Is Britain's economy really on the path to prosperity?

Osborne's autumn statement will likely present a rosy picture of growth. But is it to be short-lived?

• 
• • Heather Stewart, economics editor
  • The Observer, Saturday 30 November 2013 23.12 GMT

George Osborne is expected to be in bullish mood when he delivers his autumn statement on Thursday. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP

Brightly coloured New Balance trainers are beloved of celebrities, from Ben Affleck to Heidi Klum. But if you buy a pair of the US firm's shoes in Europe or Asia they are most likely to have been made on the edge of the Lake District. From its British factory in Flimby, on the Cumbrian coast, the hi-spec trainer-maker will turn out more than a million pairs of shoes this year, with more than a third of those made from scratch – cut out and intricately stitched by its 245 skilled staff, who spend more than a year learning their trade.

Since the great recession of 2008-09, when production of the high-value "lifestyle" lines that occupy most of its machinists' time was slashed in half, factory manager Andy Okolowicz says things have gradually improved: "We have had three or four years now of very steady business, both in the UK and for export." It has stepped up output of these fashion shoes by 24% this year and hired more than 10 new staff.

This is the US firm's only European factory, selling to markets across the world, including Germany, France, Japan and Australia – and with the union flag stitched prominently on to the back of many of the models, it's exactly the kind of Made in Britain success story the chancellor hopes to see more of as economic growth picks up.

In George Osborne's 2011 budget speech, he laid out a stirring picture of a new model for the British economy: one driven by a "march of the makers", such as Flimby's trainer-stitchers, instead of what he called "debt-fuelled" growth: buy-to-letters, non-stop shoppers and high-rolling City gamblers.

Two-and-a-half years later, as he prepares to deliver his autumn statement on Thursday, the chancellor can finally boast that the long-awaited economic recovery has arrived: growth has rebounded sharply, unemployment is falling, and business surveys suggest confidence has been restored. As Simon Wells of HSBC puts it, the economy has moved "from a state of despair, to repair".

In March, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which draws up the forecasts Osborne uses to plan his tax and spending policies, was expecting negligible growth of 0.6% this year. City experts now forecast more than double that. Similarly, the OBR's 1.8% projection for 2014 now looks far too pessimistic. New forecasts, to be published alongside Osborne's statement, are expected to be rosier and the chancellor is likely to repeat his claim that the UK is now set firmly on the "path to prosperity".

In fact, with a number of eurozone countries barely out of recession, it would hardly be surprising if the chancellor allowed himself a Gordon Brown-style bout of economic Top Trumps, comparing the relatively upbeat outlook for the UK with the gloomy prognosis elsewhere.

"Osborne is probably looking forward to this autumn statement, because he doesn't have to announce that growth forecasts have been revised down for the umpteenth time," says Lee Hopley, chief economist at manufacturers' group the EEF.

Yet, as James Meadway of the New Economics Foundation puts it, "this is definitely not the recovery the coalition wanted or forecast". The breakdown of the latest growth figures showed that business investment – critical for rebuilding a new-style, more productive economy – is down by more than 6% year on year; exports are all but flat, despite the 20% fall in the value of the pound since the crisis; and manufacturing output remains 9% below where it was in 2008, despite the successes of the likes of New Balance and Britain's rampant car-makers.

In Flimby, Okolowicz explains that, while it's undoubtedly a success story, his factory is the final remnant of a much larger shoemaking industry in the area: K shoes and Bata once had plants locally, employing several thousand staff, instead of fewer than 300 at New Balance. Britain is a long way from recapturing its role as an industrial powerhouse.

Hopley, of the EEF, says for her members, this year has been, "good, but not spectacular".

Meanwhile, consumer spending is expanding strongly, borrowing is up and house prices are reviving across a swath of the country. Meadway says: "This is not a recovery, it's essentially a reversion: we're going back to the same kind of economy we saw in 2004 or 2005." Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, recently said he expected three-quarters of growth over the next year or so to come from consumption or housing – but many economists fear that's a risky model.

