Lessons of Rio

So Britain has come second in the Olympics medals table.

Most of us Brits will take some pleasure in that result.

Letting the elation pass, though, and thinking about the symbolism of the games, gives a somewhat less satisfactory picture.

Iconic moment from the iconic athlete Mo Farah:
Completing the double double: 5000 and 10,000 metres in successive Olympics

First of all, what were taking so much delight in isn’t winning, it’s coming second. Winning would have meant beating the US, and no one even dreams of pulling that trick off. Not just in the Olympics, come to that. 

Secondly, while finishing ahead of China is satisfactory, it’s not entirely down to British prowess. A part of it reflects China’s underperformance. Again, that’s probably a reasonably accurate reflection of the world situation: between Britain and China, what’s being played out is a zero-sum game. What one gains is lost by the other, good performance here is mirrored by poor performance there. Similarly, in other fields, China’s growing economic and political might won’t pull Britain up with it, but lead to her decline.

Finally, add together the medal hauls of all the other EU nations – a post-Brexit EU, in effect – and they’d be way out in front, with 74 golds and 235 medals in total. In comparison, the US took 44 golds and 119 medals in all.

So, if they pull together, the European nations can beat the world – even the US. Only if they pull together.

The big lessons for the British? They could do it without us.

Still. We can enjoy the Olympics results for now. As long as we don’t think too hard about our post-Brexit future. In a world where we face the real China and the indomitable US. On our own.



Postscript: the talk today is of Mo Farah, who took gold in both the 5000 and 10,000 metre men's races, in both London and Rio, being given a knighthood. 

Sir Mohammed? Wouldn’t that be fabulous? A magnificent poke in the eye for all the xenophobes and Islamophobes: a Somali immigrant and devout Muslim winning a knighthood for the glory he brought Britain...

Watching badminton. And the surprising political insight it gave me

Badminton’s a game I play, not one I watch.

Today, however, I made an exception. I was with a friend who regularly gives me a thrashing on the court, and he wanted to watch some of the Olympics matches.

My first observation was that those competitors played a pretty mean game. They too would probably thrash me. Well, perhaps not if they gave me a 19-point lead, though I suspect that even then they’d beat me 21-19.

Canada's Michelle Li, one of the players I watched
Not someone I'd like to see across a net

The second observation was that the commentators are just as delightfully dumb as in any other sport.

We watched one player win a game 21-6. In the second game, when the loser of the first reached 12 points, the commentator solemnly assured us that he was doing better than in the first game. With twice the score he made in the entire game before, I’d say that was probably true. I suppose I should be grateful to have it pointed out, in case I failed to spot it myself.

We learned that it was necessary for both players to win the game. I suspect they each knew they needed to win. I’m not convinced that there are any circumstances in which both players could win the game. It’s not a situation I’ve ever met and, while I play at a far lower level, I’m pretty certain that both players winning isn’t a feasible outcome at the Olympics either.

Then came a game where the players level-pegged it most of the way up – you know, 10-10, 10-11, 11-11, 12-11, 13-11, 13-12 and so on – until the scores reached 17-12. At that point, the commentator kindly informed us that the player who was ahead had some momentum.

That didn’t just strike me as true, it also provided me with a chilling reminder of the unpleasantness of reality away from the TV. Momentum is the organisation which is taking over the Labour Party at the moment, and achieving two effects: turning it into something much more brutal and unpleasant than it has been in the last thirty years, and making sure that it falls into the trap of believing it’s more important to have good policies than to get the opportunity to put any of them into practice.

Momentum, it seems, is something that drives you forward, but without a heed as to whether it’s straight into a wall or over a cliff.

Momentum in the badminton match led to joy for one player, tears for the other. The fruits of victory, in other words. Sadly, the victory of Momentum over Labour will only be tears, and shed all round.

After the Olympics: why break up Britain?

Took a trip yesterday which might, in a couple of years, involve a border crossing. Possibly. Though probably not. 

We took a northbound train as far as the fine historic town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. There was a time that Berwick was jointly run by the English and the Scots but that involved an element of trust which, as most Scots would ruefully admit, ends up with regret on their side and prosperity on the other. For a while, the Scots guarded the north gate, the English the southern, but then visitors started noticing English soldiers on the north gate too and before long the town was English. All that’s left of the Scots heritage now is the fact that Berwick plays its football in the Scottlish leagues.

Beyond Berwick, we drove into Scotland proper. Though I use the word ‘proper’ in a loose sense. To give you an idea, we’re just twenty miles from Edinburgh and the town’s called ‘East Linton’, with that give-away ‘ton’ ending that says ‘Anglo Saxon’ in a deafening roar. Not that the word ‘East’ is especially Gaelic either.

Just to rub the message home, the village next door’s called Preston. There’s a bigger one of them in England (and quite a few smaller ones too). 

Ah, the Lothians, that glorious English bit of Scotland

Yes, this is the fine old English-speaking kingdom of Lothian, with its capital in that great Anglo-Saxon city, Edinburgh. All of which rather relativises that business about Scots independence. Independence from whom, exactly? The English? They’re right here, guys; take a look at the place names around you.

