Bill Bridge: Why sport deserves to be a front-runner with the Tories

What's that? Sport? Important? Pause for gathering of senses and

mopping up of milk spilt when spoon landed in cornflakes. What a ridiculous suggestion, especially on the morning the Tories have regained No 10. That could well be the response of those for whom the result of a General Election raises issues far more important than physical activity.

Up to a point, Lord Copper, would be the response of those who argue that sport as a concept, rather than just a football or cricket match, a race or a tennis tournament, is a central, immovable strand of modern society, one which can be utilised in many ways to improve many areas of our lives like health, education and the environment.

The problem for those who think along those lines is that sport has never had its own political clout, that it fails to impress in the political arena because individual sports too often choose to press only their own cause.

There are rare exceptions; Sheffield's success in attracting the World Student Games was one; marked improvement in the provision of school sport under Labour over the past five years has been another.

So when David Cameron slides his feet under the desk last used as a Tory Prime Minister by John Major – one of the few holders of that office to have any first-hand knowledge of the games the country plays –what might he do for us?

There are individual cases which have been left dangling far too long. The Tote, for example, has been on and off the market for years and we –as yet – have no indication what the Tories will do with it, although their countryside supporters would doubtless urge them to make a

swift sale to the racing industry provided, of course, that disparate group could agree among themselves what they would do with it once they had it.

A review of the Horserace Betting Levy Board's position is also in

need of urgent attention, not least because of the missed opportunities for raising revenue – both for government and the sports concerned – presented by the growth of gambling on British sporting events on the Indian sub-continent and in the Far East.

Television's "crown jewels" is another hardy perennial. Perhaps under Mr Cameron – given his pragmatic alliance with Rupert Murdoch – we shall see new methods of financing the BBC and the end of its "public service" role, opening the door for individual sports to sell their broadcasting rights to the highest bidder. That may not please everyone but it will remove complacency.

With the Olympics almost upon us, it would be folly for Mr Cameron not to install Hugh Robertson as Minister for Sport. He has proved himself in the shadow role and deserves the opportunity to see if he can become only the second of his hue – after Colin Moynihan – to make a success of a modest role which has, by public accord, best been filled thus far by Denis Howell, Richard Caborn and Kate Hoey.

Those are a few specimens from a sport wish-list for a Conservative government but there are other, much broader, areas in which radical thinking would be welcome.

One would be the streamlining of sport's back-office functions, forcing a marriage of Sport England and the Central Council for Physical Recreation for starters, drawing together the bodies which allocate central funding and those which represent the various sport administrations.

That would hopefully encourage long-term strategies rather than the pattern of recent years which has seen policies turned on their head – support for grass-roots expansion one minute, elite athletes the next – depending on whoever happened to be in charge of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

And that brings us to our last plea. Sport has nothing in common with culture or media; the genius who linked all three together must have spent his or her life in splendid isolation, maybe even solitary confinement.

Sport needs, demands, a voice at the Cabinet table. Gordon Brown might have taken to describing the London 2012 as "Tony's (expletive deleted) Olympics" but surely David Cameron can see the XXXth Olympiad in 2012 as a reason for national pride, the potential source of a mid-term feelgood factor which might propel him to a second electoral success.

The Olympics and all the other headline sporting events coming our way over the next few years – whether or not English or British teams enjoy success – should also convince him that sport needs a strong, respected leader running his own show; that it is indeed time to wake up to the potential of sport as an energising force for good.