In the capital, some of the worst excesses of the property boom years are back. Aggressive estate agents are pushing leaflets through homeowners' doors and lining up scores of buyers to jostle with each other at "open days". Penthouses in the lavish Battersea Power Station redevelopment are expected to go on sale – most likely to overseas buyers – for £30m. And official figures show the UK now has a record number of estate agents.

In many parts of the country, the housing market is barely stirring from a five-year slumber. But the Bank's financial policy committee – the 10 people with the job of bursting future bubbles – have become so concerned about signs of froth that they have scaled back the government-backed Funding for Lending scheme so that it will no longer subsidise mortgages.

Some lenders have said the removal of the Bank's support, which Carney described as "taking our foot off the accelerator", will make little difference because the market has now gathered momentum of its own. But others believe the rise in mortgage rates that is likely to result will be enough to pour cold water on the growing mood of optimism.

As for consumer spending – the other major support for economic growth over the past six months – since wages have continued to lag behind inflation this latest shopping spree appears to have been fuelled not by consumers' growing spending power, but households dipping into their savings or taking out loans – including the short-term, high-cost payday loans that have caused growing political controversy.

"It feels as if there's a significant lag factor between the economic indicators and what it means for real people in their real lives," says Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, whose advisers see two million people with debt problems each year. She says that the spread of insecure, short-term contracts and part-time work, together with benefits cuts and paltry wage growth, have meant that many people in work are struggling to make ends meet.

That's a picture echoed by Chris Mould, executive chairman of the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks up and down the country, providing three days' worth of emergency produce for people in dire straits. "We're seeing more and more people in crisis coming to food banks and we anticipate the numbers of people who find themselves in financial crisis as a proportion of the population to go up in the next few months. Generally, people are being severely squeezed by price rises – energy costs, rent, food – and the price rises in these areas are running way ahead of inflation."

Osborne hopes that, as the recovery gathers pace, employers will start to loosen the purse-strings, hiring new staff and offering more generous pay, helping to ease the squeeze for consumers and validating the mood of rising optimism. But both Guy and Mould fear it may be a long time before the people who come through their doors are able to make ends meet; and if rising real wages fail to materialise, the consumer upturn could prove short-lived. There's no doubt that the backdrop to the autumn statement is far rosier than anyone, not least Osborne himself, could have hoped six months ago. But Britain's economic resurgence is far less of a victory for the likes of Flimby's highly skilled machinists, and more of a blast from the "debt-fuelled" past than the coalition would have wished – and, as yet, there's no telling how long it will last.

Heard a thinktank on the BBC? You haven't heard the whole story

When the BBC interviews someone about smoking, it's supposed to reveal if the thinktank they work for receives funding from tobacco companies 

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • theguardian.com, Friday 29 November 2013 14.58 GMT

Mark Littlewood of the IEA spoke about cigarette packaging on Radio 4 this week. Not mentioned was that the institute receives funding from tobacco companies. Photograph: Alex Sturrock

Do the BBC's editorial guidelines count for anything? I ask because it disregards them every day, by failing to reveal the commercial interests of its contributors.

Let me give you an example. On Thursday the Today programme covered the plain packaging of cigarettes. It interviewed Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, an organisation that calls itself a thinktank. Mishal Husain introduced Mark Littlewood as "the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and a smoker himself".

Fine. But should we not also have been informed that the Institute of Economic Affairs receives funding from tobacco companies? It's bad enough when the BBC interviews people about issues of great financial importance to certain corporations when it has no idea whether or not these people are funded by those corporations – and makes no effort to find out. It's even worse when those interests have already been exposed, yet the BBC still fails to mention them.

Both the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute have been funded by tobacco firms for years. The former has been funded by British American Tobacco since 1963, and has also been paid by Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International. It has never come clean about this funding, and still refuses to say which other corporations sponsor it.

