Farewell Sir Bobby

Maybe it's because I'm a Robson, that I feel so keenly the passing of Sir Bobby Robson. Football seems to bring out the unsportsmanlike in so many of its celebrities. As a manager - from Tractor Boys back to the Toon via the world - he was a unifier, an enthusiast for the game and inspired true respect: not just Respect.

Raising money for charity to support the health service raises some interesting questions. Years ago when I ran the Great North Run, I came face-to-face with the myriad of causes: Great Ormond Street Hospital, children's hospices, research charities for specific conditions. It's then that it hits you: the NHS does not and cannot fund these. It's left to people like Sir Bobby to raise the funds: otherwise the money isn't there. Through this tireless work, we learn how the some of these gaps are plugged. Sometimes it's more urgent that the funding is raised. Sometimes, there is a greater need to reach a true assessment of the NHS. It is rightly held up as a powerful force for Labour and for Britain. But we cannot countenance its imperfections: the distance between primary and secondary health; the wasted funding of organisational change and, for example, that dentistry is unaffordable for many. But while recognising these issues, the placing of patients and carers at the heart of the service represents a historic breakthrough and the adjustments which will follow to make the NHS more attuned to the needs of older patients who use it most extensively will bring further improvements. It's a shame that Sir Bobby will not see this come to fruition.

Events.. events

Just weeks later, England has fascists elected to the European parliament, despite many people not perhaps grasping the integrated links between MEPs, councillors, MPs and ministers together forging integrated law, practice and policy. Despite government promises to open up the European debate, either this has been deliberately ducked, or other stuff just got in the way. It's high time Europe was demystified and the advantages of co-operation, shared strategy on crime, intelligence, counter-terrorism brought home, rather than dwelling on the costs of the EU on the one hand, and the pound and the banana on the other.

And then there's the duck houses and scotch eggs. I have a hunch that Tory misdemeanours on this subject owe something to the effect of private education. If you grow up feeling you have nothing whatever in common with people who travel on buses or who play bingo, then it must be hard to grasp what being properly accountable to the wider public means. Of course global warming doesn't give a damn where you fit in the pecking order. Which invalidates private education to some extent.

Finally, my latest innovation - cycling to work! It's brilliant: exhilarating, healthy, makes me feel powerful. Even if it sometimes rains.