Andy Murray and the unstoppable rise of the sporting bores

When I was a girl, sportsmen were amiable dolts. If they were old-school, they liked blokes and beer; if switched-on, they liked boogieing with blondes at Tramp and dreamt of opening boutiques. But with both, you could rely on them never to let you know what they were thinking about the three-day week or the situation in Cyprus.

There’s nothing like the sight of men earning £100,000 a week for doing the thing they love lecturing us about colonialism to remind us of our privilege

When Andy Murray declared his support for Just Stop Oil this week, he joined that ever-burgeoning brigade of what I think of as the Schlock Jocks, or perhaps the Poppycock Jocks. Their leader is Saint Gary Lineker, the most expensive dominatrix around, taking the pound of the people and in return scolding the people who pay him. Gary, patron saint of refugees, whose virtue is so magical and identification with the under-privileged so great that he once spoke about receiving racist abuse, despite being born in Leicester to Margaret and Barry.