Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour plays a sensible game on school sport

It would be wrong to say that David Cameron has had a bad Olympics. After all, the Games went extremely well, both in terms of logistics and Britain’s wonderful medal haul. The Prime Minister is not responsible for the bouncy mood of the country at the moment, but he’s also not having to answer aggressive questions from the media about an awful security breach, total gridlock in central London or worse.

But the Prime Minister did rather let himself down by being drawn into the inevitable debate about sports provision in the state education sector during the Games. That discussion started so early into Britain’s rise up the medal table that at the time it was impossible to assess whether state-educated athletes were pulling their weight. Even as the Games drew to a close, the Prime Minister and Education Secretary Michael Gove would have been wise to resist the probably rather satisfying attacks on the teaching unions and comments about ‘sort of Indian dancing‘.

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