Humphrey Appleby

I'm guessing, but I'd assume the members of the BSPA Management Committee have legal liability, and given that the BSPA is not a limited company, then that would include financial liability. I wouldn't allow decisions to be made in my name by others in these circumstances.

I've only been in Queensland a year and return to the UK regularly - things have not changed that much in that time. Go and speak to people about the practicalities of their daily lives under communism, such the unavailability of basic commodities that we take for granted in our society, and how much of their income went on them. I grew up in a working class area and my grandparents would today be classified as being on the poverty line, but I'd still argue they lived in no worse conditions than the average citizen in a communist country (possibly with the exception of Yugoslavia). They're individuals with axes to grind for whatever reason, and of course, television appearances to make and books to sell. They undoubtedly have their reasons for their grievances, but it's the merely perspective of a handful of individuals who worked in large bureaucracies and that does not make them right. I could turn my experiences with my ex-employers into elaborate conspiracies, and I've also sat in meetings with people who've come out with completely different opinions of what was agreed compared to what I heard with my own ears. Some people simply become blind to anything that doesn't conform with their agenda, and that I'm afraid is what conspiracy theorists do. Susan Laudauer actually seems to be totally unhinged, but of course the conspiracists will tell you that's because the government has discredited her.

No doubt some will argue there's a semantic difference, but hard core left wing politics just keep everyone poor except the privileged elite - no different to what anti-capitalists complain about. Most developed economies of course have some socialist elements as well, but you'd be hard pressed to point to an affluent purely socialist economy. 9/11 conspiracy theories have been done to death on the BSF in the past - there's no point going over it again. I also doubt al-Qaeda ever had a corporate structure or membership cards, any more than there's formally a constitutional position of Prime Minister in the UK. They both exist though.

That pre-supposes that an AGM is usually held at roughly the same time every year. If it's moved a month earlier, then wouldn't that shorten the term of office of the incumbent MC members? There's always going to be some inherent complexity in speedway rules - not least because there's all sorts of mechanical and safety stuff involved in any motor sport, plus all the multiple meeting formats you get in speedway. The only simple part of speedway is four blokes riding in circles for four laps, but that would get boring pretty quickly. The rest of the rules are quite complicated because there's a certain need for that complexity. In fact, whilst the speedway rulebook could do with clarification in places, it's actually more the farcical way in which those rules are interpreted, ignored or abused that's the issue. For example, riders not turning up because they're double-booked in Poland deemed to be 'injured' or 'withholding their services' and teams getting facilities for that. Sure, most of us wouldn't be sorry to see the back of the double points nonsense, but that's hardly 'rewriting the rule book'. And you can be sure there will be whinges about too many one-sided meetings if there's nothing to help teams keep the scores close.

I suppose it depends on what's meant by a fans' forum. It's hardly like the problems aren't obvious, but what's needed are sensible and practical proposals to address those. Not really convinced an open meeting will come up with the best ideas, and most just turn into a rant or come up with 'radical' suggestions like 'promoters need to start promoting' whatever that's supposed to mean. Saying stuff like 'rewriting the rulebook' is also easy to say, but you need to work out the competition format, fixtures, team equalisation principles, guest and doubling-up rules, and so on.. before you can even start. It's also pointless rewriting it if the rules are constantly ignored, misinterpreted or special dispensation given anyway. In fact, you actually need to be asking people who don't go to speedway as the sport isn't going to be sustained by the current fan base, no matter how much you reform the sport. I suspect many of the current fans would like to see the return of track marshals marching out in white coats to the strains of 'Imperial Echoes', war cries, jackets covered with badges, and faithful recreations of the back straight bogs at Swindon, but I suspect this isn't going to appeal to a new audience.

Wasn't it? I'd imagine the terms of office of the MC members are quite specific, as are the nomination processes and when the elections have to be held.

