Politics and sport should never mix is the hoary old chestnut — but they always do. It’s a thrilling concoction. In just under three weeks, the World Cup kicks off in Russia and while I can’t vouch for the quality of the footie, the whole extravaganza is likely to be edge-of-the-seat stuff. At the end, Vladimir Putin will either be grinning like a creamed-up cat or grinding his teeth in rage, lamenting about what might have been.
Never has there been a backdrop quite like this. A couple of months ago there were calls (including from Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary) for England to boycott the tournament altogether.
This wasn’t to save us the pain of going out on penalties in the quarter finals, but because the host nation had just been accused by our Prime Minister of poisoning an ex-spy and his daughter with the deadly Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury.
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