Yet, as you can see from its lists, the institute's spokespeople appear all over the media, arguing against any regulations tobacco companies don't like, without ever being obliged to reveal that tobacco companies help pay their wages.

Most of the so-called thinktanks flatly refuse to reveal their interests. I see the IEA, the Adam Smith Institute and other "thinktanks" which refuse to to say who funds them asindistinguishable from corporate lobbyists. I see them as doing the dirty work of corporations which won't put their own heads above the parapet because of the likely reputational damage.

I'm not the only one who sees them in this light. David Frum was formerly a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a rightwing pro-business thinktank. Drawing on his own experience, he explained that such groups "increasingly function as public-relations agencies".

The veteran corporate lobbyist Jeff Judson explained why thinktanks are so useful to corporations: "Lobbyists often work for specific clients who operate at the mercy of a regulator or lawmaker, making them vulnerable to retribution for daring to criticise or speak out. Thinktanks are virtually immune to retribution … Donors are confidential. The identity of donors to thinktanks is protected from involuntary disclosure."(Judson's confessions used to be available here. They have since been removed.)

Here's what Mark Littlewood said on the Today programme: "The evidence out of Australia, who, in their extreme unwisdom in my view, have offered to be the guinea pigs for planet earth on whether this policy works, having had plain packaging or standardised packaging in place for a year over there, the early evidence suggests no change at all on smoking prevalence. And, lo and behold, the black market in cigarettes has jumped markedly."

Mishal Husain then remarked, "Well that's one view, in a moment we'll hear that of the public health minister ..."

Yes, it is one view. The view of someone being paid by big tobacco. Should we not have known that?

Here's what the BBC's editorial guidelines say about such matters:
3.4.7: "We should make checks to establish the credentials of our contributors and to avoid being 'hoaxed'."
3.4.12: "We should normally identify on-air and online sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status."
4.4.14: "We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased, and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made."

Every day people from thinktanks are interviewed by the BBC's news and current affairs programmes without any such safeguards being applied. There is no effort to establish their credentials, in order to avoid being hoaxed into promoting corporate lobbyists as independent thinkers. There is no effort to identify on whose behalf they are speaking, "so that our audiences can judge their status." There is no attempt to make it clear to the audience that contributors are funded by the companies whose products they are discussing.

I would have no problem with the BBC interviewing people from these thinktanks if their interests were disclosed. If these organisations refuse to say who funds them, they should not be allowed on air. Their financial interests in the issue under discussion should be mentioned by the presenter when they are introduced.

I've been banging on about this for years, with no result at all. It seems that the only thing the BBC responds to is formal complaints. So please complain.

Here are three things you can do:
• Use the corporation's online complaints form
• Take the issue to the BBC Trust
• Complain to Feedback on Radio 4

Otherwise, expect our bastion of editorial values to keep collaborating in the time-honoured tradition of hoaxing us on behalf of corporate money.

Sledging is an art, and here are the secrets of it

HOWARD JACOBSON 

Friday 29 November 2013

You'll need a ripe vocabulary, an ear for cadence - and respect for your opponent

 

Today I write on “Sledging Considered As One of the Fine Arts”. Sledging, for those not familiar with the term, is the practice of on-field verbal intimidation much favoured by Australian cricketers though by no means confined to them. Every cricket team sledges, though some do it with more aplomb than others.

As with all aspects of sport, national character is the first determinant of success. The more refined and well-mannered the culture, the less accomplished its sledgers. I don’t say the corollary follows – I am too fond of Australia to put its love of vilification down to something primitive in the country’s psyche – but you only have to read Australia’s national poem, “The Bastard from the Bush” (“Fuck me dead, I’m Foreskin Fred, the Bastard from the Bush”), to see an essential connection between verbal violence and a remote colonial lifestyle.

