Or it would be for anyone other than a dyed-in-the-wool Leftist. The supposed conundrum centers on England’s Premier League’s supposed cream of the crop Manchester City soccer club (not to be confused with the Manchester United soccer club, which appears to have entirely clean hands). It appears that Man City has been caught in more than 100 violations of the Premier League’s rules on spending, violations like

“‘sham’ commercial deals” from 2009 and continuing into the 2017-18 season, the Premier League said following an independent investigation. The purpose, it added, was to “artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million ($1.2 billion) during the affected period to appear to comply with financial rules.”

The price of this cheating could extend to this:

…the club stripped of several championships and Manchester City expelled from the Premier League. In that scenario, it would be busted down one or more divisions and forced to work its way back up over the course of several seasons.

The supposed conundrum is this:

The predicament is especially awkward for [UK Prime Minister Andy] Burnham, who built much of his political appeal on his everyman soccer-fan image, but now finds himself caught between a major investor in the UK economy and defending the integrity of the Premier League, Britain’s most popular cultural export since the Beatles.

Hmm…. Let’s see, does Burnham do the right thing, the moral thing, the honest thing, and let the League hammer City for its blatant and long-lasting cheating? Or does he wink at it in order to curry the favor of a major (foreign) investor? What to do, what to do….

As I said at the outset, only a Leftist, a British Liberal, would find himself challenged by the choice. Or, the WSJ‘s news writers are overstating the case, and Burnham will have no trouble reaching the correct decision.

Here are two things, taken in isolation but not separated from each other.

Last week, five likely terrorists were caught in the process of scoping out, if not actually attacking our B-1 bombers housed at RAF Fairford in the UK. The five terrorists were back out on bail within hours of their arrest, functionally free to resume their plot.

This week, the Israeli government closed the British Consulate in Jerusalem, sending home the Consul General and the bulk of the consulate staff; this came in response to the UK’s decision to harm Israel by banning trade with Israeli settlers operating in the West Bank. A skeleton crew remains in a small diplomatic mission, styled UK Mission, Jerusalem, left to serve…Palestinians.

These two things, in their aggregation, seem to imply that the UK favors Palestinian terrorists over its obligations to NATO and to UK allies. They appear to suggest that the UK has no interest in Israel—which is further consistent with government rhetoric condemning Israel’s efforts in Gaza to defend itself against repeats of Hamas’ and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s atrocities of 7 October 2023.

This, by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, makes the matter plain [emphasis added]:

We have been clear that we do not accept that the government of Israel has the legal right to close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem, which has been there for nearly 200 years. The UK government reiterates its long-standing view that East Jerusalem is occupied territory.