In sport, the referee’s decision is final. Anyone challenging the man in black risks a caution or an early bath.

In politics, life isn’t that simple. The Government simply move the goalposts, as the victims of collapsed pension funds discovered this week.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, ruled that the Government was guilty of maladministration. Department of Work and Pensions leaflets had misled members of company pensions schemes, leading them to think their pensions were safer than they proved. As a result, Abraham said the Government should compensate 85,000 people who lost their pensions when their companies had gone bust.

The ruling was a huge boost to workers at companies such as Allied Steel & Wire in Cardiff. Over 1,300 people lost their jobs and pensions when the company went under. But Tony Blair rejected the Ombudsman’s ruling. He said the Government should not have to compensate people when private pension schemes fail.

It’s pure hypocrisy. Government ministers are quick to tell private companies what they can and cannot do. They’re instant experts on subjects they’ve never studied. Here’s a quick lesson for Tony. Take a look at the Financial Ombudsman Service. It’s the money industry’s referee. Banks, building societies and insurers agree to accept the ref’s decision, even when privately they think the man in black needs his eyes tested (to borrow an old sporting saying). When are you going to accept the ref’s decision?

We feel desperately sorry for workers who find their pensions snatched from them just before they retire. It’s time to put our hands in our pockets and help them out. It may cost the country a billion or two. But how much has Iraq cost us?

Tony Blair is facing another rebellion. His education reforms are at risk. Labour’s traditional supporters are up in arms, and many MPs are still prepared to give the Prime Minister a bloody nose.

As John Major discovered after 1992, losing a landslide majority makes Government more challenging. Rebels have more influence. As Match of the Day’s John Motson would say, the big decisions are all six-pointers.

But Blair has only himself to blame. He threw away his huge majority a year early. Yet none of the political commentators has noticed that the PM’s recent Commons traumas could have been avoided by allowing the 2001 parliament to run its course. They’re all insiders. You can’t expect them to notice the obvious!

He gave his name to the most notorious British political scandal of the twentieth century. He slept with a prostitute and resigned as war minister after lying to Parliament. Yet John Profumo, who died today, will be remembered as a good and honourable man.

For over 40 years after his downfall, Profumo devoted his life to helping the poor in London’s East End through the Toynbee Hall charity. In his darkest hour in 1963, he turned up at the charity, offering to help with the washing up. He continued to help and inspire the charity’s fundraising efforts throughout the following four decades. Toynbee Hall today posted a heartfelt tribute to its president – see www.toynbeehall.org.uk/news.htm.

Tomorrow’s headlines will inevitably focus on 1963. But 1940 should also figure prominently. Profumo was one of the rebel Tory MPs who forced Neville Chamberlain to resign after the Norway debacle, leading to Churchill’s premiership. It was a brave act by the 25 year old MP, who had only just been elected. History might have been very different had Profumo and his fellow rebels not put country before party.

Wales has its Senedd. The new National Assembly building was officially opened today, a landmark on Cardiff Bay. It’s a world-class building – something to be proud of.

The critics, predictably, are saying that the money should have been spent on hospitals and schools. They’re wrong, for two overwhelming reasons.

First, Wales is now largely self-governing. That’s good for democracy. Why should the nation be governed from London or Brussels? Good government means everyone should be able to watch ministers and Assembly members in action. The Assembly’s first jerry-built, second hand home failed utterly to allow this to happen. The new building is a model of a modern parliament building. It’s open to the people. It’s a meeting place for everyone,rather than a select few. It’s not intimidating. In short, it’s very Welsh.

Second, this is a landmark building. It will stun visitors to Cardiff, in the same way that the city’s 100 year old civic centre does. Yet a century ago critics railed against Cathays Park. Now, we marvel at the vision of our Edwardian forefathers. The critics would never have built City Hall, the Houses of Parliament or Sydney Opera House. They were proved utterly wrong. Today those iconic creations help define their cities. Wales’s new Senedd will do the same for Cardiff.

Willie Whitelaw famously accused Labour of stirring up apathy.

Apathy about politics – and the slump in voting at elections – is back in the news. The Power Commission this week published a report analysing the problem. It looks at a host of ideas including voting at 16, electoral reform and internet democracy. (What price elections on eBay?)

It’s odd how these studies of voter apathy never tackle the real problem: the politician’s promise. Cheaply given, cheaply broken. No wonder the voters switch off. So it’s time to introduce Ofpol: the politicos’ regulator. In the same way that Ofsted polices our schools and Ofwat our water companies, Ofpol would hold politicians to their promises. We’d have league tables revealing which ministers had kept their word – and which had broken them the moment they’d said hello to their chauffeur.

But it’s never going to happen. Because it would have to be agreed by politicians. And they’re never going to give up the right to fib to the voters!