That said, it’s important to place sledging in a tradition of insult-flinging to which even the most sophisticated literature owes a debt. Drama, we are told, originates in the sacrificial, propitiatory rituals of ancient communities. We put on a show for the gods and hope they applaud. Poetry originates in the impulse to exchange insults with fellow mortals. “Get back to where you come from, that’s somewhere in the bush” is how the Captain of the Push responds to the challenge to his authority thrown down by Foreskin Fred. “May the itching piles torment you, may corns grow on your feet,/ May crabs as big as spiders attack your balls a treat./ Then, when you’re down and out, and a hopeless bloody wreck,/ May you slip back through your arsehole, and break your bloody neck.”

Indistinguishable from the satisfaction of getting your own back, hurling abuse and imagining someone else’s suffering is the joy of deploying rhyme and rhythm. We never curse better than we curse in verse. Primary school playgrounds resound with the scurrilous ditties small children make up about one another. My best friend Martin Cartwright couldn’t leave the classroom without hearing “Farty Marty/ Spoils the party”. For years I had to put up with “Howardy Cowardy Custard/ Thinks his pants have rusted”. And a poor religious boy called Manny was yoked with such tireless invention and horrid ingenuity to fanny that his parents had finally to remove him from the school.

Flyting, it’s called in Scotland – where poets would formalise the loathing they felt for each other into a contest of invective strictly governed by the laws of poesy. “Come kiss my Erse,” was how the 16th-century poet Montgomerie began his assault on the poet Polwart. “Kiss the Cunt of the Cow,” Polwart retorted in kind. We can perhaps look forward to a resumption of such well-honed hostilities when the campaign for Scottish independence begins in earnest.

At carnival time in Trinidad, some of the country’s smartest poets, singers and comedians take to the stage to compete in Extempo War, an off-the-cuff battle of wits in which the grosser they are to one another, the more the audience likes it. Whether the Dozens – the game of dissing, snapping and toasting played on the streets of Harlem and St Louis – is an offspring of Extempo War I don’t know, but it seems likely. It values the same qualities of quickness of wit and coarse discourtesy.

Another name for it is Ya Mama – unmannerliness to one another’s mothers being part of the fun. “You wanna play the dozens, well the dozens is a game,” rhymed the comedian George Carlin, “But the way I fuck your mother is a goddam shame.”

Which is a bit ripe even for the Gabba where the Australian captain, Michael Clarke, was heard to say to say to an English player, “Get ready for a f****** broken arm.” I resort to asterisks, not because Clarke did, but because that was how most of the papers reported it. Myself, I think asterisks make what he said even worse. Clarke himself has a baby face, so his outburst appeared doubly shocking, but some among his team look as though they were born with asterisks in their mouths.

What concerns me most about this incident, however, is the placing of the expletive. What Flyters, Extempo Warriors and kids in the school playground all know is that word order matters. Put a fucking where a fucking shouldn’t be and you take fatally from the affront. “Get ready for a fucking broken arm,” doesn’t work for two reasons. 1: It doesn’t scan. And 2: The epithet’s misaligned; it’s not the “broken” you’re meant to be cursing but the “arm”.

I haven’t played much cricket myself. Table tennis was my game. But I was always careful at the table to be precise when I swore. Attentive to both the music and the meaning, I’d have said to my opponent, “Get ready for a broken fucking arm.” Except that I wouldn’t, of course, have said that because it’s pretty difficult to break someone’s arm with a celluloid ball measuring 40mm in diameter and weighing 2.7g.

This could be the reason so few words are exchanged between players in the course of a game of ping-pong. You look ridiculous issuing threats when you don’t have the equipment to carry them out. Or the will, come to that. Somewhere at the back of every table tennis player’s mind is the knowledge that your opponent is as sad as you are. Why compound the lack of self-esteem that made him a table tennis player in the first place?

So humanity comes into the equation after all. To sledge with style requires a ripe vocabulary, an ear for cadence, a fastidiousness as to the positioning of epithets and respect for your opponent. You want to topple him from high estate to low. You don’t want him down and out to start with. Australians don’t always get that.

Happiness: the silver lining of economic stagnation?

