Europe needs to get real on defence; Britain needs to get real on Europe
13 February 2025
RIP Alan Keen MP, a real football man in the corridors of power
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14 November 2011
Another sad death in the political world today, with the news of the passing of the Labour MP for Feltham and Heston, Alan Keen.
I first got to know Alan when he and his wife Ann, also an MP, were part of the close circle of friends around Neil and Glenys Kinnock when Neil was leader of the Labour Party. This was a highly political group of people, but I would reckon - indeed I know - that Alan and I had far more conversations about football than we did about politics.
Unlike many politicians who like to talk about football, Alan knew what he was on about. He always knew the score of Burnley's last game, which should of course be common knowledge amongst all humanity but alas tends to be confined to a minority. He had been a scout with Middlesbrough, the team he supported all his life. In fact the last time I saw him, he came up to me and said the single word 'jealous' - because a while ago I had played in a charity match at the club's Riverside stadium.
It is not unknown for MPs to switch football allegiance when they get a seat away from their home base, but Alan never lost the Boro blood coursing through his veins. He went to Brentford not just because they were his local team when he moved to London, but more because he could watch football all day long.
It is for those two things above all - the friendship he showed Neil when politically times were hardgoing for Labour, and his love of football - that I will remember him for most. That, and his cheery smile even when he was undergoing treatment which led to the loss of all his hair.
Death has been a great deal on my mind in recent days, with the passing of my closest friend in politics, Philip Gould, whose funeral takes place tomorrow. I have to say that spending the weekend in Tiree, the Hebridean island where my father was born - and apologies to twitter followers if I was overdoing the twitpix yesterday - was about the best place on earth for a bit of reflection and spiritual refreshment ahead of the funeral.
Now Ann Keen will be going through what Philip's wife Gail has been going through in recent days. It is never easy, no matter how ill people may have been. But both have many friends and I hope will gain some comfort from all the messages of love and support.
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Sad news indeed, my thoughts are with Ann and all family & Friends
For Christians death is a victory.
God gave us this victory through Jesus. We will have eternal life.
Christ´s final victory is over death which is the result of sin.
Ps. Mario Monti is the European chairman of David Rockefeller´s Trilateral Commission. He is also a leading member of Mr Rockefeller´s Bilderberg Group. Mr Monti has also worked for Goldman Sachs.
Monti supports Spinelli Group. The aim of this group is federalisation of the European Union. Mr Monti is a former European commissoner.
Lucas Papademos is the new unelected PM of Greece. MIT-trained Papademos has worked for the Bank of Greece, the European Central Bank (ECB) and Goldman Sachs. He has also worked for the Federal Reserve owned by banks.
Mr Papademos has been a member of Trilateral Commission since 1998.
New head of the ECB, Mario Draghi, studied at MIT. He was a managing director – yes, you guessed it – at Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to hide the true level of national debt between 1998-2009.
Peter Sutherland has been the chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He is also a leading member of the Bilderberg Group and hononary chairman of Trilateral Commission.
Mr Sutherland is a former EU commissoner. He has been vice chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists founded by David Rockefeller´s former adviser Per Gyllenhammar.
Mr Sutherland is also financial adviser of the Vatican, and has close connections to the United Nations.
Barclays plc is the most powerful company in the world. It has had big stakes in Citygroup, JPMorgan Chase, General Electric, ExxonMobil and Microsoft.
The chairman of Barclays is Marcus Agius. He is a leading member of the Bilderberg Group.
He is married to the daughter of Edmund de Rothschild.
AXA has been a big shareholder in Barclays. AXA´s chaiman, Henri de Castries, is the chairman of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group.
We live in a small world.
More sad news for you all. Whilst I undoubtedly agree with Olli, I also know that grief is a real emotion that is felt in many ways by different people for varying amounts of time and can often strike you when you least expect it.
So, the only way I know to cope is on a daily basis and to thank God that, for the departed loved one, there is no more pain or sadness, just deeply-felt release and peace.Amen to that.
I am sorry to hear, again, that you have lost a friend, Alastair.
I am pleased that you have had the fortune these past few days to reconnect with a place close to you. I hope you continue to keep the pace of events around you in check and that you enjoy some calm amidst your hectic schedule.
RIP and condolences to all of Alan Keen’s nearest, whether family, friends or colleagues (though it sounds, as with PG, that the second is an inevitable result of the third).
Would you put such a long and totally off-topic postscript on a condolence letter?
I find it totally inappropriate.
Nobody actually knows what happens after death, anymore than they know what happened before birth. I can’t stand all this ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die’ stuff, all supposedly underpinned by the celestial insurance policy of ‘faith’. I’ve been to several funerals of late and I always think of a secular version of the artist Stanley Spencer’s big picture, ‘The Resurrection’. Spencer may have had a Christian theme in mind, but what happens at funerals is that you often learn things for the first time about the deceased, even when you’ve known them for years, and the occasion is marked by friends, loves and acquaintances appearing out of their metaphorical ‘tombs’ – caused by absence, distance and non-communication – and being filled with joy when they see each other again.
