James Cleverly, the Conservative gaffe prone Home Secretary,
recently gave his verdict on the European Court ruling in favour of the
principal of the proposed football Super League.

Whatever the merits of the argument about the super league, you might’ve

thought that a Conservative politician would agree with the Court which said
the blocking of the league by international governing bodies such as FIFA or UEFA
was stifling competition, and was wrong.

But just to show how much Conservative politicians, epitomised by

Mr Cleverly, have been brainwashed by sports governing bodies, huge monopolies
that brook no competition whatsoever, and provide a service to their members
which would make 1970s British Rail wince, the Home Secretary said that he
supported FIFA in trying to block the league, and didn’t agree with the
judgment of the Court in trying to open up competition.

But Mr Cleverley and his friends have form. In thirteen years of

Tory rule they have hardly challenged some of the biggest quangos and state run
monopolies in sport at all. In fact, they have empowered them.

When it comes to competition and providing the public a better

service for a better price, Conservative politicians like Mr Cleverly talk a
good game, but actually in practice, certainly in the world of sports, such a
huge influence over all of our lives, they 
believe in nationalisation, poor customer service and little value for
money.

But perhaps it was the word ‘European Court’ which bothered Mr

Cleverley. Perhaps he was getting it confused with the European Union or the
European Commission, or even the European Court of Human Rights.

Because the problem with politicians like Mr Cleverly is that they

are simply not that bright. Read Rory Stewart’s brilliant memoir of his time in
Parliament and you’ll know why.

Climbing the greasy pole to power, as Mr Cleverly is doing, is far

more important than your principles, getting your judgment right, or even
actually having to think about the detail of any given policy. The special
advisors can do all that for you.

And it is ill thought-out Conservative policies that have caused

local sports facilities to close, or to be poorly maintained. Not through lack
of funding from the Government, because many of them now are managed by third
parties who, by and large, do a much better job than the local Council can.

No, the problem is that, as with Birmingham City Council, the Conservatives

had a brainwave, without giving it much thought, that Councils should operate
in an entrepreneurial fashion, and start acting as private investors.

So Council’s across the country started investing in land or

buildings, or other entrepreneurial schemes. It never dawned on the Conservative
Government that the very reason why the staff in Councils work in the public
service is because they probably don’t want to work in the private sector, or
don’t have the entrepreneurial skills to be successful there.

So asking Councils to start becoming entrepreneurial is a bit like

asking an elephant to tiptoe around the jungle. It is just not built for it.

So of course Councils are going to make bad decisions on

investments, which are now coming home to roost, and they are popping like
flies in a race towards the bankrupt bottom.

And when Councils go bankrupt then it is sports services, along

with everything else, that usually gets cut first.

And it can be traced back to Conservative politicians, just like

Mr Cleverley, who have a hare-brained scheme, but simply haven’t thought it
through.

Mr Cleverly and his friends a perhaps spending too much time

engaged in these pointless battles about things such as whether we should leave
the European Court of Human Rights or not.

On the one side are those who say we should stay because there are

better human rights in Europe, completely forgetting that the ECHR, when it
comes to human rights, is nothing to write home about.

Go in to any restaurant in Europe and ask for tap water, for

instance. They don’t have to give it to you. This basic requirement of the
human condition, water, is not so basic in Europe that it should be free in a
restaurant, as it is here in the UK, by law.

So if the ECHR can’t even get that right, can they be trusted on

anything else?

The alternative for a British bill of human rights to replace

it might not be much better either.

Where the Europeans are ahead of us is when it comes to taxing

sporting activity, and European laws are much more friendly towards people that
want to play sport regularly than we are here in the UK.

But still we have this binary argument between one or the other

when it should really all be down to common sense, which is what the vast
majority of us do best.

We should leave our politicians squabbling around talking about

media driven issues, their own prejudices, or how they can best climb the
greasy pole to the top, and in the coming election we should look for the
independent candidate, if there is one, because it’s only then that we might
get a bit of common sense back into our political class.