No sport please, I’m a socialist
On the whole, I’ve tried to stay clear of all the class war rhetoric. It seems clear to me that most Tories were not educated at Eton and that very few Labour voters are sons of coal miners. So it’s irritating and amusing in equal measures when supporters of either party play their stereotyped role.
Today it’s the turn of the Labour Party. I suspect I was one of the vast majority of the UK population who were gladdened by the news that Briton Amy Williams had won a gold medal in the skeleton bob at the Winter Olympics. Not so the embittered Labour members of Twitter.
Apparently skeleton bob is a ‘posh’ sport and those who take part on it are therefore also posh. So we have:
@gedrobinson Apparently some posh woman has come first in some exclusive sport.
Which was followed by:
@CouncillorTudor @gedrobinson might lead to non-posh mass participation. Or not!
and
@MadeleineRich At my comprehensive we were rarely encouraged to participate in Alpine skiing. Rarely was the skeleton mentioned. Just saying.
Nice to see Labour out in force to disparage our gold medal winners in this way. For the record, Amy Williams appears to be not in the slightest posh. Her father may be a Professor of Chemistry, but I don’t think Labour have started shooting the academics just yet. Her mother is a retired midwife, the sort of salt of the earth role that Labour usually fawns over. Amy attended state schools, then took a foundation art degree.
Williams was a 400 metre runner who wasn’t quite good enough to reach the very top and so decided to try something different. One of the main reasons why she went into skeleton bob is because the only facility in the UK is at the University of Bath – and even then it’s only a ‘push track’ rather than a full length track. Our silver medallist at the previous Olympics, Shelly Rudman, similarly went into skeleton after not quite reaching the top as a hurdler.
As for attracting future talent, the UK’s skeleton bob team are seeking new participants and a number of young women from all walks of lfe are coming through the Girls4Gold scheme. If Labour wanted to increase participation in the sport, they could have worked to fulfil Williams’ dream of a track here in the OK, which she said would “make the sport more accessible to everyone. It could become part of school sport and it would get everyone more interested in winter sports.” Or maybe they just like carping from the sidelines?
I have come to the conclusion that the real reason Labour members haven’t been invited to participate in elite sport is because the chip in their shoulder makes it impossible for them to balance.
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- You cannot be serious!
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Comments
20 February 2010, 1:13 pm
Nicely put
It’s also an interesting contrast with the frenzy over the summer games, presumably track & field etc are more acceptable politically.
20 February 2010, 4:24 pm
Hehehe! to the last line.
Mind you, I think we’re all guilty of carping from the sidelines on Twitter to some extent. One would hope that the bits of the Labour party that don’t spend their time carping on Twitter would agree with the point you make. You’d hope…
24 April 2010, 2:22 am
Yay.. Love the New Politics that the Lie Dems are preaching. You follow me on twitter no mention on there that you were going to quote me in your blog. Personally I thought that may be at least a modicum of respect.
I stand by what I say it is an exclusive sport, with very few participants in the UK. Come around the estates of inner city Leeds where I live and see how many have the opportunity of participating in this sport.
Cheap point scoring, a liberal democrat surely wouldnt be involved in doing that.
You know how to contact me Sarah. On open invitation to meet some inner city kids whenever you wish. Dare you take it up, I reckon not.