How much to quote and where to reply

The problem is the rich text view doesn't offer the same flexibility with multiple quoting as the raw text mode, so I usually switch to the latter mode when writing posts. However, if you accidentally leave in a superfluous quotation tag then it causes the problem you saw. Unfortunately, the website became slow and unresponsive after I posted, so I was unable to go and fix the problem before you pointed it out.

If Britain paid what Poland paid then the number of matches, multiple race nights and all that wouldn't matter to the riders. Indeed it didn't in the 1990s when the British leagues still had most/all of the top riders who also rode in Poland and Sweden as well (and in some cases Denmark and Germany too, when they had a half-decent league). The top riders basically don't want to ride in Britain because it's not worth their while. Okay, if we only ran a handful of fixtures on a fixed race day, some riders might be persuaded to do a few extra meetings to supplement their wages. The question has to be asked yet again though, will they actually bring any more money into British speedway through increased gates, sponsorship or television money, or will the sport just again be paying out money it can't afford? I suspect the answer will be the latter, quite aside from the fact that a 14-match programme on a fixed race is not an economic model that will work in Britain. How are other riders in the teams who aren't riding elsewhere expected to make any sort of living? That's the harsh reality of economics, but no different to cricketers wanting to go off and play in the IPL because the money is so much better than what English counties can afford to pay. Alternatively though, making the sport actually affordable for both fans and promoters, and having a meeting every week at which all riders appear as advertised, might possibly improve the fortunes of British speedway in the long run. At the very least it might save it from extinction. The reasons for the decline of speedway in Britain are many and varied, but the promoters are not entirely to blame. The opening up of Poland after the austerity of the Cold War period meant there was money there to launder, whilst Sweden has far less pressures on land that have forced up the costs of venues in Britain. The FIM giving away the SGP and allowing it to be run on multiple prime weekends per year also badly affected Britain regardless of what's claimed, and it's absolutely criminal how the likes of Coventry were forced to give up their lucrative race nights and effectively into pecuniary as a result. There obviously isn't a great deal of vision within the BSPA otherwise they tried to head off or at least mitigate issues like the SGP, as well as trying to address the destructive 'them' and 'us' attitudes between the top tier and second tier over the years. However, the reality is that speedway really only ever made a living for a handful of promoters, whilst most over the past 25 years have been 'fan promoters' who're in it for the glory until they've done their wedge, and therefore gave little thought to ongoing sustainability. Of course there are a handful who've run a fairly tight ship over the years, but again they're probably more occupied with keeping their tracks running than thinking about the bigger picture.

In fairness, I find Sky's cricket coverage to be pretty good, but it's the only thing worth paying their ridiculous prices for. It's good there's now some competition in the market, if not to break the monopoly of having to pay for a package of things you don't actually want.

Well I'm of the post-socialist generation that hasn't been brainwashed by the claimed achievements of the socialist state, many of which (in the UK at least) existed or were in the making for many years before WW2. I've also seen enough of the effects of communism around the world to understand that it's not the answer either, even though I'd accept that in some places it did raise living standards to basic modern levels. However, even the poorest person in the UK today is probably still materially better off than the average person was in the Soviet Union, which is of course why socialism became discredited and economies moved away from it. Of course, people alway forget the lessons of the past and just as butchers like Che Guevara were hailed as heroes in certain quarters, now it's fashionable again to believe in hardcore socialism. The fact that people do want material improvements in their lives rather than just a subsistence existence is explained away as some sort of global brainwashing conspiracy by the 'Illuminati' - they who of course engineered 9/11 etc.. etc.. I'm not sure exactly what this has to do with Tai Woffinden, although fair play to him if he does have a level of political conscientious above that of the average sportsperson who are usually not a bright bunch and selfish with it. Having said that, quite aside from the fact that the monarchy has had no effective political power for 300 years and is simply a figurehead of the nation, what's in the national anthem of any liberal democracy is pretty irrelevant really. Just show them all of them respect for all of a minute and then you avoid nine pages of vitriol and fantasy on the BSF...

