A rather unoriginal poll conducted last year asked British children ‘what do you want to be when yogrow up?’ ‘Footballer’ topped the list of responses. Fewer than one per cent of kids said they aspired to be a politician.

So far, so unsurprising. The power of sport to inspire, to reach the parts of society that politics and other more traditional means cannot, is well known. Delivering the first sportsthinktank.com annual lecture on the day he became Britain’s longest ever serving sports minister, Richard Caborn cited Nelson Mandela’s famous quote: ‘Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down barriers. It laughs in the face of discrimination.’

Tony Blair has said that sport is ‘one of the best anti-crime policies that we could have. It is also as good a health and education policy as virtually any other.’

He is right, and the Labour government has made good progress in recent years in making these words a reality. Policies such as an increase in Exchequer money for school sport and coaching, a slowdown in the disposal of playing fields, and support for grassroots funding initiatives such as the Football Foundation are hugely welcome. Winning the right to host the Olympics was a fantastic political success.

But it is not enough, and the challenge for Gordon Brown, should he succeed Blair, is to create a meaningful legacy from these games. Specifically, this means harnessing the power of sport to make progress in education, preventative health, and social inclusion, and a whole-government approach is needed.

If the government is serious about the NHS becoming a ‘wellness service’, as Patricia Hewitt recently announced, it needs to start investing far more in community sport as a means of preventing obesity, cardiac disease and illnesses linked to social exclusion. Why does the health budget contribute so little to funding sport? Similarly, it costs £100,000 a year to keep a young offender in secure accommodation. How much cheaper is the investment in the decent sporting facilities and coaching which could keep him, and hundreds of thousands like him, out of trouble?

A Brown government will need to be more creative in its policy making, and braver in its engagement with sport, for this to happen. If the political world grasps the nettle, the true impact of London hosting the games will be felt for decades to come – and will lead to massive long-term cost savings across government.
Such action would not only lead to better sports policy, it would help to re-engage people with our democratic processes. Politicians of all persuasions are struggling to find the ways and means to connect with voters. Research recently conducted by Sportsthinktank.com reveals that there is three-times as much coverage of sport as politics in the national newspapers. For many people, sport makes more difference to their lives than any engagement they have with politicians and state institutions.

The message is that if politicians are to stay relevant, they need to get more involved in sport. And there may be one more good news story here for the future PM – by pushing the sports agenda across government, and truly investing in its power and reach to achieve his policy aims, Gordon Brown might just find that he can define Britishness after all.

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