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After a draining election, did Theresa May just need to head to Lord’s? Alison Mitchell examines the relationship between cricket and politics
In the wake of the dramatic general election, one doubts that Prime Minister and cricket fan Theresa May has found any time to switch off and enjoy England’s run to the semi-final of the Champions Trophy.
Had she not stayed in her job, perhaps she would have done what Conservative Prime Minister John Major did after losing the 1997 election to Tony Blair. In need of a cathartic afternoon, he promptly announced he was off to watch the cricket at the Oval.
He later described it as a “soothing” experience. His love of cricket has famously extended to a spell as president of Surrey CCC, a committee member of the MCC (until he resigned in protest over development plans in 2011) and writing a book where he examines the social origins of the game. In 2001 he was even touted as a potential replacement for Lord MacLaurin as chairman of the ECB.
It isn’t known whether May’s interest in cricket extends to receiving notes across the Cabinet table with score updates during England Test matches, like Major used to request. Cabinet colleagues who were not into cricket would often assume the scribbled numbers contained information about the stock markets.
It was a practice that former Prime Minister David Cameron also used to employ. As well as taking time out to watch England play at Lord’s during his time in office, Cameron’s love of cricket has led him to become a patron of the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation – a charity that is aiming to build and manage the first ever cricket stadium in the country.
I also remember, in 2013, Cameron taking the opportunity during a trade visit to India to have a hit of cricket on the famous Oval Maidan in Mumbai. I was in Mumbai at the time for the Women’s World Cup and wandered down to the hot, dusty playing field to see the PM, bat in hand, enthusiastically sweating it out in black trousers and a black shirt with a group of youngsters.
He drove a young lad into the off-side for a few singles, before having his off-stump knocked back by a teenage girl.
Going back much further, there is a story that Labour Prime Minster Clement Attlee refused to have a Press Association news machine installed in his office in Downing Street until he heard that it would provide him with up-to-the-minute scores from the cricket. The order was duly given to have it put in.
Of all the cricket loving politicians and Prime Ministers, though, there is only one British Prime Minister who can lay claim to having been a cricketer of genuine note. Sir Alec Douglas-Home served as Prime Minister for 363 days in 1963-64, and remains the only British Prime Minister to have also played first-class cricket.
Before stepping into the Commons in 1931, he played ten first-class matches for a variety of teams. As well as turning out as a medium paced all rounder for Oxford University and the MCC, he played two matches for Middlesex in 1924 and 1925.
Sir Alec died in 1995 at the age of 92, but he passed on his love of cricket to his son, Lord David Douglas-Home, who until 2013 was chairman of the private bank Coutts & Co, and who remains chairman of the Grosvenor Group. I recently met Lord Home at the headquarters of Coutts & Co to find out a bit more about his father’s passion for the game. Now aged 73 himself, Lord Home described his father’s bowling as “military medium” and explained how cricket became part of family life.
“We were always a very sporting family,” he said. “He played cricket with me on the lawn when I was four years old or less.”
“He infused me with it (cricket) and he’d always take us to Lord’s and the Oval. He and I would have a good argument over who was any good and who wasn’t.”
Sir Alec’s agility when playing cricket was probably more limited than it might have been, after he underwent a back operation in 1940 that left him having to lie flat for several months.
“Lying flat on your back for two years is a pretty unpleasant thing to have to do,” said Lord Home. “But he was a patient man. He had to be because he was the eldest of seven children.”
Lord Home believed that his father’s position in such a large family helped to shape him both as a patient cricketer and a kind leader.
“He never raised his voice, ever – if someone dropped a catch, or something. He never castigated like some captains do.”
“Having to deal with that lot (six siblings) probably taught him how to command gently without being beastly. It probably helped in his political career afterwards as well.”
In 1966 Sir Alec served a term as president of the MCC. A year later, he played a role in the Basil D’Oliveira affair, twice meeting South Africa prime minister John Vorster to try to navigate a way through the divisive saga.
After his first meeting with Vorster, he reported back to the MCC committee that if D’Oliveira was picked, the odds were 5/4 on him being allowed in to South Africa. After a second meeting, Sir Alec advised the MCC that they should take no further action – his stance being that it would be best to keep relations as cordial as possible between the countries. A number of historians later criticised that stance as being too soft.
When it comes to British Prime Ministers, though, the most surprising cricket-related admission, has surely come from Theresa May, who has confessed to having had a poster of Geoffrey Boycott on her wall when she was growing up. This news is perhaps not so surprising, however, when one learns that she particularly admired the way he “solidly got on with what he was doing”.
Strong and stable clearly appealed to her, even back then.
