Cameron’s big sporting society

David Cameron made a spirited defence of school sport this morning when he appeared on LBC radio. Waving a sheet of paper triumphantly, the Prime Minister argued that the 20 school playing field sales that Michael Gove had signed off were actually schools that had closed, surplus fields and ‘surplus marginal school land’. He also defended the decision to remove a compulsory target for all children to take part in two hours of sport a week:

Well, look, we haven’t done that, you know, sport is part of the national curriculum and we want schools to deliver sport and I think that’s very important, but frankly, and we’re putting a lot of money in, there’s a billion pounds going into school sport over the next four years. But frankly if the only problem was money, you’d solve this with money. The problem isn’t money, the problem has been too many schools not wanting to have competitive sport, some teachers not really wanting to join in and play their part and so if we want to have a great sporting legacy for our children, and I do: I’ve got an eight year-old, a six year-old and a two year-old and I want them to play competitive sport, and they want to play competitive sport, we’ve got to have an answer that brings the whole of society together to crack this.