ASK A SILLY QUESTION..

Prime Minister`s Questions should really be about concentrating on the most urgent, pressing and important issues facing the country - the economy, the Eurozone crisis, relationships with European `partners,` the Falklands question, the threat posed by Iran, the plight of the growing number of unemployed, care for the elderly, the state of the NHS and so on.   Now to be fair, some of these issues were touched on today but it took an intervention from Portsmouth North MP, Penny Mordaunt, to demonstrate once again the Commons` collective penchant for trivialisation.

Her prepared and rehearsed exchange with Prime Minister David Cameron went like this:-

Penny Mordaunt : "If a local supermarket closes down another quickly opens and takes its place.   If Portsmouth Football Club closes down the Pompey fans will not be content with buying their season tickets from Southampton.   Will the Prime Minister add his voice to mine in calling for Her Majesty`s Revenue and Customs to meet with the club so it recoups the taxes it is owed, so that our club survives and that the fans have their chance to become its owner?"

Mr Cameron replied: "I will certainly do that and I think she's absolutely right to raise this issue.   Knowing one or two Pompey fans I can certainly understand the idea that they could go and support Southampton is completely incredible and we must do everything we can to keep this friendly rivalry going."Now you might be forgiven for thinking that this is just a bit of local politicing by the fragrant Ms. Mordaunt, ever keen to show her constituents that she`s on their side.   But here we have a football club who have already been in administration with debts of £20million, a new company formed just two years ago from the ashes of that experience, a succession of highly unfit and clearly improper owners, a club that spent money it didn`t have on players it couldn`t afford and whose parent company went into administration just two months ago.HMRC have been remarkably patient in attempting to recover the £1.6million it is owed in unpaid taxes and so they have issued the club with a Winding Up Petition to be heard in court in three weeks time.   I think it`s time the Penny Mordaunts of this world realised that professional football clubs are not special cases - they are businesses with responsibilities and liabilities to be met just like any other business - and that to clutter up PMQs with plaintive cries to get the Prime Minister involved in lost causes shows a  worrying disregard for the real problems facing her constituents - like the 3,000 job losses in Portsmouth Dockyard.But Cameron`s right about one thing - the notion that Portsmouth fans would ever switch their allegiance to the Saints is not only incredible but laughingly so.   But I wonder who told him that the rivalry is `friendly.`