A study suggests that national wellbeing peaks at £22k average income. But that doesn't mean there's no point in pushing for wealth

• 
• • Julian Baggini
  • theguardian.com, Thursday 28 November 2013 16.56 GMT

More money, more problems? Photograph: Roger Tooth for the Guardian

It's time to rewrite the story of the financial crisis. Far from being a disaster movie, it was in fact a tale of salvation. As for the green shoots of recovery we are now seeing, they are virulent weeds to be stamped out.

That would seem to be the conclusion to draw from a new study that suggests ever-rising national wealth is the source of decreased life satisfaction. Looking at data from around the world, Warwick University's Eugenio Proto and Aldo Rustichini of University of Minnesota conclude that average wellbeing rises with average income only up to around £22k per head per annum. After that, it slips back again. Britain is more or less at that sweet spot, which suggests economic stagnation may be an excellent way of avoiding the problems of poverty without acquiring the problems of wealth.

You may well be sceptical. Even the authors acknowledge that many people "still prefer to live in richer countries, even if this would result in a decreased level of life satisfaction". In other words, people are overall more satisfied by less life satisfaction, which suggests we should take the whole concept of "life satisfaction" with a pinch of salt.

Any attempt to measure wellbeing in a robust way is fraught with problems. One of the most obvious is that people naturally rank their contentment relative to what appears to be a reasonable expectation, and that varies with time and place. That's why, when offered to rank their life satisfaction a scale of one to 10, most choose around seven or eight, irrespective of era or nation.

Even setting aside these doubts, there are more important reasons to be cautious about how we interpret the data. What it does appear to show, and which almost all studies support, is that having a low income is more of a problem that having a high one is a benefit. From a public policy point of view, that suggests the priority should continue to be raising the life chances of the worst off, not those of the better off, or even the "squeezed middle".

If we achieved that, is it really the case that there would be no point in then increasing wealth even more? Not so fast. We have to ask what explains the levelling-off in perceived quality of life. Proto and Rustichini suggest that the key is "higher GDP leads to higher aspirations … driven by the existence of more opportunities or by comparison with the Joneses". But this "sets up a race between aspiration and realisation; when realisation is lower than aspiration, the psychological cost paid is disappointment". Worse, this creates a feedback loop, as the let-down further widens the aspiration-realisation gap.

What should be clear is that this is not an inevitable consequence of greater wealth. Some individuals learn to treat their material comfort as a blessing and are not concerned by the prospect that they could have yet more, or that others already do. The materialist treadmill is not one we are obliged to get on once we reach a certain level of income.

In short, the problem is explained by the familiar idea that money is not valuable in itself, but only for what it can do. The failure of western societies to convert greater wealth into greater wellbeing is in essence a failure to use our wealth wisely. This should not surprise us. The majority of people alive today and throughout history have not been accustomed to plenty. Humanity is on a steep learning curve and many of the lessons we need to learn go against our natural tendency to acquire first and ask questions later.

That's why the debate about the relative merits of increased GDP and "gross domestic happiness" are misguided. They are not mutually exclusive options. The optimal strategy would be one in which we grew wealth but harnessed it better to enable people to really flourish, rather than just have more stuff. What we should be afraid of is the pointless march of a narrow materialism, not the resumption of economic growth in itself. A richer world in which the money was well spent is something with which we should all be well satisfied.

How did sledging become a sign of manliness?

Michael Jeh in Cricinfo 

It's hard to compete with messages that say real men don't walk away from a fight © Getty Images

Enlarge

The bubble. It's a buzzword in sport today. This morning I attended the media launch of a new book called Bubble Boys, by Michael Blucher, a prominent Brisbane identity in the sports media community and a respected mentor to many elite athletes, especially when it comes to the matter of brand perception and image management. The author ruefully claimed that the book was seven years in the making and out of date within ten minutes! He was referring, of course, to the Michael Clarke sledging incident and its impact on the Clarke brand. (Incidentally Clarke's previous manager Chris White was also at this book launch, a wise, decent man whose advice might serve Clarke well right now.)

