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PRESS COMMENTARY on Blair's first months has emphasised the pace of change. What has been overlooked is the substantive continuity with Tory policy in certain areas, notably the labour market. Hostile to both trade unions and the unemployed, Blair's government is continuing and developing the main lines of Tory labour market policy, although with a new attempt at ideological legitimation. The attack on the working class continues on three fronts. The first is a hardening of the work discipline to be imposed upon the unemployed. The second is to postpone even what little improvement in trade union rights had been promised, giving employers a space of time in which to ensure that rights to trade union recognition will not bite. The third is to embrace the neo-liberal 'labour market flexibility' agenda, resisting most attempts to improve social protection of labour at European and at UK level. The exception is the prospect of a national minimum wage, although exceptions now seem likely for participants in the youth 'welfare to work' scheme.

The problems associated with children's involvement in high-performance sport are considered and equated to the issue of child labour. After considering the extent and severity of problems with child labour in all parts of the world, the paper then turns to the problem of `sport labour'. Although this is by no means as serious as the child labour problem, it has many similar characteristics. The reasons why high performance sport involvement is not, but should be, considered as work are assessed. The paper proposes a resolution to the child labour/sport labour dilemma by addressing a series of questions: Are we ready for child labour laws in sport? Who would support child labour laws in sport?; Who is to be responsible for the welfare of children in high-performance sport? Is there a solution?