Taking up sport might teach Starmer a thing or two about opposition
One day, after the Civil War, the two victorious Northern Generals, Ulysses S Grant and William T Sherman were riding along Pennsylvania Avenue when Grant asked his fellow general a question. Sherman relayed, “Grant inquired of me in a humorous way, ‘Sherman, what special hobby do you intend to adopt?’ I inquired what he meant, and he explained that all men had their special weakness or vanity and that it was wiser to choose one’s own than to leave the newspapers to affix one less acceptable, and that for his part he had chosen the ‘horse’, so that when anyone tried to pump him he would turn the conversation to his ‘horse’.”
It strikes me that Sir Keir Starmer might do well to heed Grant’s advice. It’s not enough to take his tie off and campaign in an open-necked shirt, he should develop and make much of an enthusiasm that might make him seem more human, and so commend him to the electorate. The leader of the opposition has made reference to playing five-a-side football on his social media a few times, but more should be done to highlight an affection for sport.
Some time ago it became fashionable and near obligatory for a party leader to profess his umbilical attachment to a football club. I think Harold Wilson may have shown the way here. Certainly, he boasted about his ability to name the Huddersfield Town side that won the FA cup when he was but a barefoot boy. And, as a statistician, he could tell you about Yorkshire batting and bowling averages over the years. Michael Howard, as Tory leader, perhaps to counter Ann Widdicombe’s suggestion that there was “something of the night about him” let it be known that his heart beat in tune with the fortunes of Liverpool. Not all such claims were wholly convincing.
David Cameron seemed uncertain as to which was his beloved club: Aston Villa or West Ham, both having jerseys in which the colour claret predominates. Tony Blair also botched it, with his vivid memory of watching Jackie Milburn score goals for Newcastle United even though, as some harshly pointed out, the future PM was still in nappies when Milburn left the club in 1957.
John Major was a genuine cricket fan, heading for The Oval to watch Surrey the minute he shed the load of the Conservative party leadership. It was unfortunate perhaps that the England Test team was at a low ebb in his years in Downing Street, mirroring the declining fortunes of his party, or, of course, vice versa.
I don’t recall Margaret Thatcher expressing any great interest in sport, though she did bravely attend a Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park. I suppose she must have heard a lot of rugby talk from Denis and presume she went to Lord’s to watch the boy Mark play for Harrow against Eton. But you always felt she would rather be engaged in a ding-dong policy argument than sitting in the grandstand.
Ted Heath, of course, had his yacht as his “special hobby”, though I don’t know that it did him much good electorally. Attlee was a cricket fan like Major and Churchill, a polo player in his youth, owned racehorses after the war. One horse, Colonist 11, won a few races. Very nice but not in the same league as Lord Rosebery whose horse actually won The Derby during the eighteen months Rosebery was Prime Minister. This enhanced Rosebery’s popularity with sporting folk, though it met with the disapproval of his Nonconformist Liberal voters.
Golf was the favoured sport for politicians from the late Victorian years until well into the 20th century. Arthur Balfour liked to play a round every day, when at home in East Lothian. He was equally keen on tennis. So, even without politics, his days were pretty full. He made time for golf by never reading the newspapers, even when he was Prime Minister. Asquith golfed at least when on holiday in Scotland, as did his wife Margot. Some might be surprised that Ramsey MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister, was a golfer. But he came from Lossiemouth, fine links country, and his favourite course was Spey Bay. He said that “golf was to him what his Sabine farm was to Horace”. Lloyd George also golfed. Margot Asquith once said that Lloyd George “can’t see a belt without hitting below it.” So I wouldn’t trust him not to improve his lie if he found his ball nestling in nasty rough, though he surely paid more scrupulous heed to the Rules of Golf than Presidents Clinton and Trump.
Until well into the twentieth century, field sports were more popular than ball games with politicians, and not only Tory ones. Neville Chamberlain was a passionate fisherman. When he was exhausted and rundown after Munich, his PPS Lord Dunglass (later better known as the 14th Earl of Home and later still as Sir Alec Douglas-Home) invited him to fish the Tweed on the Homes’ estate in Berwickshire. Alec Douglas-Home himself was probably the best cricketer among Prime Ministers. He failed against stiff competition to get a Blue at Oxford., but was good enough to play for an MCC side that toured Argentina.
Field Sports would do a politician no good now. Harold Macmillan was happy to be photographed on the grouse-moor and, as an up and coming young Tory, Enoch Powell made sure the Press had a photo of him in Pink Coat at a meet of Foxhounds. I doubt if a grouse-moor would brighten Sir Keir’s image, nor of course would a gallop with hounds. All the same, General Grant was right in the advice he gave Sherman. Sir Keir needs a hobby, almost certainly a sporting one. Or, if he already has such a thing, he should get himself a PR who knows how best to publicise it.