Still, that being said, I was never against the notion of Scottish independence per se, or not until recently at least. English nationalism isn’t an attractive force and, as the history of Berwick proves, it’s never been marked by generosity towards any nation that England can bully. It struck me that if the Scots wanted to go their way, well, what the heck, why not? I mean, no-one’s proposing an impermeable frontier between us, are they? They’d keep the same currency. They’ve already got a parliament. Independence wouldn’t be so much a quantum leap as a bit of incremental drift.

Now there’s nothing really inspiring about incremental drifting. Which may explain why no-one’s unduly inspired by it, even in Scotland. The great vote is due in the autumn of 2014, to coincide with the seven-hundredth anniversary the great Scots victory over the English at Bannockburn (I say ‘greatest’ as though there had been others. There have, haven’t there?). 

If the polls are to be believed, the Scottish electorate won’t be voting for independence.

But Scotland’s run by the smartest political operator in Britain, Alex Salmond. You want evidence of his smartness? Look at the mess David Cameron’s making of trying to lead a Coalition government in England. He’s heading rapidly for the dustbin of history. Salmond didn’t even try to form a coalition, he just ran a minority government so successfully that it became the springboard to give him a majority administration of his own. Don’t rule out his being given a statue on Princes Street in the fulness of time.

Well, that smart an operator isn’t going to lose a referendum. How will he square the circle? He’ll get a second question on the ballot paper, a question for ‘devo max’, much extended devolved power for the Scottish parliament. Cameron says no but, hey, who even listens to him these days?

It’s devo max that’ll pass, and devo max that the Scots will get.

To be honest, I’m quite relieved. As I said, I wasn’t that worried about the breakup of the Union if it came to that. I feel much more English than I feel British, and the Welsh and Scots are even more tightly linked to their nations. In fact, the only true Brits are those who get the nationality by naturalisation, because they don’t opt for any of the constituent nations

But my attitude changed during the Olympics. The Team GB performance shone a different light on things. There were the Scots and the Welsh winning medals alongside the English under GB colours. There were some from Northern Ireland too, and that’s not even part of Britain at all.

Within a week of that triumph, England, on the other hand, was being thrashed on the cricket field by South Africa and, in the process, losing its hard-won and briefly-held status as world number 1 in that noble game.

Lamentable English failure after signal British success. Perhaps there’s something to be said for the Union after all.

So I’m delighted to be back in Scotland, delighted to be visiting my granddaughter’s family and our friends, delighted to be seeing this beautiful country again.

And not a little relieved that there still isn’t an international border between us.

How the NHS showed up my Olympic fickleness

It seems I have to confess to a certain fickleness. Or perhaps even double standards. Not hypocrisy, though, nothing that strong.

For weeks I’ve had barely a good word to say for the Olympics. I loathed the hype. I loathed the celebration of corporate values. I loathed the way the rest of us trying to use London were being pushed around.

So my position was clear. Perhaps I’d watch a bit of the occasional event, if it seemed interesting, but otherwise I was going to maintain my position of superior detachment.

And then came the opening ceremony. Obviously I wasn’t going to watch that. It would be far beneath me. 

‘Shall we watch the opening ceremony?’ said Danielle.

‘Why, yes, of course,’ I heard myself answering. With no connection between cynical brain and emotional mouth.

And from then on the emotion just grew. That section in the middle? The NHS bit? I had a lump in my throat. Nurses and patients taking part. Some of them had spent 150 hours in rehearsals. And it was a tribute to the NHS itself and the icon for it all was Great Ormond Street Hospital, Britain’s premier hospital for children. 

The NHS at the Olympics

How could I possibly avoid the emotion? Because we love our NHS over here. We love the idea that whoever we are, whatever our status, however much money we have or how little, if we get sick the NHS is there. Sure, other systems can deliver healthcare that’s even more effective, even more technological, even more expensive. But we know, with all its defects, we can count on the NHS to look after us.

No wonder Conservative MP Aidan Burley denounced it on Twitter as ‘leftie multicultural crap’, only to be denounced himself, by his own party leader David Cameron, as ‘idiotic’. Which is amusing considering that few of us would view the top of the party as much more intellectually gifted than the bottom.

Burley’s denunciation is completely characteristic, though as always amazing. The Right likes to think of itself as the repository of Christian values, but what could possibly better express the values of the Good Samaritan than an organisation that helps people when they need it without any question as to their means?

By then, of course, I was completely hooked. I watched rest long after Danielle had gone to bed. Since then I’ve seen a lot more of the games themselves than I intended.

My only excuse is that this is typically English behaviour. We like to strike an air of disdain, but the reality is that we’re as sentimental as the best of them – or perhaps the worst of them – and the detachment is really only a defence.

But it does look like terrible inconsistency. Not hypocrisy. But perhaps a little fickleness.

‘Well, I insist on a blog post. Come clean. Admit it to the world,’ said Danielle the next day.

So this is it. My confession. Have I atoned sufficiently?