CALEDONIAN COMMENT

Mayor of London Mr Boris Johnson (pictured above) will be in attendance today as a doubtless bemused if not horrified world audience is scheduled to witness a banal and perplexing introduction to the London Olympics of 2012. The vacuous presentation will include a shipping forecast (!?), a new version of the British national anthem sanctioned by the Queen (can’t wait) and over the hill footballer David Beckham (naff) when the UK capital briefly takes centre stage in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. As China’s games officially draw to an end with a closing ceremony certain to be epic in scale and execution, London has just eight minutes to mark the official handover of the Olympic flag. Organisers are pinning their hopes on an (allegedly) very British affair marked by an innovative score (probably crap), a live performance of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (yawn, how contemporary), a double-decker bus (never on time) and David Beckham (naff) to set the tone for 2012. The dispiriting proceedings will then be rounded off with the sight of a London bus stop next to a zebra crossing complete with belisha beacons (apparently no Bobbies on bicycles two-by-two though), 36 dancers from the hip-hop troop Zoo Nation (how representative of the UK are THEY ?), the CanDoCo Contemporary Dance Company (whoopee) and Royal Opera artists (smattering of respectability), all sheltering under umbrellas (good advert for the city’s tourist trade) . In other words, a load of bollocks. And yet whoever devised this nonsense is probably on a fat “creative consultant” fee paid for by us. This whole Olympic farce should be scrapped NOW, with the games given to Paris and the UK taxpayers given a break.

 

But they’re all getting in on the act. Prime Minister Gordon Brown (pictured above with Great Britain cyclist, Chris Hoy, who won three Gold Medals), is shouting his mouth off, hoping no doubt in vain that some success rubs off on him. The PM said yesterday he was confident that Britain’s accomplishments in Beijing would secure greater private sector investment in the London games (just as 4 sponsors pulled out – nice one Gord) and lead to a doubling of investment in British sport by 2012. “Everyone wants to play their part in making the Olympics a success,” he said. No Gordon, wrong again. Everyone doesn’t want to play their part – especially when it means higher taxes for most of us. Not higher taxes for people like you of course, who are looking forward to the super-junket of all time at our expense. The irony is you’ll have been kicked out of office well before 2012.

 

Veteran politician US Senator Joe Biden (above left)  has been selected by Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama (above right) as his running mate. Mr Biden, who chairs the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and has three decades of experience, will reportedly help the Obama campaign challenge the frequent criticism that it lacks foreign policy experience. Mr Obama’s choice of the 65-year-old Delaware senator as his vice presidential nominee was officially confirmed by a text message to supporters yesterday. The announcement comes ahead of the Democratic Party’s national convention in Denver, Colorado, next week, where Mr Obama is likely to be officially nominated as the party’s presidential nominee. Mr Biden will apparently help strengthen the 46-year-old Illinois senator’s foreign policy credentials. So what was the recent Obama world tour and the Berlin triumphalist Kennedy-clone rally all about then ? Or is the Democratic hierarchy starting to panic ? And it has to be said that as far as most UK observers are concerned, the response to this development has almost universally been : Joe who ?

 

There’s the Bank of England pictured above . They, along with the Financial Services Agency are supposed to protect the interests of consumers and bank customers. Fat chance, because new figures out yesterday  showed that UK Banks are still taking the piss. They are being accused of ‘milking’ nearly £3 billion extra cash from homeowners and blaming the credit crunch. High Street lenders have made the money by raising their mortgage rates and fees over the past year, even though interest rate cuts have made it cheaper for some of them to borrow money. A new study calculates that the country’s five biggest banks – Halifax, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland – are raking in £2.8 billion more from mortgage borrowers compared to last year. And this is after UK taxpayers have lent them £50 billion. And what is the government doing about this rip-off ? Naff all as bloody usual .

 

Lauren Booth (pictured above), the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, was one of seven Britons among 44 civilian activists that set sail from Cyprus yesterday, on a mission to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Wearing a “Free Gaza” neck charm and standing barefoot in the humid heat before boarding one of two wooden boats in Larnaca port, Ms Booth, a half-sister of Cherie Blair, said: “These boats should be loaded with diplomats from around the world wanting to pursue the rights they supposedly represent.” She challenged Mr Blair in his role as the international special envoy to the Middle East to “show some guts” and visit the Gaza Strip. “Lip-service to the suffering of the Gazans without witnessing it at first hand makes a mockery of his role,” she said. Perhaps Ms Booth might care to recall (or does she chose to forget) that it was because of death threats from the Gazans she’s so concerned about that Blair couldn’t visit a couple of months ago. But then again, selective memory was never an obstacle to fashionable anti-semitic protests amongst the UK’s chattering classes. Apparently neither is the thought that if the Islamic state she purports to favour was ever established in Palestine, women like her would be amongst the first to be told to cover up and shut up. Maybe fundamentalism has its good points after all !

Tags: 2012 olympics, bank of england, barack obama, barlays, beijing, berlin, birds nest stadium, boris johnson, candoco, cherie blair, chris hoy, colorado, credit crunch, david beckham, delaware, denver, gaza strip, gordon brown, halifax, hsbc, illinois, israel, joe biden, larnaca, lauren booth, led zeppelin, lloyds tsb, palestine, paris, queen, rbos, royal opera, tony blair, zoo nation

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 12:18 am and is filed under Daily Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.