I am alerted to an auction currently taking place on eBay for a signed England Rugby shirt.
The blurb reads as follows:
"We have a signed England International Rugby Shirt (size M) kindly donated by England International Ugo Monye. The shirt has been signed by ALL of his England 6 Nations teammates. This is a truly unique item that is a must for all rugby fans!"
To which charity have the England lads given their support in this way?
The answer is: the campaign to re-elect Fiona Mactaggart as Labour MP for Slough.
I'm sure that sports teams sign shirts like this for charity auctions all the time, and doubtless they do so without wanting chapter and verse about every charity they are supporting when they do so.
But I would venture that they would not expect such items to be used as a way of raising money for a political party. Did Ugo Monye ask all his team mates if they were happy to help the Labour Party in this way? I suspect not - not least because if the rugby squad were representative of the population as whole, less than a third could be expected to be Labour Party supporters (and in my limited experience, very few rugby clubs are hotbeds of socialism).
It would be one thing for a random individual who owns such an item to donate it second-hand to a political fundraiser; but for an individual player to be giving such an item to a party weeks before a general election, effectively associating his whole team with a political cause, is not on.
