Commonwealth Sports Breakfast

Prime Minister, Heads of Government, ladies and gentlemen – in the manner of the Chair’s speech at the Opening Ceremony yesterday, let me start by saying that the news from Brisbane could have been worse: the margin of defeat was only an innings and 65 runs….!

In all fairness, I must say to Prime Ministers Manning and Rudd that ‘luck’ doesn’t really come into it.

The Australians are simply very good.

It’s one of life’s certainties that sportspeople like to reflect on these things over breakfast – in silence if possible, with the back pages of a newspaper open, and a cup of tea.

But it’s my pleasure to talk sport out loud with you for a few minutes this morning.

Let me briefly say just two things.

First, about the Games.

Some of you may have read about a report launched this week – not called Common-wealth, but Common-what?

It’s a critical report, and - amongst other things - it regrets how few people know about the Commonwealth – with ‘not knowing’, implying ‘not caring’.

There are no prizes for guessing what people around the world do know about it, though.

They all know the Commonwealth Games.

They even know the monicker, ‘The Friendly Games’.

There are many roots to that friendship: language, history, institutions, values, aspirations, challenges – and the commitment to share them all.

The Games are eloquent testimony to all that is best about us.

They unite us in our diversity; and they engage us in respectful competition.

I believe absolutely in their value, and I salute Mike Fennell and all at the Commonwealth Games Federation, and the hosts of Games past and future.

I wish all partners great success in their continued preparations for the Delhi Games of next year, and by the same token I send best wishes to Singapore, as it prepares to host the Youth Olympics.

Second, allow me to refer to the transformative power of sport.

Not just ‘sport-for-sports sake’, as we say… (though on the sport-for-sports sake front, let me also share the fact that Rahul Dravid moved to fourth in the all-time honours board of Test Match run scorers in the match just ended in Kanpur – watch out, Brian Charles Lara, he’s coming…!)

No, I refer to ‘sport-for-development’.

Sport is in part the showpieces: the Olympic and the Commonwealth Games; the Football, Rugby and Cricket World Cups.

But it is also a vehicle for development; a way of building communities and empowering young people; a channel for the qualities of respecting and understanding others.

It can overcome enmity, beat oppression, and enshrine those all important values to which I have referred, and to which we all aspire.

Our values are our highest ideals, and values are at the heart of the sport.

And this year, the Commonwealth celebrates 60 years of the enduring importance of those values – in sport, and in every aspect of national life.

I quote just one, unforgettable, example, of a project presented to me, featuring teenage boys and girls playing mixed soccer in rural Kenya.

For boys to respect girls as their equals on the football pitch, is for them to learn something very important, very young.

Our Commonwealth sports community, of course, goes far beyond the Games.

Our Sports Ministers are closely linked with our Youth Ministers, and last met in the margins of the Olympics in Beijing.

We are proud of the work of the Commonwealth Advisory Board on Sport, CABOS, and Lloyd Lazar will tell you more in a moment.

And we are also excited about the work that has begun in the Commonwealth Secretariat, where a part-time sports adviser has sat within the Youth Affairs Division.

This will now take a welcome step forward, thanks to the Government of India.

Following the examples of the UK and Australia before it (the Games hosts in 2002 and 2006), India is funding a full-time post beginning by the end of this year, and running until 2012.

A pattern is emerging, but is not yet formally established, and we would like it to be so.

So, as Glasgow gears up for its great moment in 2014, the Scottish Executive can expect my call.

We are extremely excited about the ways in which we can bring the development power of sport not just into our youth programmes, but also those of health and education, and perhaps even into our more political work defusing tensions in our member countries.

The sky is the limit for the power of sport – and, high-jumpers all, we seek to raise the bar.

Some of you may remember that Fosbury’s Flop was no ‘flop’ or failure – Dick Fosbury broke every record in the book.

Let us strive to do the same, in using sport to change lives.

Thank you.

ENDS