Open Road

Wednesday Mar 5th 2008

Snooker Loopy

It is no secret that the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Andy Burnham, is football-mad. Not only is he a life-long follower of Everton FC, he is also a former Chairman of Supporters Direct, and a regular in the parliamentary football team.

Burnham has now gone and out-done himself by being the first politician to suggest that the public realm be treated as though it were a game of football.

The Evaluation of the Impact of the Licensing Act 2003, which was commissioned by Gordon Brown and published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Tuesday 4 March, puts forward a number of recommendations designed to further the fight against binge drinking.

One of these is the proposal to subject retailers, particularly those accused of encouraging underage drinking, to a new ‘yellow and red card’ alert system when said retailers are in breach of their license conditions. In his Written Ministerial Statement, Burnham even promises that “when the circumstances are right, it will be a straight red”. Blimey.

What matters here is not the merits of the proposal. Burnham is clearly onto something in trying to blur the boundaries between the worlds of sport and public policy.

Here is what you could be tried next:

Random drugs testing: This is now prevalent in all sports and has brought about the demise of many a Tour de France cyclist and Olympic athlete. Surely there really is no other way of explaining Margaret Hodge’s recent pronouncements on the Proms (see here)?

The Sin Bin: Used in Ice Hockey, the House of Commons already has a similar system (most recently, George Galloway and Derek Conway). Would the deterrent not be even stronger if rogue MPs were made to purge their sentence inside the Chamber, stuck inside a plexi-glass box, watching the action unfold without them?

The Blood Bin: Ministerial scandals are often followed by the (not always inevitable) demise of a competent Cabinet member (Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett). One way to remedy this could be through the introduction of a rugby union-style ‘blood bin’ whereby a temporary replacement, usually a rising star (a junior minister?) or an experienced old hand (a former Secretary of State?) comes off the bench, literally, to take over duties while the incumbent is taken away, patched up, and returned to the fray once their confidence restored.

Video replay: Increasingly, technology is used to settle moments of contention in sport. Would the accountability of the Government to Parliament not be enhanced by capacity for video replay during Oral Questions? Did the Minister answer the Honourable Member’s question or not? Let’s see what the video says.

The video replay: coming soon to a bicameral legislature near you.

There must be more…