In fairness to newly crowned snooker world champion Mark Williams, he kept his promise to conduct Monday night’s post-final press conference naked if he pocketed the title. Truly, a man of his word. I was ready to condemn him after he arrived at the press conference sporting a towel, but, having reviewed the footage more closely, he does indeed remove it, using a tablecloth to allow him to answer questions about long reds and troublesome pinks without undue embarrassment. The new world champ certainly showed balls. Metaphorically speaking, thank God.
Who else has made a rash promise? And have they gone through with it?
Gary Lineker
In December 2015, the presenter promised to “do the first Match of the Day of next season in just my undies” if 5,000-1 outsiders Leicester City won the Premier League. Leicester duly delivered, which is more than Lineker did. He claimed to have fulfilled the pledge, but he opened the programme in what looked to me more like a pair of shorts than boxers. Oddly, most pundits accepted this, with only former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan calling him out for having broken the promise. A sad case of the emperor’s new shorts.
Dan Hodges
The political pundit is another who changed the rules of the game when his prediction went wrong. In 2012, Hodges tweeted: “If Ukip break 6% at the next election, I’ll streak naked down Whitehall.” Ukip got 13% in the 2015 election and, in January the following year, amid pleasingly torrential rain, Hodges jogged tentatively down Whitehall wearing a pair of ill-fitting black Calvin Klein underpants.
Kate Lundy
Some promises are kept to the letter. The Australian sports minister bet her UK opposite number, Hugh Robertson, that the Aussies would win more medals than the Brits during the 2012 Olympic Games. She lost and had to do a 1,000-metre row on Eton Dorney lake dressed in the Team GB kit. Full marks to her, but a little too recherche – we are only interested in naked stupidity.
Paddy Ashdown and Alastair Campbell
Cornered on a BBC election-night panel in 2015, Ashdown promised to “eat my hat” if the exit poll’s prediction of 10 seats for the Lib Dems proved correct. Campbell, on the same panel, doubled down with a promise to “eat my kilt” if Labour suffered meltdown in Scotland. Both predictions proved accurate, but neither Ashdown nor Campbell fulfilled their promises until presented with a chocolate hat and kilt, which doesn’t count.
Matthew Goodwin
The only person who comes out of this well is the academic and Ukip expert, who promised to eat his new book on Brexit if Jeremy Corbyn polled 38% or more in the 2017 election. Labour got more than 40% of the vote and Goodwin was seen on Sky News a few days later stuffing pages into his mouth. But even here there are questions: did he swallow them? How much of the book was consumed? Was the stunt just a clever plug for the book? I demand a recount.
Katie Hopkins
The real scandal, though, concerns Hopkins. In 2016, she vowed to run naked through the capital with a sausage up her bottom if Sadiq Khan won the London mayoralty, later adding that she would ensure it was halal. An expectant nation waits.
It is surely time for an independent regulator (Ofstreak?) to ensure these promises are fulfilled. Let the streets of London be filled with naked politicians, pundits and sportspeople honouring their promises for once. Just be careful with that sausage.
