How the Euros could change the result of the election
Blues vs Reds: both major party candidates have been trying to make good use of the normalising effect of the beautiful game (HM Treasury/Getty)
One of the first mishaps Rishi Sunak made on the election trail was tripping over a traffic cone. He was at Chesham United Football Club in Buckinghamshire, gamely taking part in a training session with a bunch of junior players. It was pretty clear from his attempts to kick a ball in a straight line that none of football’s leading scouts would have been too upset at their failure to sign up a generational talent. But proficiency – or rather complete lack of it – was not the point.
Sunak was there to deliver an indicator of something else: his ordinariness. He was there failing to run with a ball at his feet to show the electorate that, whatever the assumptions of wealth and privilege that cling to him, he is just like us. But like the comment about his parents not being able to afford Sky TV when he was younger, it was an own goal.
