No running, no bombing, no petting

Apparently our beloved leaders are making swimming free for the over 60s in a bid to encourage more people to take up sport ahead of the London Olympics.

I was pretty crap at swimming when I was at school and nothing has happened to make me think I will be any better now so unless a leisurely stoke or two to a poolside bar has become an event, I had better mention before we start it is perhaps best not to rely too heavily on me for the London games - even if they have managed to pay for the pool and finish building it.

Indeed my participation is further threatened by the fact my local pool has been closed for months for refurbishment and won't be open until sometime next year so my training schedule is already out of kilter.

Apparently the idea is eventually to make swimming pools free for all by 2012 to make us all a healthy super-race of amphibians which, if nothing else, will stand us in good stead if global warming results in rising sea levels leaving much of the country covered by tropical lagoons and mangrove swamps.

Now I am not knocking it but when local authorities are happily handing over development, construction and management of pools to private companies, who in general have been making a real pig's ear of it, then the old antennae start twitching when this Government starts to chuck money at the local lidos. Even their hidden agendas have hidden agendas these days.

And if Gordon has found a few million spare readies down the back of the No 10 sofa to improve health - £130 million so far for next year - he might start with free eye tests and an NHS dental service that did not cost about the same as calling out an emergency plumber on a Christmas morning.