Olympics Opening Ceremony Wasn't Political

Friday's Olympics Opening ceremony was a great spectacle. Many have drawn attention to the £27m price tag and suggested that such largesse could hardly fail to provide success. Well, perhaps, but then I'd point to the Millenium Dome as an example of even greater expenditure that wasn't so well received.

But the real value we get from that expenditure is derived from the international attention the ceremony gets. The whole show portrayed a positive, some might say romantic, view of Great Britain and that can only benefit us in terms of international trade and tourism. This is important at a time when the Euro Zone (which currently repesents almost 50% of our current international trade) is lurching from one crisis to another, weakening our trading opportunities. We need to build a strong brand image across the globe to make up for Europe's slump. And of course a boost to tourism in this country won't go amiss either.

Watching the ceremony on the television was very enjoyable. Normally Twitter adds an extra dimension as people share their observations either witty or critical. However, on this occasion I found it significant detracted from my enjoyment. This was one event I was hoping could bring people together and certainly wasn't expecting party political point scoring. However, the inclusion of three letters in a set peice was enough to ignite an explosion of party political animosity that I foolishly failed to ignore.

Mention the NHS to any normal person and they'll think of hospitals, GPs, illness, cures, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a whole range of thoughts and emotions both positive and negative. People don't genially think of Tories or Labour socialism, centralised state provision of localised private provision, free at the point of use etc. No, but politicos do.

As soon as those letters appeared, left wing politicos erupted with claims that this ceremony proved, beyond doubt, that they were right about everything and Britain was really a socialist nation after all. "The best Labour Party political broadcast ever" claimed one Labour MP. Right wing politicos reacted similarly, that this was a left wing ceremony portraying Britain as a socialist state. Then, the lefties attacked the righties for politicising the ceremony. If there's one thing you can always rely on the Left to deliver it is hypocrisy. And enormous national debt, obviously. But I digress.

I may be in a minority of one, but I don't see any justification for party political point scoring. Yes, the NHS was mentioned, but such is the political consensus, there is no lack of commitment from the leadership of either party to a free at the point of use health service available to all.

The left want you to believe otherwise about the Tories. But that is because their idea of the NHS is fundamentally idealogical. All services must be provided by the state and all employees must be state employees. This ideological stance isn't even shared by everyone on the left or in the Labour party. The Blairite wing has long since worked out that a centralised Brobdingnagian organisation can't deliver the services required at an affordable cost to the nation. The Governemnt's NHS reforms were aimed at ensuring the concept of a national health service providing free care to all can survive in the coming decades of pressure on the public purse, by allowing GPs real choice in who provides the services they prescribe for their patients. This is an anathema to those with truely left wing beliefs as it could lead to charities, not-for-profit organsiations or even, heaven forfend, private providers, servicing patients, if they can provide better care and value for money. And so, they paint the Tories as anti-NHS. What they really mean is they are anti-reform of the NHS.

But whether you are pro or anti reform of the NHS, the ceremony wasn't making a political point. It was celebrating British institutions, including the monachy, hardly an institution close to the heart of your average lefty. It's a shame us politicos can't sometimes put politics aside and just enjoy a national spectacle when we see one.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Playing The Victim - Now It's May's Turn

After George Osborne suggested that Labour has some questions to answer over the Libor scandal that occurred while they were in power, Ed Balls switched to his highest spin setting and very successfully diverted attention from valid questions about Labour and Libor and turned the tables on the increasingly hapless Chancellor.

Balls' genius was to re-frame Osborne's question in the media's and therefore public's mind as a direct accusation against himself - Osborne hadn't suggested Labour had questions to answer, he had said Balls had directed the whole affair. Now, there's no evidence for this, so Balls is onto a winner straight away. When Barclays insinuated that the Bank of England had suggested they "low-ball" the Libor rate, Balls saw his opportunity. He knew that, whatever the strong likelihood was that ministers in the last government were aware, even complicit in, the rate fixing, there wouldn't be any trail back to him. So effective was the deeply engrained principle of "plausible-deniability" within the Labour leadership. All dodgy decisions or instructions were to have no paper or electronic trail back to a minister. Everything was kept informal and verbal. 

Mr Cooper

So when the deputy governor of the Bank of England refers to "senior Whitehall sources" everyone knows they are Labour ministers, but there's no actual proof they had anything to do with it. Great. And, perhaps they didn't. Certainly, that's what the Deputy of The Bank of England, Paul Tucker told the select committee when he appeared before them shortly after Osborne said Labour had questions to answer in an article in The Spectator. And how Balls, the BBC, the Guardian and a myriad of other left wing and not-so-left-wing-but-not-keen-on-Osborne media outlets jumped on the news. Osborne should apologise immediately. The number of times I heard BBC commentators talk as if this was a blatant truism. Osborne had accused Balls of pressurising the BoE and now his accusations have been denied (albeit by someone who would never have admitted to the charge even if he was guilty, but let's ignore that for now).

Osborne released a statement clarifying that he hadn't accused Balls of anything and this was immediately cast as a humiliating climb down. Game, set and match, Ed Balls.

Well, now the government finds itself with an opportunity, rather sweetly involving Balls' wife, to exact some revenge in a similar fashion. This time over the G4S debacle. Again, a crisis born under Labour - they signed up contracts with G4S when they were in power. Ex-Labour minister John Reid is a G4s Director - so it could easily be said that Labour have questions to answer again. But that line isn't being played very hard since Osborne's problems. No, the opportunity here is that Yvette Cooper made a quite specific allegation in the Commons that Theresa May knew before the last couple of weeks that G4S was struggling to meet it's commitments. Well, what do you know, today Nick Buckles confirmed Theresa May's account that she was only told on the 11th July.

So, where is the outcry for an apology now? I'll watch the BBC news in the morning and pick up a Guardian expecting to see the headlines dominated with the word "APOLOGISE"...

I may be disappointed.