The Sketch: Simon Carr

How a trick question revealed the vicious mind of the Sports Minister

Do you want to know the number of pensioners who made free entry visits to national museums during the last summer holidays? Why? What's the matter with you? Mind your own business.

Is it of interest to you whether the Secretary of State for Culture has discussed with marketing bodies the expansion of opportunities for domestic holidays for people with disabilities? Nosiness of this order is pathological.

What about the way in which grassroots sport will be developed on the Humber? You need help. You won't get it. You're an MP so far back on the government backbench you are beyond the reach of psychiatric help. We need a telescope to reach you. A radio telescope. You'll die out there in the emptiness, withering away, vainly demanding to know what assistance has been given to sports clubs in the North-east.

But at least you won't be Brian Jenkins, the MP for Tamworth. He asked Richard Caborn a question. Minister Caborn is the sports minister who failed to answer any questions at all on a radio sports quiz.

Quiz master: "What object familiar to enthusiasts of the endeavour supported by the Football Association am I holding in my hands?" Mr Caborn: "That's a spherical inflated object with black and white panels, possibly an artwork of some sort? A prop for Cosi Fan Tutti? Possibly a topographical teaching aid showing how three-dimensional planes interact with two surfaces? Can I phone a friend? I'm a sports minister, you see, not a cultural one."

Mr Jenkins asked Mr Caborn an almost Ciceronian question: "Would he explain to the country and this House why so many people outside. In sport, don't believe that government has taken it serious enough. To expand the industry. They still see sport as a means of playing football or cricket."

You get the idea. Maybe you don't. Minister Caborn was tricked into revealing the sheer vicious, iniquitous vileness of his mind. Sport is the means to many ends, he said. "It is about social inclusion. It is about wealth creation. It is about regeneration. It is delivering many of the programmes of government departments." It's unforgivable really. If you thought the commercialisation of sport had been a mixed blessing, what about its politicisation? Nothing is beyond the reach of these creatures.

Later we had an Opposition Day. The Conservatives chose to debate the Government's record on the compilation and dissemination of information. Spin, that is. The transport system is falling apart, the health service is attempting a genocide of all those it can tempt into its filthy, decrepit, carcinogenic hospitals, and the Tories want to talk about Jo Moore.

Only one really truthful thing was said. Barbara Roche puffed herself up like a South American Fighting Frog to declare: "I'm not going to take any lessons from the Opposition in cynical news management!" No, that wouldn't be necessary. Not by any means.

The day's best spin came from a Shadow Cabinet Tory talking about Stephen Byers. "We don't want him to resign. We want him to remain in post, as a running sore. We are aiming to wound, not kill." This is the best gloss possible on the Tories' inability to secure the resignation of Mr Byers' wretched press officer, let alone of Mr Byers.

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com