IAN BOTHAM – or Lord Botham as he now is since Boris Johnson gave him a seat in the House of Lords in 2020 – is to be Britain’s trade envoy to Australia, and we hope he bowls ‘em over Down Under.

Botham is to be an unpaid trade envoy rather than a negotiator, so the difficult job of protecting British farmers from Australia’s different standards and conditions will be down to officials – and there are genuine concerns that our new trade deal with Australia, the first to be thrashed out since Brexit, will harm British agriculture, particularly if the deal is seen as a blueprint for future deals with places like the US and India.

However, Botham’s role will be to drum up interest in British business and, as we know in the North East, through his work with local charities and with Durham County Cricket Club, he is a great ambassador. Although he does have a headline-grabbing tendency to speak plainly, and he does have outspoken views on country pursuits and Brexit, those are part of his appeal.

If you were an Aussie businessperson, who would you prefer to meet at a reception: one of the fading Parliamentarians who have been appointed as our other envoys, or Big Beefy, the greatest cricketer of his generation with a fund of anecdotes?

Perhaps the last thing Britain has left to export to the world is celebrity, and so we should make the most of Botham’s name and fame.