THE FINAL INSULT..

This photo shows Sports Minister Helen Grant, MP, attending the opening of Maidstone United`s new ground a year or so ago.   Now, Mrs. Grant, just a couple of years after resigning as a member of the Labour Party, was selected from the `A` list as a parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. She was duly adopted by Maidstone and The Weald to succeed Ann Widdecombe, now happily retired and put out to grass in Devon, and Mrs. Grant duly won the seat at the last General Election, albeit having cut the Conservative majority down from 14,000 to under 6,000.

Her Parliamentary career has been `chequered,`involving controversies about her expenses and there were issues concerning the employment of her husband as an `advisor` and the employment conditions of a former employee.   She rose almost without trace to become Justice Minister, which was singularly ironic, but where her performance was less than memorable and so in a recent reshuffle she found herself as Sports Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

As such, a couple of days ago she was interviewed on Meridian TV about matters under her portfolio and was asked a series of not terribly searching questions to test her sporting knowledge.   After all, she seemed pretty sporty, having apparently represented Cumbria in hockey, tennis, athletics and cross-country, as well as being an under-16 judo champion for the north of England and southern Scotland, so you would assume that, as Sports Minister, she would know her sporting stuff.   Not a bit of it.   Despite some frantic off-camera prompting from an `aide,` she fluffed each of the questions which included `Who is the current England Rugby captain?,` `Who is the current Wimbledon Ladies champion?,`When did Maidstone United leave the Football League?` and `Which team currently holds the FA Cup?`

Now, I`m of an age when tolerance, forbearance and forgiveness have kicked in, so I can possibly find it in my heart to overlook Mrs. Grant`s `difficulties` over political indecision, expenses claims and even her tenure as Justice Minister.   Indeed, I will go as far as saying that I quite understand her inability to give the correct answer to at least some of the questions she was asked.  

But my powers of forgiveness were stretched beyond reason by her frantic searching for the answer about who were the current FA Cup holders when, despite her plea for help, she could only mutter, "Manchester United because it`s my favourite club." It represented the final insult to the intelligence of sports lovers everywhere, especially those in Wigan. They, along with Westminster watchers, may have hoped that at last  we may have found a Sports Minister who knows her stuff, whereas in reality it seems we have yet another opportunistic chancer who has found a convenient niche on the greasy pole. 

You see, for Mrs. Grant and her ilk, it`s all about the career, but I do wonder how long this phase of her career will last.