Politics and sport are no match

When England won the World Cup in 1966 Harold Wilson claimed that this helped Labour win the general election.

There wasn’t a shred of evidence to back this up but it explains why our political leaders are so obsessed with sport and getting in on the perceived reflected glory.

So to the Scottish Open on the Castle Stuart golf links and who seemed to be there every day? None other than ‘King’ Alex our First Minister. He even sat on the grass to make it look like he was ‘one of us’ even though we all know he spent most of his time in the corporate section.

I saw him doing a TV interview with BBC Scotland — not about golf but Rangers!

Hasn’t this man got a proper job to do?

Unfortunately for King Alex his obsession with getting in on the glory has backfired as he is now seen as a jinx on Scottish athletes. First he was there to witness Andy Murray’s defeat at Wimbledon and then the collapse of Mark Warren at the golf. Worse still for Salmond the BBC picked this up with the commentator saying over a shot of the First Minister: ‘Lets hope he doesn’t do what he did for Murray’.

King Alex wasn’t alone at Wimbledon as he was joined in the Royal box by the Prime Minister and the London Mayor hoping to cash in on a Murray victory.

David Cameron is almost as bad as the First Minister when it comes to using sport to bolster his waning popularity.

He hit the airwaves to congratulate Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins obviously oblivious to the fact that he is a staunch Labour man who said to Gordon Brown in Beijing ‘I hope you beat those Tories’.

With the Olympics in full swing we have seen from the start politicians trying to get in on the act.

Barack Obama has sent his wife over before his arrival and his opponent Mitt Romney entered the fray to tell the world that London wasn’t ready for the Games. He was put down by the Prime Minister who went down to Stratford to try and claim he was part of the success even though it was Labour who were in power when the games was won for London.

He wants to blame the opposition for the mess he has got the economy into but take credit for the games. Cameron must think we were all born yesterday.

The PM also has form, now claiming to love ‘the people’s game’ and support Aston Villa even though he is on record as saying as a backbencher he was not interested in football.

Unfortunately for Cameron his bitter rival Boris Johnson seems more in tune with the punters. He was not slow to savage Mitt Romney to the cheers of 60,000 people in Hyde Park and gave fulsome support for the opening ceremony so hated by the Tories and described by one as ‘leftie multicultural claptrap’.

For most of us though it was a wonderful advert for everything good about Britain and will have upset the Narrow Nationalists here in Scotland as much as it did the Tories.

Ironically the next opening ceremony for a big sporting event will be in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. It is no secret that King Alex has delayed the referendum on the proposed break up of the United Kingdom in the hope that he can ride on a wave of patriotism generated by our athletes at the Games.

The First Minister also wants to use the Ryder Cup also in Scotland to promote his political aspirations.

Just as Harold Wilson was wrong all those years ago Alex Salmond is wrong if he thinks he can use sport to promote the Nationalists’ not so hidden agenda.

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