I’ve skimmed eight party manifestos ahead of the general election so you don’t have to, in search of an exciting, coherent policy for sport that could make a tangible difference to the nation’s wellbeing or its sporting prowess. Nada. Barely a single decent idea between them.
The incumbent Conservative Party has penned a couple of hundred words on sport in the penultimate section of its manifesto. Bringing up the rear in that document is “Our plan to strengthen the United Kingdom”. Last and least?
It tells us a lot about the state the party finds itself in and tends also to make me sympathise with one of Plaid Cymru’s three tiny paragraphs on sport which affirms its support for the creation of a Welsh international cricket team.
Secession from the England and Wales Cricket Board would cost Glamorgan County Cricket dear though, likely stripping it of international hosting status and its potentially lucrative franchise in The Hundred. I very much doubt its leadership shares the nationalists’ aim. Joined up thinking?
The Tories offer just five sporting commitments to the electorate, three a reaffirmation of existing programmes: to invest in multi-sport grassroots facilities, protect the interests of football fans via the intended football regulator, and support for women’s and girls’ sport. Plus a mandatory two hours of PE a week for all pupils and more inter-school and nationwide school sports competitions.
Excuse me while I stifle a yawn, although maybe lack of fresh thinking is inevitable when a party has been in power for so long.
Football regulation features in the pledges from each of the three major parties (not sorry, but I’m not counting yours as one, Nigel). As if this is anything to jump up and down about.
It is only the early dissolution of Parliament that has prevented the bill to create the football regulator being passed this year with wide cross-party support. It is as if each party feared not making this a centrepiece of their skinny sports strategy might alienate the odd footy fan.
Best their leaders keep visiting football grounds on the campaign trail too. (Monday? Must be Bristol Rovers, Sir Keir!) Although the Greens did at least do something different by launching their campaign at cricket’s County Ground in Hove. Vote Green if you fancy your local club dipping into a promised £5bn investment in community sports, arts and culture. The magic money tree lives!
The Tories have made five sport pledges in their general election manifesto
Sir Ed Davey has to his credit amused a politics-weary nation with his It’s a Knockout approach to campaigning. Not for him a simple photo opportunity holding up a football shirt with Change 24 on the back (really, Sir Keir?). No, it’s been wetsuits, paddle-boards, assault courses and inflatable slides all the way.
There’s a little more Neoprene on the policy limb from the Lib Dems than their rivals too. Yes, they’d invest in grassroots facilities, improve equality, diversity and inclusion and (did I mention it already?) give football fans “a stronger voice” through the new regulator.
But they would also crack down on ticket touts, enact a suite of measures to tackle the harms caused by problem gambling, and expand the list of sporting events that have to be shown on free-to-air TV (football, cricket, rugby, golf and tennis are cited). All sensible low-cost policies, although the latter two would prove financially problematic for the sports concerned.
Which brings us to the probable next party of government, Labour. What a disappointment given all the input I’m assured the party has had from the sports sector in recent months as it prepares for power.
Just three promises: legislation on ticket resales to protect consumers, bidding to host major events “to inspire the next generation of talent while promoting exercise and healthy living” (has it not analysed London 2012’s muted impact?), and (you guessed it) football regulation.
Perhaps political commentators have it right and Labour is simply hiding its policy light so as not to risk jeopardising its commanding poll lead. Clearly there is some more substance lurking in the shadows.
Starmer’s Bristol photo op, for example, hinted at the possibility of a 10 per cent football transfer tax to break the current financial impasse between the Premier League and EFL clubs. But a day later the lid was screwed down tight.
Ed Davey’s approach has been more It’s a Knockout but his party’s manifesto does go further on sport than others
And as to Reform UK, not a word on sport. Neither can I find any from the Monster Raving Loony Party, so I can’t endorse them either. Best you make your own mind up after sifting the sporting crumbs placed before you, the voter.
One reader, the head of a community activity network, recently wrote with an eye on the nation’s health to say: “We’ve had decades, and a very big one since 2012, hoping that sport had the answers. It doesn’t. We need bolder, more radical thinking, and investment in solutions to stimulate movement, not sport.” He’d have my vote.
Zut alors!
A French election 19 days out from the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics?! With tickets still going on sale in big clumps every Thursday, that’s the last distraction for the local populace that the organising committee needed from President Macron.
And as to the contingency planning that must now be madly underway to map politicians’ VVIP seating plans…
A book and a reverie
Last week’s column comparing a possible Manchester City future to the Harlem Globetrotters and looking at the impact of the T20 World Cup in the US prompted one reader to recommend Netherland by Joseph O’Neill, a novel about a Dutchman playing for the Staten Island Cricket Club. He’s right, a great read.
A contemporary from my youth wrote with memories of playing the Globetrotters in 1979 at Wembley as a member of our school’s U14s team in a five minute pre-show exhibition that featured on the BBC news. Apparently our headmaster broke a teachers’ strike to drive the mini bus up from Orpington.
“I remember visiting them in their smoke-filled dressing room only to find they were more engaged in their game of poker than they were in meeting a bunch of grammar school kids,” they wrote.
“I did manage to get the autograph of ‘Curly’ Neal but our expectations of receiving free signed merchandise fell very flat. Although they won the ‘match’ I think it was the beginning of the end for them as a real force in the world of sporting entertainment!”
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes his sport column at sportinc.substack.com