This is very odd. Very odd indeed.
As one of the comments says, “The only thing sadder than female journalists taking a sudden interest in football is political spin doctors pretending to be sports jounalists.” (It’s also odd that you need to click on comments to read the full post. Hasn’t the Labour Party heard of any tried and tested blogging software?)
I really enjoy your blog….You should think of posting it on my new politics top sites directory.
http://www.slingmud.com
Joe
He may not be pretending to be a journalist. He may just be expressing an enthusiasm (horribly un-english, I know).
I see this as a reminder of something I usually say about the US, but is ideally true of every democracy:
In a democracy, you can either be effective in politics, or ineffective. Not being “political” isn’t really an option — that’s just a subset of being ineffective.
In other words, there is no distinction between “politicians” and everyday citizens. Because all the everyday citizens are “politicians”, too, whether they realize it or not.
Given all that, I don’t think someone trades away their right to be an enthusiast of sport just because one happens to have been elected to public office… No more so than I think someone trades away their right to express a political opinion just because they’ve become famous in some non-elective field (acting, business, sport, what have you).
We’re all in the boat together. Or should be. So I find this no more odd than any other punter in bar.
Oh, I have nothing against his enthusiasm. It’s one I share.
What’s odd is using the Labour Party site for the exercise, and then making these tenuous connections between World Cup observations and politics: “Both Tony Blair and Sven…”