They used to say that Tam Dalyell, who sat in the Commons from 1962 to 2005, was the easiest MP to locate. All you needed to do was find a stick — and Tam would be on the wrong end of it.
In fact he was, and remains, a man of wit and intelligence as well as the most splendid independence. The joke was affectionate. But it came to mind when Chelsea accused Mark Clattenburg of uttering racial and other insults to players. If it is of any consolation to the beleaguered referee, the Stamford Bridge club have form when it comes to dubious declarations.
It was Chelsea who falsely accused Anders Frisk in Barcelona, bringing such abuse on the Swede’s head that he quit, and Chelsea — Didier Drogba in particular — who jabbed threatening fingers at Tom Henning Ovrebo after his admittedly dreadful performance in a match against the Catalans in London. And, lest you dismiss all that as ancient history, it was Chelsea who, only weeks ago, had their evidence on behalf of John Terry trashed by an independent commission of the Football Association: excessively so in my opinion but trashed nonetheless.
So they had better be on firm ground now. The leaks involve “monkey”, which can be innocuous or gravely insulting, and “Spanish t**t”, which is unacceptably oafish but should hardly be career threatening. It is hazardous territory and we can only hope that the FA perform less as they did over Terry, more as in dealing with the issues raised by the Luis Suarez case, when the English idiom and contemporary values were admirably protected.
Chelsea’s anger over the dismissal of Fernando Torres was understandable — television proved it a gross injustice — but let’s just hope, for the sake of a club providing football of rare courage and style, that it did not lead them down another dark alley.
