I totally agree with Alex Deane's post.
It must make athletes in Beijing furious that the government is trying to claim credit for their success. The real credit should surely to our superb athletes and no one else.
In fact lottery funding for grassroots sport has been virtually cut in half since 1997. If you add in government spending, there has been a real reduction of £135m per annum going into sport, mainly caused by Labour's lottery raids for ministerial pet projects.
Grassroots sport is not the same as elite sport, but just as vital when it comes to London 2012, where we won the bid on the basis that we would inspire young people through sport.
But even the funding for elite sport has been a shambles. In March 2006 the government promised a £600m package of which £100m would come from the private sector. They have failed to raise this money, and yesterday a government minister said this was because at that time it was "unclear" which rights the government would have to sell off. A few phone calls to the BOA and the IOC could have cleared things up - instead of which they persisted with a promise they are now struggling to fulfil.
The harsher economic climate doesn't make things easier either, but they might have had a chance if they had started two years ago. Since then we are on our third Culture Secretary which I suspect is the real reason why this particular ball was dropped.
PS I have the honour of having riled Labour so much over my criticisms of their sport funding that today Labour MP Michael Connarty called on me to resign.
