Last week I would happily have given a rousing three cheers for the Paralympics.

I am just back from the local Sainsburys where David Beckham promotes the Paralympics as “Here’s to the Extraordinary”.
I am not so sure. That the Paralympics have produced brilliant achievements should not be in doubt……but I wonder if it is really a level playing field. Im not convinced by Oscar Pistorious and the “blade runner” controversy but rather I note that even allowing for the fact that there are “categories” for disablement, it is the athlete who appears most able bodied who wins.
This was apparent in the 800m and 1500m won by Michael McKillop of Ireland ….the other athletes simply were not as able-bodied. Thats an achievement for the human spirit of course…..but is it sport? (and I realise this is an unpopular viewpoint).
Ellie Simmons, David Weir and others will of course also briefly join the celebrity circuit. They deserve it of course. But wouldnt it be nice if they were spoke up for disablement rights, which the Government are challenging on a daily basis.

The disconnect between the Premiership footballers and football supporters is because too many footballers (certainly not all of them) have got greedy and arrogant and are perceived to have left their working class roots behind.

The fans watching the Paralympics are often parents of disabled children whose benefits are being cut. I would hope that those Paralympians who do well financially out of these Games do not turn their backs on the disabled who have little sporting talent.
Indeed it was ironic that Gordon Brown (the father of a disabled child) was cheered by Paralympic supporters and George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer driving “welfare cuts” was booed.

But the choice of David Beckham whose very name suggests Premiership-Celebrity excess is a bad sign.