Tom Richmond: Sport is too vital to be just a political football

On the one hand, there's Gordon Brown saying the UK economy must be treated as carefully as Rooney, this country's only genuine world-class player. And then there's the influential ConservativeHome website bemoaning the Tories' reluctance to make immigration an election issue. Its editor described this omission as "like leaving Wayne Rooney on the bench".

Yet, actually, sport should matter as an election issue – rather than being used as a political stunt.

The next Government will be responsible for staging the 2012 Olympics in London. They need policies to ensure this over-budget sporting celebration does not become an international embarrassment. I'm still totally unsure how it will benefit grassroots sport – the reason that underpinned the original Games bid.

So far, their budgets are being cut to pay for London's largesse and hidden costs like security.

However community sport is proven to be one of the best – and most effective – policies of cutting anti-social behaviour. I've lost count of the number of top-class competitors who have admitted that they

would have become teenage tearaways if they had not had a chance to play football or to take up boxing. Yet, regrettably, many young people are being denied this chance because of issues like funding, a shortage of facilities, volunteers being put off by red-tape and some parents showing no interest in becoming involved in the running of sports clubs. When a politician next mentions Rooney, or poses for a photograph alongside an icon like Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, they should be put on the spot – and asked what they will do to transform sport at a local level.

It's actually far more important than Wayne Rooney's fitness.

WHEN the late, great Robin Cook attended the Grand National during the 2005 election, he was there for the racing. Politics was not on the agenda. I shall never forget his 30-minute critique of the 40-runner field, and his winning selection (Hedgehunter).

Contrast this with John Prescott who was standing outside Aintree last Saturday trying to hand out Labour Party leaflets. He'd got into his head that the National will not be shown on terrestrial television under a Tory government.

He's wrong. Not even the Conservatives are this stupid. And, even if there was a hint of accuracy in Prescott's notion, it wouldn't have made any difference to those racegoers who simply wanted to get into Aintree, without hassle, and watch Tony McCoy, the greatest ever

jockey, win the greatest ever race.

Perhaps it explains the refusal of King Johns Castle to start the big race, a horse whose name has worthy parallels with the former Deputy Prime Minister's home in Hull.

The horse obviously shares the soon-to-be Lord Prescott's mulish tendencies.

WHEN Parliament was finally put out of its misery, one of the last items discussed was the issuing of a Commons pass to Unite political director and former Government spin-doctor Charlie Whelan.

Whelan rose to prominence as press spokesman for Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor before being forced to resign in 1999 and he has a key role in Labour's General Election campaign.

Yet, as Tory grandee Peter Bottomley pointed out, a political director of an outside organisation with a parliamentary pass is "a lobbyist" – and they're not permitted to have such privileges. What appalled me was the failure of John Bercow, the increasingly inept Speaker, to realise the importance of this issue. He tried, and failed, to silence MPs like Bottomley.

I, for one, won't shed any tears if Bercow is defeated in his

Buckingham constituency by Ukip. He's just not up to the job of Speaker, judging by the chaotic scenes at Prime Minister's Questions and the amount of money that he's spent making his apartments more child-friendly.

And, if he is, by chance returned to Westminster, I hope the first job of new MPs will be to elect, as Speaker, a Parliamentarian of substance and integrity.

I'VE had the misfortune to receive a letter from Gordon Brown begging for my vote. If only I had known – I could have saved the Labour Party the cost of the stamp.

It started: "While the media will focus on the leaders and their families, this election will not be about me. It will be about you and your family..."

It was somewhat ironic on two counts. First, it arrived on a day when Labour had pushed Brown's wife, Sarah, to the forefront of its campaign.

And this missive is being sent out in a Leeds constituency where the Prime Minister's candidate, Jamie Hanley, has yet to mention Gordon Brown by name in any of the reams of literature that have been posted through my letter box.

SOME prospective Tory ministers' press officers still fail to grasp Yorkshire's geographical location – and electoral significance – as the Party slashes Labour's lead locally.

I've just received a very interesting note from the media team of

Justine Greening, the Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, that 16,800 businesses in the West Midlands face a 20 per cent tax hike following a re-evaluation of their business rates.

Not a word about Yorkshire – even though Greening was born in Rotherham.

CAN we expect shorter, pithier speeches from Schools Secretary Ed Balls? He has just admitted that during a stint as a "pretend teacher" "the more I talked the less the children listened..."