David Cameron, Man in the Arena

Tim Montgomerie

In about an hour we'll know if England has won the right to host 2018's football World Cup.

Win or lose credit must go to David Cameron for getting on the pitch and fighting for the English bid. He didn't hang back for fear of being associated with a losing effort but like with much of his foreign policy - travelling to India and China with massive trade missions - he is standing up for Britain.

He has been the Man in the Arena:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."