You could scarcely win an election on a manifesto like that.
No one knows this better than we Blackburn Rovers supporters, who, of my vintage, have experienced years in the mid-table doldrums of the second tier, the dizzy heights of a Full Members' Cup final triumph, the scarcely credible winning of the Premiership some 18 years ago, and even, in the mid-Seventies, a brief excursion to the old Third Division.
But in any case, Naughtie seems to imply, government is run at a deeper level by the intelligence services to the point where it scarcely matters who won the last election.
They transformed the world's second most popular game after football, making it faster and more glamorous; at a time when South Africa was riven by apartheid and India's cricketers could scarcely manage to win a game, they were an inspiration to non-white sportsmen all around the world.
Ah well, a second season in the big time would have been scarcely deserved; they'd won only two of their last 15 games.
Irish have scarcely fared any better, winning only once in their past six.
Scarcely had Roth's win been made public than one of the judges, the former publisher Carmen Callil, dissociated herself from the verdict.
Sars was called to account over two incidents that England followers felt deprived Howard Wilkinson's team of a World Cup qualifying win they scarcely deserved for an abject performance.
Dave and Angie Dawes will not be collecting their windfall in £50 notes – it has already been paid, as it happens, into a new private bank account set up on their behalf – but the scale of their enormous EuroMillions lottery win seemed scarcely less nonsensical as they were revealed as the winners of the third biggest lottery jackpot in British history.
For most of the match, a classy strike from Rémy, backed by a determined display by goalkeeper Julio Cesar and his defenders, looked as if it might give Queens Park Rangers a win they would scarcely have deserved, but Cole equalised to bring a semblance of sanity to the score.
