Re: Southgate. Tom Peck in the Times on Sat {sketch writer now also doing telly}
"There was briefly a sense, during the Covid-delayed Euro 2020 football tournament, that England ? the nation, that is ? had found a new way to remain as dysfunctional as ever. It was back then that Gareth Southgate wrote his ?Dear England? open letter, which articulated, among other things, why he believed it was his players? responsibility to stand up to racial injustice. It has since inspired an award-winning play at the National Theatre.
A few weeks later, after England?s dismal 0-0 draw against Scotland, Keir Starmer suggested Southgate should pick Arsenal?s 18-year-old winger Bukayo Saka. He started the next game, was named man of the match, and has never looked back. It hardly needs to be stated that it is not, strictly speaking, the job of the England football manager to elucidate a soft-left vision of patriotism while the crucial tactical breakthrough in a football tournament comes from the leader of the Labour Party."
