If you jump on the Lions' bandwagon, David Cameron, there's a chance you'll get mauled

 
AP
19 September 2013

There’s an old saying: if you look at your friends and can’t work out who the tit is, chances are it’s you. On that basis, I intend to make friends with Manu Tuilagi.

This week, the England centre was at 10 Downing Street, along with the rest of the 2013 Lions squad. He was there, mainly, to have his picture taken with the Prime Minister. We all know what happened next. Finding himself standing next to David Cameron (above), Tuilagi did what any self-respecting tit would do: he made a ‘bunny ears’ gesture behind the PM’s head.

Click! went the camera. And “shock, horror, witter,” went a ridiculous number of people, about three seconds after the image was published on the internet. An offence bomb had been detonated, waking all the usual idiots who could take umbrage at the sound of a baby farting. At the time of writing poor old Manu is having to write a schoolboyish letter of apology to the PM. Oh dear.

This case raises several questions. Why, I wonder, would anyone who knew about rugby allow Tuilagi to stand near to the Prime Minister?

I’m assuming there must be some dreary apparatchik at No10 who dragged the Lions team all the way down to London for this politically self-serving photocall; if they followed the game and had even a dab of wit in their skull, they would have probably put Tuilagi somewhere down the street near the edge of frame, perhaps next to that big metal gate between Downing Street and Whitehall — maybe even on the other side of it.

This is, after all, the same Manu Tuilagi who was cautioned by the police and fined three grand by the RFU for leaping off a ferry into Auckland harbour after the 2011 World Cup.

Although there was an argument, at the time, that the whole of the England team ought to have considered throwing themselves overboard, only Tuilagi actually did it.

It was hardly the stupidest thing that anyone did during that dwarf-tossing, wab-nuzzling shocker of a World Cup tour — but it left the impression that while Tuilagi is not exactly the spawn of Satan, then neither is he the sharpest crayon in the colouring box. In fact, if we think about it, Cameron is lucky he got only bunny ears, rather than a testicle hanging out of the suit trouser zip fly, or the good, old-fashioned w****r sign. (Actually, I’m sure Dave’s used to getting that one.)

But then I wonder: why, actually, were the Lions at Downing Street in the first place? Whom exactly was the photo-op supposed to honour?

The players had their moment more than two months ago in Sydney, where they thrashed Australia in the final match of a truly superb Test series.

So it isn’t really about them, is it? Look closely at that ‘bunny ears’ photo and you’ll see that most of the Lions seem to be trying to contain either mirth or boredom at the silliness and pomposity of the situation.

I should say that this is not a party political thing. This isn’t a riff on Cameron per se, or an attempt to get the Tories back for being evil baby eating b******s who want to put your disabled grandmother in jail for a) not paying tax on her spare room and b) not knowing that when someone shouts ‘Buller! Buller! Buller!’, you’re supposed to set fire to your trousers and down whatever’s in your glass.

As I may have said before, this is not the Owen Jones column.

But if there’s one thing that gets right on my pip, it’s the way that all politicians use sporting success to give themselves a cheap hit of folksy publicity — a reflected glory that they don’t deserve; a bandwagon on which they have no business jumping.

I think the whole charade began when Tony Blair had the tanked-up 2005 Ashes winners in at No10. Freddie Flintoff had a slash in the garden then, I seem to recall, which to a less blindly self-aggrandising breed of politician might have been a warning sign. Not this lot. So they get what they deserve. Can you imagine someone wazzing in Mrs Thatcher’s garden, or giving her the bunny ears?

They’d have had that handbag wrapped around the chops before you could say Norman Tebbit. But hell, we’re probably getting onto a whole other rant with that one.

Boxing is punching above its weight

Floyd Mayweather JR’s easy victory over Saul Alvarez last weekend was a legend at work — a couple more performances like that and Mayweather will be tickling the all-time pound-for-pound top-10 lists. Next weekend David Haye will take on Tyson Fury in a British clash that is hardly Lennox Lewis v Frank Bruno but will still entertain a big domestic crowd. Cracking fights punctuate the rest of the year. If, as is so often written, boxing is dying, then its death rattle is making a hell of a noise.

Trying times await if Cup is destroyed

There is something troubling about the Anglo-French agitations to destroy the Heineken Cup and the prospect of a power shift away from the national rugby unions. It is perfectly understandable that the clubs wish for a bigger pot of TV cash — and BT Sport is providing it, much as Sky dangled money in front of football’s leading clubs. But anything that threatens to damage international rugby is potentially dangerous for the sport overall and worth considering long and hard.

Barmy end to a balmy summer

I know that predicting the weather during any British summer is largely futile and that in previous years September has been rather a balmy time in southern England. But the sight of England and Australia shivering their way through a freezing day-nighter in the final ODI at the Ageas Bowl this week only made me think that the northern international season should have wound down at least a fortnight ago. It has been a chilly, anti-climactic end to an intriguing, overlong Ashes summer.

Tour shows why our City is streets ahead

I’m rather looking forward to watching the Tour of Britain whizz around London this weekend. The streets have been shut a lot over the last few months — with last week’s triathlon, September has been particularly hard hit — but it is worth it to see London used as the backdrop for some really entertaining sport. What am I saying, I need to drive along the Embankment on Sunday morning — forget it! Let’s cancel everything. We need our roads back! Etc.

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