within government. The purpose of today's technocratic politics is to make democracy safe for corporations: to go through the motions of democratic consent while reshaping the nation at their behest.

But even if Crosby is sacked, the infrastructure of hidden persuasion will remain intact. Nor will it be affected by the register of lobbyists that David Cameron will announce on Tuesday, antiquated before it is launched.

Nanny state, health police, red tape, big government: these terms have been devised or popularised by corporate front groups. The companies who fund them are often ones that cause serious harm to human welfare. The front groups campaign not only against specific regulations, but also against the very principle of the democratic restraint of business.

I see the "free market thinktanks" as the most useful of these groups. Their purpose, I believe, is to invest corporate lobbying with authority. Mark Littlewood, the head of one of these thinktanks – the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) – has described plain packaging as "the latest ludicrous move in the unending, ceaseless, bullying war against those who choose to produce and consume tobacco". Over the past few days he's been in the media repeatedly, railing against the policy. So do the IEA's obsessions just happen to coincide with those of the cigarette firms? The IEA refuses to say who its sponsors are and how much they pay. But as a result of persistent digging, we now know that British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have been funding the institute – in BAT's case since 1963. British American Tobacco has admitted that it gave the institute £20,000 last year and that it's "planning to increase our contribution in 2013 and 2014".

Otherwise it's a void. The IEA tells me, "We do not accept any earmarked money for commissioned research work from any company." Really? But whether companies pay for specific publications or whether they continue to fund a body that – by the purest serendipity – publishes books and pamphlets that concur with the desires of its sponsors, surely makes no difference.

The institute has almost unrivalled access to the BBC and other media, where it promotes the corporate agenda without ever being asked to disclose its interests. Because they remain hidden, it retains a credibility its corporate funders lack. Amazingly, since 2011 Mark Littlewood has also been the government's adviser on cutting the regulations that business doesn't like. Corporate conflicts of interest intrude into the heart of this country's political life.

In 2002, a letter sent by the philosopher Roger Scruton to Japan Tobacco International (which manufactures Camel, Winston and Silk Cut) was leaked. In the letter, Professor Scruton complained that the £4,500 a month JTI was secretly paying him to place pro-tobacco articles in newspapers was insufficient: could they please raise it to £5,500?

Scruton was also working for the Institute of Economic Affairs, through which he published a major report attacking the World Health Organisation for trying to regulate tobacco. When his secret sponsorship was revealed, the IEA pronounced itself shocked: shocked to find that tobacco funding is going on in here. It claimed that "in the past we have relied on our authors to come forward with any competing interests, but that is going to change ... we are developing a policy to ensure it doesn't happen again." Oh yes? Eleven years later I have yet to find a declaration in any IEA publication that the institute (let alone the author) has been taking money from companies with an interest in its contents.

The IEA is one of several groups that appear to be used as a political battering ram by tobacco companies. On the TobaccoTactics website you can find similarly gruesome details about the financial interests and lobbying activities of, for example, the Adam Smith Institute and the Common Sense Alliance.

Even where tobacco funding is acknowledged, only half the story is told. Forest, a group that admits that "most of our money is donated by UK-based tobacco companies", has spawned a campaign against plain packaging called Hands Off Our Packs. The Department of Health has published some remarkable documents, alleging the blatant rigging of signatures on a petition launched by this campaign. Hands Off Our Packs is run by Angela Harbutt. She lives with Mark Littlewood.

Libertarianism in the hands of these people is a racket. All those noble sentiments about individual liberty, limited government and economic freedom are nothing but a smokescreen, a disguised form of corporate advertising. Whether Mark Littlewood, Lynton Crosby or David Cameron articulate it, it means the same thing: ideological cover for the corporations and the very rich.

Arguing against plain packaging on the Today programme, Mark Field MP, who came across as the transcendental form of an amoral, bumbling Tory twit, recited the usual tobacco company talking points, with their usual disingenuous disclaimers. In doing so, he made a magnificent slip of the tongue. "We don't want to encourage young people to take up advertising ... er, er, to take up tobacco smoking." He got it right the first time.