Hamilton needs a father figure

The wheels are falling off the Lewis Hamilton bandwagon. Not literally, but he has been called a d******d for his antics behind a road car which caught the eye of police, his tirade at his team which was aired during the Australian Grand Prix – an Australian Grand Prix in which he came home in sixth after being shunted off the track by Mark Webber. David Coulthard, writing in the Telegraph, is convinced the young Brit could benefit from having his father by his side.

I have seen Lewis grow up and the young man I know is not only a brilliant driver but a streetwise, well-rounded character.

His startled, anxious response to both the lying scandal he was caught up in last year — which was in no way his fault — and now this have been out of all proportion.

Where is the reassuring arm around his shoulder? Where is the sound advice coming from? Where is his father?

Lewis’s decision to dispense with Anthony’s services as his manager last month was hailed as a coming-of-age move on his part. But the folly of not appointing a replacement showed over the weekend. Having no manager is like a top tennis player having no coach. It’s fine when you are playing well but as soon as you are struggling people will point to it as a weakness.

I don’t know if they have had a bust-up but it does strike me as odd that apparently they did not speak to one another in the aftermath of Friday’s incident. Either way, Lewis needs to appoint a replacement soon so he can concentrate on his day job.

Labouring the point

In recent times, politicians have been quick to line themselves up alongside sports stars – seemingly in a bid to boost their profile. Nothing wrong with that, but Matt Dickinson in the Times has taken aim at the Labour government for wading in to the football ownership debate. He’s not hacked off with them wading in, just that it has taken them so long to do it.

Foiled in their attempt to get Gordon Brown on Match of the Day 2 to parade his “regular bloke” credentials — the BBC declined to give the Prime Minister the platform so close to a General Election — Labour’s sports advisers have evidently been racking their brains for another way to win the football vote. Happily for them, they didn’t have to think very hard.

Gazing out of their Whitehall windows, they will have seen a bandwagon of fan disquiet about the game’s governance. They will have noticed that there cannot be a more populist cause in Portsmouth, Liverpool and Manchester than intervention into club ownership; and those cities are merely the obvious hot spots.

So all aboard! Government sources have floated the idea that, should Labour be voted back into office, they would wade in on behalf of the honest supporter to shake up the FA and Premier League, and to fight greedy, bloodsucking owners.

Football’s governing bodies would be given deadlines to reform. The buying and selling of clubs would be regulated, with fans’ groups guaranteed first option.

Most radically, there is talk of forcing clubs to hand over a 25 per cent stake to supporters’ groups. New Labour meets old socialism, and never mind that the Glazers, and their lawyers, might not want to give up a quarter of their billion-pound business without a scrap.

Now you might think these proposals, however far-fetched, worthy of further investigation. You might even believe they have merit. Me, mostly I found myself thinking aren’t they laughably late?

Labour has been in office for 13 years and it expects us to set aside cynicism when it floats these ideas now?