Chess doesn’t need Rishi Sunak’s cheesy cheerleading

There’s something embarrassing about Rishi Sunak’s plan to revive chess in Britain. The PM is set to announce half-a-million pounds funding for the English Chess Federation. The money could be used to send teams to international tournaments, install chess tables in parks and teach the game to school kids. But Rishi’s cheesy cheerleading for government-sponsored chess is reminding me a lot of a parent buying condoms for their teenager: there’s no better way to take the sexiness out of sex.

Perhaps the PM is trying to take inspiration from eastern Europe. Last October, I went to Budapest to interview the world’s best-ever female chess player, Judit Polgar, and also attended the chess festival she hosts at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. There, I met the then-Georgian minister for education, Mikheil Chkhenkeli, who was proud about having just introduced mandatory chess playing for six-year-olds in school, joining only Armenia in making the game compulsory for school children.