GRAEME Souness has stepped into the political arena and hit the Government with one of his famous tough tackles over rising obesity.

The Blackburn Rovers boss is famed for his footballing ferocity - on and off the pitch - and is one of five sports stars who made a joint statement calling for Tony Blair to inject more cash into school PE.

His comments came two weeks after four East Lancashire boroughs were named among the top 20 fattest in the country.

Dr Stephen Morton, director of public health for Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, today welcomed the Rovers manager's comments but said the issue was more complex than simply having more sport in schools.

He warned that the rising levels of obesity would take decades and a massive effort to bring under control.

But Souness believes that increasing the amount of exercise children do in school would have a massive impact on fighting the flab.

He made his feelings clear in a letter to the Times newspaper, which he was a joint signatory to along with rugby world cup winner Jason Leonard, former hurdler Colin Jackson, swimmer Rebecca Cooke and Whittle-le-Woods cyclist Jason Queally.

In it they say the Government has failed to recognise that children need an hour of physical activity a day.

They add: "The long-standing lack of funding for physical activity and sport for all has created a serious national vulnerability to obesity and ill health.

"The work of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport must reach all young people, not just a privileged few, and to achieve this its budget needs to be increased at least five times.

"We urge Tony Blair and the Treasury to make massive increases in state funding of sport and physical education.

"At the same time, the percentage of lottery funds for sport must increase at least threefold to achieve positive health advantages of regular physical participation."

Dr Morton said big changes to society were needed to tackle rising obesity, including better education and availability of healthy food to improve diet and improving road safety, so children can walk and cycle more.

He added: "It is true that children need to increase levels of physical activity. That is the main reason why obesity in children is rising because they watch television and videos. But it is also because they are driven everywhere and because of diet.

"If obesity continues at its current rate, we are going to get to a stage where there are more young fat people than healthy people.

"If their pattern of behaviour becomes set it is very difficult to change them when they get older and you have lost a whole generation to obesity."

Pendle, Blackburn with Darwen, Rossendale and Burnley were all named and shamed as being among the top 20 fattest boroughs. Hyndburn was just below the national average.