Leading article: Brown bowls a no-ball

Gordon Brown is showing signs of late of succumbing to what might be termed "the Blair disease": the desire to take a stand on any issue that exercises the populist press. In recent days we've had articles on the need to do away with plastic shopping bags, interviews outlining a clampdown on binge drinking, and now reports that the Prime Minister is considering sporting sanctions against Zimbabwe. Barely had the BBC reported that story, however, than No 10 was backpedalling as fast as its spokesmen could ring their favoured press contacts.

No, no, they declared, Gordon Brown was not against all sporting contacts, it was mererly the forthcoming tour by the Zimbabwean cricket team that he opposed – although, of course, this was primarily a matter for the English Cricket Board.

That is the problem with gesture politics. It may sound fine in principle but it gets you fearfully entangled in practice. Nowhere is this more obvious than with sport. With an eye on the headlines, Mr Brown would like to make a brave and defiant gesture against President Mugabe. But when push comes to shove, do you really want to stop top golfers coming to Gleneagles just because one of their number is a Zimbabwean? And do you really want to forbid Cara Black from defending her women's doubles title at this year's Wimbledon?

Even on cricket, where the government's desire to make an example of the Zimbabwean government seems most resolute, the issues are far from simple. Should we stop bilateral tours but allow Zimbabwe to compete at the World Twenty20 competition, which would be less contentious but more hypocritical? Or should we ban any Zimbabwean cricket team from coming to these shores, which would be straightforward but would punish the players – some of whom have been outspoken in their criticism of Mugabe – and give Mugabe further cause to cry "neo-colonial bullying"?

Supporters of sanctions point to the example of South Africa, when sporting sanctions did serve both to express international outrage at apartheid and punish the ruling government. But the ruling regime in South Africa was a white minority government for whom international contacts and sporting success were unusualy important. Given that black players had no real chance of representation in the national team, there was a clear case for banning all sporting contacts.

None of the above applies to a Zimbabwe that looks, at last, as if it might be on the point of political change. Sporting isolation at this stage is the very last thing we should be considering, however much the Prime Minister might desire a publicity coup.