"I am sorry to read in this book that Ian Botham is an 'independent Tory' and (worse) that he admires Mrs Thatcher. But I am not inclined to mix politics with sport. Indeed, the worst damage done to cricket since the war has been that mixing of politics with sport which knocked South Africa out of international cricket. The supporters of apartheid mixed politics with sport so shamefully that they banned people from playing cricket with one another because of the colour of their skin. This outrage, which brought the entire sport into disrepute, was greeted with unconcern by the same MCC gentlemen who have apoplexy when cricketers say they smoked pot when they were kids. Racialism is a million times more damaging to cricket than cannabis. Where does Ian Botham stand on that? He was offered, literally, a million pounds if he and his friend Viv Richards went to South Africa as part of the public relations circus for that country’s racialist politics. He refused point blank."