As the end of the football season approaches, some fans will be worrying about relegation, especially from the Premiership with so much money at stake. Half of the Premiership teams have been in the top flight for less than five seasons. And only four have been in soccer's top division for 25 consecutive years or more—Manchester United for 30, Liverpool 43, Everton 51 and Arsenal for an amazing 87 years.
The Cameron effect
The fall in the Tory vote in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election from 10.3 per cent at the 2005 general election to just 7.8 per cent was barely commented upon. But as recently as 1983 the Tories came within 2,474 votes of winning the old core Dunfermline West, taking 29.2 per cent of the vote. Poor Tory performance in by-elections has been a feature of British politics for 20 years. Their last by-election victory was 1982, and a year after the 1987 Tory general election victory, Labour came within 815 votes of taking… Kensington and Chelsea.
Petrol vs ethanol
President Bush announced twin aims in his state of the union address: first, to reduce US imports of oil from the Gulf by 75 per cent, and second to finance the development of ethanol to cut motorists' use of petrol. The first is less ambitious than it sounds as only 17 per cent of US imports come from Arab states. But for drivers to absorb the move to ethanol is harder. Vehicles account for two thirds of the daily consumption of 21m barrels of oil. The new fuel is calculated to produce 1,150 gallons per acre, which will fuel two cars for a year. To cut use of petrol by 14 per cent would need around 170m acres of land—about the total area of land.