The most moving funerals I’ve attended have been characterised by not a dog collar in sight, and there has sometimes been a bio-degradable coffin.
How wise you were AC to take yourself off to that Hebridean island where your father was born (wow) for a short period of reflection and spiritual refreshment.
We all need time out occasionally and a Hebridean island knocks a duvet day into a cocked hat. It’s hard for most of us I think to make sense of life even during good times, but as we grow older and make more frequent visits to the crematorium or elsewhere it does tend to focus the mind on one’s own immortality.
An untimely death is harder to deal with of course and the loss of a child must be unbelievably horrendous to try and cope with. People that have lost an offspring say that it’s like trying to live on another planet thereafter.
All any of us can do during our short time here is try and do a bit of good when and where we can. Have a little fun along the way of course. But most importantly, render evil unto no man. And of course enjoy the beauty of the earth, just as AC did on that Hebridean island.
I hope tomorrow’s funeral is a lovely occasion even though its subject should still be with us.
Take it easy 🙂
Condolences to Alan Keen’s family and friends.
It is one of the sad facts of life the older you get, the more death is close. A friend of mine’s mother gave up reading the local newspapers in her sixties because she couldn’t cope with reading about another friend that has passed away. How anyone coped in the two World Wars is beyond imagination.
And have always followed the local football team wherever the several places I lived – Wolves, Wimbledon (Plough Lane), Chester, Palace and even Crawley Town (pre-football league). Was living in Croydon when Palace played Man U in the early 1990’s FA Cup final that went into a replay. A great occassion was going to see Palace play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (when it was falling down!) over one xmas/new year holiday about eighteen years ago. A great day.
Three lines on topic, Olli and then a “regurge” of your usual outpouring of drivel.
Do you have a Nokia app which recycles and “regurges” all of your preset positions or do you have to retype and re-paste each time?
No other comment is necerrary.
To Al, I am sure that everybody on here send condolences to you at the loss of two great friends in such a short time. It puts in context the jousting we all so enjoy in our business and blogging lives.
You are going through a run of very sad losses at the moment. Sadly as we get older they seem to be ever more common. One that struck me was the unexpected death of the Surgeon that saved my wife Karen’s life when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I only really new him on a professional basis but a nicer more considerate man you could not wish to meet.
My thoughts are with you and Alan’s family, if the grues are to be believed these thing’s are supposed to make us stronger.
One last mention for Burnley legendary manager Jimmy Adamson I never saw him as a player, but a great manager he certainly was RIP.
By the way, at Stamford Bridge is falling down, that afternoon, it actually snowed. No bullshit.Palace lost though, if I remember right. HIC!
we wis all slaughterted, and moast of us got hame safely, apurt from one, he needed lelp in a cell up east london somewhere, at the end of the line.
Spot-on as ever Olli.
Daniel Hannan MEP has written an excellent blog on the subject of this undemocratic replacement of the PMs of Greece and Italy by unelected Eurocrats. His piece appeared in yesterday’s 14th Nov. Telegraph blogs, it’s entitled ‘The European project is now sustained by coup’ well worth a read by anyone who believes in the democratic system of government.
It seems like democracy has become too inconvenient for TPTB.
Ps. For those of you out there who think that Olli I “regurgitates” information, that is simply not true imo. I believe he brings us information of the utmost importance. I don’t pretend to understand all the complex statistics, but I completely understand the general gist of Olli’s posts and judging by the amount of ‘likes’ his posts receive so do many others.
I see you’ve changed your user name again Richard/Ieboug. Why?
Opps again – just look backed for the result, and it was nil-nil. So a point gained by Palace there. And John eventually got home – but he made a mess on that District train from Fulham broadway, when he got carted of to sleep it off in a cell, as I said, somewhere in East London. Rest of us just about managed to get off at Victoria for our BR station, John obviously misses his London Bridge connection. But we all laughed about it next we met. Great times. John said Dogbolter in the Firkin pub in Fulham before kick-off did it for him, on top of the heavy session he had in his local the night before. And by the way, John was going through a separation at the time, so needed to really blow the pipes out of himself, to look forward.
Dear mr cambell.
i litened to your raport on aled johnes show bbc2 26/02 /12?
even writting this is hard work??
drink/depression commpliments each other? you get to the stage where you say to youreself i can cope!(knowing there is two battles in your head)
as a fellow scot! you are the only polotician i fully trust!!
your honesty and frankness comes down to street level!!!and i respect that !
depression is a horrible illness! unseen!
i was an operational firefighter(now retired) there was times i didnt want to work? but i did!! always fulfilled my duties! you felt at times like a zombie!!
due to the nature of the job,stiff upper lip required! nobody wanted to admit to health weaknesess!
i agree depression is an issue to be adressed in all walks of life!!
employers/companies have to recogise it !!!!!
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The data talked about within the report are some of the ideal out there.