Watch: Gary Neville’s bizarre Tory-bashing rant

The World Cup is drawing towards its close today and one benefit means we will get to hear less from Gary Neville, the left-wing right-back who has never met a camera he didn’t like. You would think perhaps that a man like Neville – a multi-millionaire working for the Qatari state broadcaster – might be wary about entering the political fray, given his public humiliation on Have I Got News For You last month. Not a bit of it.

The card-carrying Labour member, who appeared on stage with Keir Starmer at this year’s party conference, instead opted to hijack the World Cup final today to muse on the situation here in Britain. Appearing in the comfortable surroundings of the ITV studio in Qatar, Neville was asked about whether the Middle Eastern state ought to have been chosen as the host nation.

With a better side-step than he ever managed in his playing career, Neville sneered that ‘I always thought it was a nonsense that you shouldn’t have a World Cup in the Middle East and in the Arab world’, adding that ‘I think that’s been put to bed.’