The national anthem is one thing, but no-one should be expected to work for terms they're unhappy with. By that rationale, we should all be on minimum wage for the good of the nation.

Yes, how annoying that established procedure has to be followed...

The reality of the world is that people move around a lot more than in the past, and it's not uncommon for people to have more than one nationality or allegiance to more than one country. The whole notion of nationality in sport, especially in individual sport, is becoming nonsensical and at some point I expect other selection criteria will need to be used (e.g. where a rider competes rather than where they're from).

The second verse of 'Advance Australia Fair'... When gallant Cook from Albion sailed, To trace wide oceans o'er, True British courage bore him on, Til he landed on our shore. Then here he raised Old England's flag, The standard of the brave; "With all her faults we love her still" "Britannia rules the wave." In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair. Barely a mention of Australia there.

What does it matter which country someone represents in an individual meeting? Obviously all anthems should be respected, even if they're terrible, about the Queen or whatever, but it's a bit ridiculous trying to link this to Remembrance Day. More generally, whilst I've every respect for British soldiers, forcibly making people 'respect' Remembrance Day is missing the point of what it's about.

British speedway just can't afford them. Who is going to put up the money to employ riders who simply don't justify the numbers coming through the turnstiles? The Elite League all the top riders 10-15 years ago, crowds declined regardless, and tracks went out of business. What's going to be different this time around, especially as crowds are now even lower than they were then?

Simon Wigg tended to advocate ideas that were best for Simon Wigg's interests, and often involved spending other peoples' money. His ideas were not all without merit, but it was patently obvious that most were simply unworkable or unaffordable for the day-to-day sport. I think John Berry also made this point in one of this books or columns (can't remember which now). The main reason for running on different nights was so that tracks could stage weekly meetings, which would not have been possible if everyone ran on the same day. This is to some extent still true for the Premier League, but the concept of weekly racing long ago went out the window in the Elite League. I'm also not convinced there will be that many fans attending multiple meetings each week nowadays. It's just too expensive in terms of admission and travel costs nowadays, quite aside from getting to midweek meetings with today's traffic. Equally though, the latter argument would also apply with the purported midweek race night(s) for the Elite League. I think the question has to be asked what is expected to be achieved with fixed race nights? The fact remains is that with few exceptions, Friday and Saturdays nights remain the optimal race nights for attracting spectators, yet British Speedway seems to be bending over backwards to accommodate the GP and other commitments of top riders that it can't afford anyway. It seems an odd way of doing business. If promoters want to spend money, then they should be spending it on making the product more attractive, not on expensive riders that most of the public has never heard of anyway. The 'super league' concept has been tried and it did nothing to improve the fortunes of the sport - things need to be tried another way now.

Even 105 minutes is too long for 15 heats, as that's still 6 minutes between every race with nothing happening. However, running through the heats in a more reasonable 75 minutes would really show up what poor value for money 17 quid is. There needs to be 20 heats done-and-dusted within an hour-and-three-quarters, including a short interval. It used to be possible, so I don't see why not now. Of course, there will be the usual grumbles that it'll cost more money etc.., but that need not entirely be the case if wages are structured around a different format. The entertainment value needs to increase otherwise the riders soon won't have jobs anyway.

I'd have thought the race days need to be adjacent to each other, and certainly not Mondays and Wednesdays as riders would need to travel off to Sweden in-between. Realistically only Wednesday and Thursdays would work for the Elite League. The haphazard scheduling is obviously not ideal, but is a matter of trying to fit a given number of matches into a fewer number of available weeks, made more complicated by GPs and all sorts of other events that seem to take priority these days.

It might be reasonable to pick a couple of race nights and insist it's a condition of racing in the Elite League, but I can't see this is workable at Premier League level.

Points still score double. What's changed about that?

Double points have been the same for a while now...

Isn't the BSPA President more an honorary or titular type of position? Regardless though, having some long serving committee member helping the new members with the procedural things is no bad idea.