2010 may be two years off 2012 but for the organisers of the London Games it will be a watershed, and a critical one in many ways. Once football’s all-consuming World Cup mania is done and dusted next summer and England’s traditional quarter-final exit has been mourned, the full focus will be turned on how preparations are going for the biggest sporting show this country has ever staged, or seen.

It is only then that the full impact of having the Olympics here will really hit home and Seb Coe and co will be constantly under the media microscope. Not only from us, but the Government.

Ah yes, the Government. At the moment the likelihood is that there will be a change of colour in the Westminster strip, or so the opinion polls tell us. So what will that mean for 2012?

The Conservatives have always been supportive of the Games - more so actually than Labour were at the beginning of the bid, or even when London actually won it. Gordon Brown, then the bean-counting Chancellor, is said to have held his head in his hands and muttered "Oh my God, what have we let ourselves in for?"

You would think with two Tory Peers (the m'lords Coe and Moynihan) on the 2012 board, alongside London’s mayor Boris Johnson, and presumably a new Tory Olympics minister, that any transition would go smoothly and there would be a greater rapport with a new administration.

But will that be the case? Despite any new political affinity with 2012’s main players you can expect a Tory Government to put the Games under closer financial scrutiny knowing they will be the fall guys if things go wrong. And already, in Opposition, they seem far more concerned about legacy, as Hugh Robertson, the current Shadow Sports and Olympics spokesman, has already demonstrated. He is far from happy at this aspect of the Games.

But will the first rate Robertson get the job or will be either promoted to higher office (he is close to David Cameron, having been one of his main backers for the Tory leadership) or is he destined to become another Tom Pendry, gazumped by a surprise choice, as the now Lord Pendry was by Tony Banks when New Labour took office in 1997?

Thankfully the latter seems doubtful, for although there will be many who covet what  is a plum post in the run-up to 2012, few, if any, have Robertson’s quality, qualifications or grip of what is happening within LOCOG.

What Cameron could do is make the job of sports and Olympics Minister a full Cabinet post, which would then give Robertson the status he deserves. It is what the role demands, so important will it be in the run-up to 2012.

Changes of Government have not done previous Olympic host cities much harm - indeed it saved the Athens Olympics of 2004 from impending disaster, bringing in a right wing administration with which the dynamic diva Gianna Angelopoulos could actually work in harmony.

So you mighty think a Conservative Government would bring greater harmony to those occupying the LOCOG eyrie at high above Canary Wharf. Yet intriguingly there could be some differences with 2012’s true blue brigade though Tory boys Coe, Moynihan and Johnson insist they take a non-political stance. For as I have indicated, they will want to take a long, hard look at the balance sheet of an over-stretching budget and will insist any outstanding differences over venues are settled expediently.

Then there is the future of Tessa Jowell (pictured with Gordon Brown), the current Olympics Minister, who is well-liked in Olympic circles, both within LOCOG and the IOC.

Although she would be out of office - and could even lose her Dulwich seat if  a Tory swing is substantial enough – I believe Coe would like want to keep her on board in some capacity.

Tessa is looking distinctly happier than most ex-Blair Babes these days.

Not only did she survive as Olympics Minister in the last Cabinet reshuffle, but Brown, who demoted her from Culture Secretary when he took over as Prime Minister, has brought her back into his inner circle as Cabinet Office Minister – no doubt as a reward for speaking up for him while others were putting unladylike boots in.

However, her joy could be short-lived if Labour are kicked out at the next election but the Westminster rumour mill suggests she would love to stay on with 2012 and Coe, who has always got on well with her (as indeed he did with another Labourite, Ken Livingstone), might incorporate her as some sort of global ambassador. He remembers that it if was not for her there might not have been a London 2012 at all, for it was Tessa who constantly ear-bashed then PM Tony Blair until he agreed to back the bid.

The 62-year-old Jowell has certainly become a more knowledgeable Olympics addict since the time soon after London finally decided to hid when she talked enthusiastically to some of us at a DCMS reception about her first meeting with IOC President "Peter Rogge.".

But while Coe might welcome her on board, Boris Johnson, whom she so vigorously attacked during his Mayoral campaign, may not be quite so keen. And Robertson would certainly want absolute assurances that she would play a strictly non-partisan game, which is why, knowing which way the wind is blowing, we will see the Olympics Minister keeping a lower political profile in the opening months of 2010 if she still wants to be part of 2012.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games