From Boris Johnson rugby tackling Maurizio Gaudino during a charity football match, to former sports minister Tony Banks’s ludicrously high-waisted shorts, and more recently David Cameron’s various sporting indiscretions, politicians seem to have an almost innate ability to look awkward doing sports.
Even Tony Blair’s head tennis with Kevin Keegan, which may have marked the beginning of this loathsome fad, whilst being actually quite impressive, was still utterly cringeworthy.
And while Cameron’s latest addition to the catalogue is certainly pretty toe-curling it fails to surpass his table tennis match alongside Barack Obama, which even came replete with some of the worst high fives ever caught on film, or worse still Gordon Brown’s desperate attempt to play ping pong, an endeavour he surely knew could only end in disaster, owing to the fact that, sadly being in possession of just one working eye, his depth perception was compromised.
The most pathetic thing about politicians playing sport is that, having the natural predisposition towards competitiveness necessary to enter politics, you can tell they want to win, which makes there inevitable failure all the more tragic, and more importantly, hilarious.
You can tell that despite his smiles, Cameron secretly wants to mush Seb Coe into the turf, and every time the shuttlecock passes blithely passed his racquet, he dies a little inside.
And here, as a little treat, is one of those high fives…
Image via Getty
