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Marius - Politics …

One political theory is that when a party goes into Opposition, it comes increasingly under the sway of the zealots, the true believers, at the expense of the pragmatists.

The battle between ideologues and pragmatists is a permanent tension in politics. In fact, it’s a permanent tension in politicians.

John Howard’s public life can be usefully analysed as a battle between Howard the ideologue, pushing a heartfelt agenda in areas like industrial relations and Howard the pragmatist whose first political priority was to be in power.

Look at political history and you can see support for the view that defeated parties head off into their own preferred political wilderness. Labor’s long-dark night of the Menzies years saw it tear itself apart on issues domestic and international, keeping it on the wrong side of parliament for 23 years.

In American politics, the early, overwhelming dominance of Lyndon Johnson as President saw the Republicans heading to the far right under Barry Goldwater. Richard Nixon’s political life was made easier when the Democrat left secured their party’s candidacy for George McGovern.

Some political analysis now suggests something similar may be happening to the coalition.

The right part of the right-centre coalition has cut itself some slack and feels able to give its views on issues like global warming, regardless of what Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull might be advocating as the party line.

This tendency for Oppositions to become less pragmatic and more ideological is - according to the theory - increased by the fact that those surviving an electoral loss are those in safer seats as well as Senators, who are even better insulated from the sharper edge of community opinion.

That’s the theory: drop it on top of current events and see how well you think it fits.

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Debbie - sport

For some months now, I’ve been wondering if anyone else was looking at Rafa Nadal and pondering what’s happened to his bulky upper body.

Since his injury layoff after defeat in the French Open in May, Nadal has seemed lighter in the shoulders and uppper arms to me.

For a while, I put it down to the fact that he’s wearing a t-shirt now, as opposed to the cut-off sleeved “muscle shirts” that he wore earlier in his career. But then, watching him change his shirt during a change of ends at the US Open a couple of months back, (for professional reasons, of course!) I decided it wasn’t just an optical illusion. He is slimmer.

A couple of times in recent months, I’ve googled “Nadal” and “weight loss” to see if anyone else was commenting on it, and couldn’t find anything. But there have been plenty of comments about him not playing like his old self. Finally today I notice it has started to become a topic of discussion.

At the Paris Masters earlier this month, where he was beaten in a semi final by Novak Djokovic, Nadal was asked about whether he’s lighter than he was and he denied it quite emphatically.

“I am still 86 kilos, the same as I was four years ago,” he said. “I think it is the clothes that make me look lighter but I am not, for sure.”

After today’s loss to Robin Soderling at the ATP World Tour finals in London, The Guardian’s Steve Bierley wrote an article headlined “Slimline Rafael Nadal suffers another defeat at hands of Robin Soderling”.

If you want to try judging for yourself, have a look at these two clips.

This one is from 12 months ago in the end of season tournament in Shanghai

And this is footage of him practising in the lead up to the current tournament in London.

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I’ve got mixed feelings about this morning’s story that Wigan players have decided to offer ticket refunds to the fans who travelled to London to watch them lose 9-1 to Tottenham yesterday.

The Wigan captain Mario Melchiot is quoted on the Wigan club website saying the players feel they let the travelling fans down and they want to give them back the money they spent on tickets.

Nice gesture and it’ll be interesting to see how many fans take up the offer. Personally, I think if you’re a fan you have to take the good with the bad — even when it’s really bad. At least they got beaten by a team playing football, not handball.

On that theme, the France coach Raymond Domenech is this morning denying that he got a bonus of nearly $1,400,000 (AUD) for guiding France to the World Cup finals.

He says the figure being quoted is ridiculous. Well, even if he got only half of that, he’s the one who should be offering refunds — to the Irish fans who travelled all the way to Paris to see their team cheated out of World Cup qualification.

Domenech would do well to just stop trying to justify whatever it is he’s being paid, instead of coming up with the theory that people in football cop more flak for the money they earn than do tennis players, or racing drivers.

“One is given the impression that those who make money in football are cheating. It is astonishing.”

What’s astonishing is that Domenech has even got the gall to use the “C” word.