When the General Election was announced, we panicked. How could we deal with having both the election and the Euros on at the same time? Very easily it turns out. Because no one is watching the election, while nearly everyone is tuning into the Euros.
Less than 3 million tuned into the first leaders’ debate, while over 18 million watched England’s first match. This year the top-10 most watched programmes will all be sport, with the Olympics in Paris (in our time zone, wonderfully) directly following on from football in Germany.
But why is this? Why do we care about something which, while as a sports fan I believe is important, is objectively not as important as to who might lead our country for the next five years? Why do we care more about how Gareth Southgate is going to set up his team than how Starmer is going to fix the NHS?
Polluted politicians?
Keir Starmer’s political honeymoon didn’t survive the summer. His new government started with a gloomy message of ‘buckle up, this …