Leader: Getting Scotland's future in better shape

SUCCESSIVE Scottish governments have paid lip service to the value of a healthier society that sport can bring. The actions of successive ministers, however, have shown more interest in the capturing of showpiece events such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, than in the fostering of a nation that can produce not just showpiece talent but a society in which sport is a universally accepted part of daily life.

In its previous term, the SNP government failed to deliver on its pledge that all primary-aged school children would enjoy at least two hours a week of physical education. Judy Murray, the former head coach of Tennis Scotland, has told this newspaper of her dismay that nearly half of these children still receive no PE and that only 15 per cent of all children take regular exercise.

The new sports minister, Shona Robison, can have no excuse for not tackling this shame immediately.

Unlike her predecessors, she is not burdened with other responsibilities such as cultural matters.

We hope that the singular nature of this responsibility means that sport and exercise are no longer treated like some add-on responsibility of lesser significance than, say, the economy or the constitution.

What would be the point of a government that aspires to lead the country to independence, if its people are stuck fast on the couch, guzzling chips and chocolate and glued to the television?