Are they serious?

Gordon Brown, fresh from his near appearance at the Olympic games, reiterated his promise that we shall do everything well in the 2012 Olympics, including in performance by our athletes. He will not be in power by then, we hope, but he claims that his government will set things up for success.

Do you believe him?
This from a Government which declared in its manifesto in 1997 that it would end the selling off of school playing fields. It claims that just 192 have been sold since, but independent estimates say the figure is nearer 2,000. Even Government departments admit that developers have built on 1,331 smaller fields since 2001.

This was the Government which raided "lottery funds" to supplement general Government spending, and reduced the possibility for culture or sport to enjoy finance. It is not easy to determine how much more money has been lost to the causes intended by the Lottery, but it runs into billions of pounds.

This is the Government which, with its left wing fellow travellers, discouraged competitive sport, presumably on the grounds that it did not like some to be labelled "losers". They seem to have undergone a late conversion, perhaps in an effort to repair their shattered reputation. Spending on sport, or any other good cause, to promote the reputation of the Government, will not succeed, unless it is done with the whole-hearted totalitarianism which used to be shown in Soviet Russia and its satellites.

Generally in this country community faciltities for sport are poorer than in most other European countries. In France there is one 50 metre swimming pool for every 650,000 people, but in Britain it is one for every 2.5 million. There is still a chronic shortage of gym facilities.

Even though recently money has been spent on our elite athletes, with the result that we achieved more medals in China, little has been done to improve community sports facilitities to produce athletes in the future. In the 1970s there were 298 community pools with diving boards. Now there are 84 for the whole of Britain. In Britain there are four fewer cycling tracks than there were in 1997!

The Government was quick to claim credit for medals won in Beijing, when in fact it was doing little more than using the Lottery money belatedly more in the way intended. But its view is very short-sighted, - a few successes to gain political credit.

Conscious of the spiralling Olympic construction and other costs, the Government has said that no cost overrun will be permitted. If costs exceed target in some areas, then savings must be found elsewhere. Their new-found enthusiasm for medals is only skin deep.