Picking up the Australian, I then read Gideon Haigh's excellent piece, which also refers to the bubble, this time in reference to Jonathan Trott, and is proof that the best cricket writers need not necessarily have played Test cricket. A quality writer who has distinguished himself in the Test arena, Michael Atherton, added to my enjoyment of the morning newspaper with his erudite and informed perspective, made more poignant by his first-hand experience of playing (and being sledged) at this level. He cautiously chided all parties involved, reminding them that at the end of the day, this is still sport and it behooves us all to not lose sight of that amidst all the trash talk. 

Bubble Boys takes a balanced look at the pressures, both internal and external, perceived or real, that elite athletes have to now contend with. My professional life is centred firmly in this space, so I have some insights into bubble boys and it is with some caution that I offer my opinions on the fall-out from the Brisbane Test, conscious of my own personal leanings but not oblivious to the hard-nosed realities of modern warfare, which is what this Ashes series threatens to descend into unless both teams and the media change the mood.

For some, the series has come alive. For me, some of the joie de vivre has died. The cricket was high-quality but I prefer my sport, no matter what the stakes are, to be served in more genteel fashion. I expect the inevitable vitriol from some bloggers, but the tone of their response may just underscore the point I'm making - that sometimes players, media and fans lose sight of the raison d'etre of sport. If this is sport, it doesn't push my buttons, despite my proximity to and familiarity with the bubble boys.

The fact that England have now withdrawn into their shell and refuse to engage with the media is a sad indictment of where things are at. The media played its part in creating this siege mentality, especially the Brisbane tabloid that refused to name Stuart Broad in its reports. The players' behaviour in refusing to talk to the press makes a lie of their claims that sledging never affects them. Clearly words hurt. Or are they only impervious to on-field sledging? That the Ashes media coverage has descended into a race to the bottom, with players hiding behind headphones, is schoolboy stuff. It's like being sent to Coventry in some Enid Blyton boarding-school story.

Clarke is the ultimate bubble boy. Often misunderstood, carefully image-managed, groomed for the captaincy at a young age, living in a goldfish bowl (replete with supermodel female partners), reputation damaged by some team-mates, and now suddenly facing a new reality that is both ambrosia and arsenic. On one hand, his behaviour at the Gabba has been described as unbecoming of an Australian captain; on the other hand, his much-maligned reputation as a pretty boy, a metrosexual (whatever that is supposed to connote, presumably negative, as described in yesterday's Australian), a brand that hasn't resonated with the VB-swilling public - unlike how those of AB, Tubby, Tugga and Punter did - has now apparently been transformed: from pup to mongrel. And according to many, this is apparently the best thing for his image. It took a threatening expletive and a sanction from the ICC to get him into that club! His fantastic batting wasn't enough for us?

It's a concept that I struggle with personally, but I daresay I'm in the minority. I find it disturbing that we equate manhood and toughness with what we've just seen from the captain. The captain no less.

I've always been a Clarke supporter thus far, but not this time. The other main protagonists, Jimmy Anderson and David Warner, splendid cricketers both of them, played their part in the drama, but does that surprise anybody? Brand consistency they call it.

One of the programmes I run is called A Few Good Men, and it is aimed at getting the good men of sport (and there are many) to take a leadership role in confronting the growing problem of violence in society, specifically violence against women. To think that the national cricket captain is being praised in some quarters for enhancing his brand with a threat to someone to expect a "broken f***ing arm" just speaks to the hopelessness of trying to start a counter-revolution that flies in the face of what our sporting leaders are promoting, even if only in the context of a sporting sledge. It's hard to compete with messages that say real men don't walk away from a fight (the Australian rugby league coach implied as much recently when his star player was involved in a punch-up at the World Cup in Manchester).

