What a difference a year makes! In the summer of 2011 our televisions were bursting with images of burning cars and buildings, masked youths trashing high street stores and lines of police trying hard to restore order. By contrast, the summer of 2012 has seen television screens brimful of beaming young British sportsmen and women proudly clutching Olympic medals, earned with blood sweat and tears, as their country shows a much more positive and joyful side to the watching world.

Our Prime Minister has been prominent on our television screens praising our fine young athletes and hoping, no doubt, that some of the reflected glory and pride will fall upon his beleaguered government. I hope he learns the lesson well because if any politician was ever in any doubt about the power of sport to move and to generate such widespread happiness and joy then these Games will surely have dispelled it.

Sport is a vital part of life and, indeed, is a microcosm of life displaying as it does all of life’s realities. Life, like sport, is all about competition.  It is, whether we like it or not, about winning and losing and it is about joy and despair. We just have to convince the politically correct liberals who govern us of these facts and ensure that sport is made available to all and, most importantly, that adequate funding is provided to establish proper sporting facilities in all state schools.