A TRANSCRIPT of a secret recording has passed into my hands. It states that it is a report of an interview by Gary Lineker which he undertook with the Prime Minister Theresa May and which somehow the BBC forgot to broadcast.

GL: Prime Minister, you don’t give the impression of being a jolly hockey sticks type, you’re a very serious person, and we know that you have diabetes, can you tell us what form of exercise you take?

PM: Gary, it’s so nice to see you, you’re so much nicer than that awful Andrew Neil, and if you just give me a minute to avoid your question I’ll get one of my people to brief me through this rather natty concealed headphone you cannot see.

GL: Exercise?

PM: I am very fit from jumping to conclusions and recently I have taken up a new extreme sport. It’s called leaping in to the Brexit unknown, which is something like driving off a cliff but probably more dangerous.

GL: I didn’t know you were into extreme sports.

PM: Ha! Neither did the population of the UK until I went on my infamous walk and came back to play a game of snap.

GL: Snap?

PM: Snap – as in elections. Do try and keep up Gary.

GL: I was never very good at keepie-uppie, Prime Minister, but am glad you mentioned elections because that is what I want to ask you about.

PM: Yes, everyone has tried to ask me about the election and what it means but so far I’ve managed to avoid saying anything.

GL: I had noticed, Prime Minister, but perhaps we can change that.

PM: There’s as much chance of that as Philip Hammond keeping his job on June 9. Oops, sorry scrub that please.

(Sound of BBC lackey rushing to delete the unfortunate words).

GL: If I can just ask you for your plans on sport?

PM: Well as a result of massive consultations that I have carried out across the country when I have spoken to the same bunch of Tory activists illegally bussed into constituencies, my conclusions are that the offside law should be banned in football as it’s unfair to strikers who earn more than defenders, and a try in rugby will be followed by conversions in front of the posts for England only. The English cricket team will be legally enforced to win every game, and Team GB will get £1 billion to win every gold medal in Tokyo – that’s my 2020 vision by the way. (laughs haughtily to herself).

GL: But won’t all that get us into trouble? Fifa, World Rugby, the ICC and IOC might all disagree with your plans.

PM: How dare they! I am putting England, sorry, Britain first. Our plans will lend strength and stability to sport, and that’s all there is to it.

GL: Prime Minister, I have to put it to you that a hard Brexit would devastate sport as there would be no freedom of movement.

PM: That’s a serious question and deserves a serious answer. It’s a pile of tosh and you know it! Now p*** off back to Barcelona if that’s how you feel.

(Sounds of GL grabbing PM by throat and throttling her.) Just an attempt to make light of the situation that sport faces on Thursday. Looking at things on a UK basis, only Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn will occupy 10 Downing Street after June 9. Sport doesn’t have a high place on their agendas.

It is therefore very enlightening to read the reaction of Leigh Thompson, Policy Manager at the Sport and Recreation Alliance, who said: “Overall it is disappointing to see so few references to sport and recreation in the Conservative Party manifesto. There is no recognition of the preventative role sport and recreation plays in tackling the major public health challenges we face.

“Similarly, the manifesto overlooks the importance of physical literacy as a key building block in children’s education and it’s a shame that there is no commitment to putting it on an equal footing with academic literacy and numeracy, which we called for in our manifesto.”

On the Labour Party manifesto, Thompson said: “The commitment Labour has shown to sport and recreation in the manifesto is needed but the Party could have gone further to maximise the role of sport and recreation, particularly the preventative and cost saving role it can play in tackling major health problems such as obesity and mental health.

“We would also like to have seen Labour extend the commitment to fund physical education and school sport from the Soft Drinks Levy to cover the lifetime of the next Parliament, as we set out in in our manifesto.

“Positively, the Labour Party has recognised the need for change in the secondary ticketing market. A lack of compliance with the law is an issue that effects a range of our members and we would urge any future Government to make sure that we have robust secondary ticketing measures which produces fairness for organisations and sports fans.”

In other words both candidates to be next Prime Minister have completely missed the point that sport and recreation are utterly vital to the health and well-being of the population of the UK.

The other parties, even the SNP, are not much better.

One of these days politicians will take sport seriously. Until then, we are doomed to have a largely unfit population, no matter who wins on Thursday.