Michael Vaughan was quoted today as saying that the Lillee-Thomson era was much worse, so there's nothing to worry about. That doesn't really address the core issue of whether we think it is edifying to watch our cricket stars behave like hooligans or not. Just because it has been worse in times gone by doesn't necessarily make it right. The penalties may vary but a wrong doesn't become a right because it's less bad.

Many people not familiar with the environment of professional sport shake their heads and wonder how this sort of behaviour can occur in what is effectively a workplace. Some of the invective hurled by both teams would constitute workplace harassment in most cases. At best, it would be seen as abysmal etiquette to colleagues or competitors. Yet in sport these bubble boys proudly sing the national anthem, represent their countries, are heroes to kids (and cash in handsomely for that), and then reckon that the rest of their behaviour can exist in a moral vacuum. Maybe sport does live in a bubble after all, and so do all those who work in this special industry

My ten-year-old son posed a question to which I had no definitive answer. It was in relation to a Powerpoint slide I use in my work on respect for women that goes something like this: A male librarian says, "We've agreed to put the magazines which are degrading to women out of the reach of children", to which the female librarian says, "I see. And how old do they have to be before degrading women is all right?" In the context of recent events involving verbal and physical violence, my son wanted to know about the shift from being told not to sledge, not to use foul language, not to threaten opponents, to these things suddenly being perceived as a positive sign of manhood. In junior sport, all of these are frowned on. Judging by the endorsement of the new, more masculine, Michael Clarke, my son wants to know when you go from being boy to man, where the sins of boyhood become the proud tattoos of manhood. The only answer I could offer him was that in our family there was no invisible line.

Leadership is turned upside down when grown men are excused for behaviour that would earn a young cricketer a suspension. We expect so much of our boys but should they display those same decent qualities in adulthood, society demands we burst that bubble. Bubble boys indeed!

The masks we wear

Often what we see of cricketers on the field is not their real selves. It's just a facade that hides the confusion that resides within

Martin Crowe

November 28, 2013

 

	It's a time for Jonathan Trott to seek clarity © Getty Images  Enlarge

I admire the quote from Mark Twain where he said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why."

It's a deep, thought-provoking observation. Why are we here and who are we?

The more fortunate ones have an inbuilt belief as to why they exist. They flow through life. Then there are the masses who ebb and flow, searching and evolving. There are also many who discover that for much of their lives they are unsure. Then one day they realise that, in fact, who they are is masked. They reach the point when enough frustration is enough. Only at that point does the real truth surface; the mask must be removed.

Jonathan Trott has reached a point. This is the point or the day he will find out why he was born, what his life is truly about. When I heard the news I felt I knew where he was in his mind. I have been in similar territory too. Many times.

If you are to choose one word to describe what he is feeling it is "confusion". Confusion is the opposite of clarity. The mind, and thoughts that come thick and fast at you, are muddled, twisted and distorted. You search for clues as to how to go forward at any moment, and as you decipher it all, you can become untrusting, unsure, and uncertain as to the clues you find. The higher the expectation of life, the harder it is to work out. Confusion is a killer.

Where does the core of this confusion grow? My feeling is that it grows in the first decade or so of your life. Then it becomes cemented between the ages of 15 to 20. From there you learn ways to wear the mask. As your body and mind reach maturity you realise the mask is necessary. The higher you expose your confusion, the more the mask becomes permanent.

My mask was firmly in position by the age of 22. I had tasted Test cricket for two years, played 13 Tests, averaging 21. I was supposed to be one of the best young players in the world. Expectations were high and I wasn't meeting them. I cried a lot, moods ebbed and flowed, emotions ran hot. My dream as a boy of scoring a hundred at Lord's was fading fast.

Then I found a mask, and I began to fake it until I made it. Part of the mask was to copy great players to hide my own inadequacies. The other part was: I was created from a fast-tracking system and had no emotional stability, so I had to make up time fast. As time went by I completely lost touch with that warm-hearted kid from Titirangi. Instead I became an aloof, intense, moody son of a bitch from New Zealand. Darth Vader, playing top-level cricket.

