If there is one thing more depressing than listening to the majority of sporting personalities trying to string a few coherent sentences together on issues outwith their own field, it is hearing the inanities of politicians, from all parties, whenever they wade into the sporting arena.

During the past few days, one might have anticipated an outburst of patriotic pride at the achievements of the British team in Beijing, whose efforts across a range of pursuits have offered a welcome escape from the reality of recession in the wider world.

Yet, when it would have been refreshing to witness some facade of a united front, the likes of Gordon Brown, Alex Salmond and Boris Johnson have instead flung themselves to the head of the queue of people suffering from foot-in-mouth disease.

Perhaps what is most depressing about this trio's utterances is that they are all intelligent fellows with a sound grasp of realpolitik.

Privately, they will be perfectly well aware that there is no prospect of a separate Scotland team competing at the 2012 Olympics, if only because the practicalities of lottery funding and the process of committing athletes to centre-of-excellence programmes and other elite schemes is already in progress.

That is even before we contemplate the twin questions of the ICC's regulations and the relevant fact that, at the moment, a significant majority of Scottish competitors, including triple gold medal-winning cyclist, Chris Hoy, wish to remain part of the UK squad.

So, if Brown and Salmond understand that, what exactly are they playing at?

Time and time again, Brown keeps resurrecting the notion of an all-British football team appearing at the London Olympics. Now, he and Lord Coe - another master of style over substance - want Sir Alex Ferguson to coach the non-existent squad, oblivious to the latter's lack of interest in the role and the wider signals that such a proposal would send out to FIFA.

It is a shoddy business, even before one remembers that football has a World Cup of its own every four years and has as little a place at the Olympics as tennis, golf and - another crazy notion under discussion - Twenty20 cricket at the 2012 Games.

In short, Brown is only raising this issue in an attempt to bolster his credentials among the St George brigade in the south of England.

Yet, that does not excuse the recent outpourings from Salmond and Stewart Maxwell, the Scottish sports minister, which have been, at best, debatable, at worst, positively erroneous.

The sound of Salmond and Maxwell calling for a separate Team Scotland is a vacuous exercise in fantasy-land rhetoric, whereby they can sidestep the matters which genuinely must be confronted in the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

These include a steep decline in participation numbers, the decrepit condition of so many of our facilities and the absence of a national infrastructure with proper funding for our youngsters to combine sport and education.

The spin doctors can say what they like, but the truth is Chris Hoy had to move to Manchester to ensure his progress to the Olympic summit. He wouldn't have done it by staying in the mud and glaur of Meadowbank.

And, for as long as Scotland doesn't have a state-of-the-art athletics track, or a modern velodrome, or more than one or two first-rate swimming pools, it is deluding itself if it thinks it can go it alone.

What strikes this observer as being a better-constructed policy for the SNP is for them to be completely wholehearted in backing sport at all levels, to create their own pathways schemes, en route to 2014, and also to explain exactly how any breakaway from such bodies as UK Sport and the BOA would operate in practice.

If there is a referendum on independence in 2011, the vote could also ask the electorate whether they wish to have a Scottish Olympic team in 2016, with the Glasgow Games being the ideal opportunity to move matters forward quickly in the event of a positive response.

But it certainly can't happen before then and any suggestion to the contrary is nonsense. As is Boris Johnson's claim that he can bring the London Olympics in under budget. How on earth does he hope to do that when they are already billions of pounds over their initial estimate?

Yes, politicians should maybe stick to politics. And, above all, appreciate that there are no quick fixes without substantive investment.

Ultimately, China's leaders were in the handy position (for them) of being unaccountable to their public, so they could spend what they liked. Britain - and, for however long, Scotland - will have to work to budgets, avoid white elephants, and justify the use of resources.

One might have imagined that these would be challenges enough without high-ranking individuals resorting to behaviour straight from a school playground.