I made it, just. I scored the hundred at Lord's, I notched up hundreds around the world as my dream world wanted me to. I loved batting. But I grew to hate myself and the mask I wore. Off the field I was totally lost. As the expectations of a nation climbed, I knew the mask was not going anywhere. It had to stay on until the job was done.

	England need to see Australia for who they are as a team and a nation right now: fully masked and in stage mode, well prepared and united

Then the body started to bend and break. The feet stopped moving smoothly. The failures arrived. In my last seven Tests I averaged 19. I broke down completely and retired depressed. To get back up on my feet the mask remained on, for television. Last year, when cancer knocked loudly, I had no choice anymore but to face the truth and start again. I unmasked in public and I surrendered to help. It was the only way.

Today, while some confusion exists, the mask has gone and I am happy to look at the real me for the first time in a long time. I accept who I am. When folks ask me what the meaning of success is, I reply that it's accepting who you are.

At this difficult moment in his life, Jonathan Trott is a very important story. It is about the courage and honesty that are driving his desire to remove the confusion and frustration and find his true fulfilment. And he will, slowly, he will. He has shown his resilience at certain points as a batsman, and he will do so again as he identifies that beyond the often boring expectations of being an international sportsman, he is an authentic, loving man.

On the other side of the pitch, wearing another mask, is David Warner. His recent behaviour of lashing out at people tells the story of a man also confused and frustrated, despite his talent. And he continues to lash out, with bat and mouth. That he wears the macho bravado mask, the loud arrogance that is more ego-driven, there is no doubt. His batting has hit a golden run and it's actually pleasant to watch. It's what he is good at. Yet his story has only just begun. Hopefully he will see that life isn't about beating up others but about accepting who you are. I'm sure deep down in Warner there is a genuine spirit.

Which makes me consider the Ashes. While one or two masks are being shed, there is no doubt that the gloves are off for Australia. Failure has forced them to secure the mask once and for all until the last ball is bowled; no drinks with the opposition, no warmth shared, and only a minimum respect. Australia have donned battle garb, to mask their frailties, and it has surprisingly caught England off guard.

Alas, it is not real. If we are honest, it's just a façade. It's not really Michael Clarke's true self, or Darren Lehmann's. Clarke, up until five minutes to go in the Brisbane Test, displayed a real face and spirit to the challenge in front of him. Then, on the stroke of the kill, his face changed and the mask was there for all to see, ugly and not authentic.

	James Anderson would be better off focusing on hitting the top of off stump © Getty Images  Enlarge

The finger-pointing rant was a performance to lead into the next battle in Adelaide. He did not need to act the way he did. That he did is indeed the Australian way, given they have been humiliated so much recently and had smelled blood. At this point, for such a proud cricketing nation, failure is not an option.

It's all put on to frighten away the demons of the last three series. That is what the Ashes has become, a gladiator sport, fuelled by drama and controversy. As cricket entertainment goes, it's riveting and compelling. After it is done, they will all go home, try and take off the false ego, and try and be human again, especially in front of family and friends. The lucky ones will take the masks off easily, knowing they are fake, while for those who conceal it, confusion will continue to hit bumps in the road.

England need to see Australia for who they are as a team and a nation right now; fully masked and in stage mode, well prepared and united. Even sections of the media are on show, as the Broad ban showed. Nevertheless, if England see through the acting and ignore it, and instead focus on the energy, and on being true to themselves, then they can and will compete closely.

If Jimmy Anderson can pull his head in and concentrate on late swing, he will be doing his job for his country. He is not getting better as his body slows down, especially while acting a clown, so his efforts should be on hitting the top of off stump. Additionally KP and Prior could do with simply playing straight as a button for a while.

Whether they are good enough across the park right now in these "rather hot" foreign conditions, is another matter. What they must insist upon and lay down as their true intent is that they will not be fooled into noticing the act. Cook is the perfect man to lead this honest endeavour. He is truly grounded and real, with the fortitude to grind down the macho manoeuvring.