Circuses, but Less Bread 1532


The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.

The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.

But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.

But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.

The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.

But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?

People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.

I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?

Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.

But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?

Because they just did.


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1,532 thoughts on “Circuses, but Less Bread

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  • Clark

    Ishmael, I’m sorry that people made fun of your question. I don’t know the answer to it either. I’d like to understand the accusations against Iran, and why the most authoritative sources say that there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme, whereas the head of MI6 says that Britain has already slowed down such a programme.

  • Chris2

    “… the most authoritative sources say that there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme, whereas the head of MI6 says that Britain has already slowed down such a programme…”

    The claim would be that, had they not intervened (sanctions, murdering science teachers, blowing up meetings, helping “Green” movement demos, paying Juan Cole’s expenses etc etc) Iran would undoubtedly have developed a nuclear weapons programme.
    Its all part of a “heads I win tails you lose” informational strategy which a corrupted and pliant media makes very easy to carry institute.

  • crab

    This new statement by Gould seems really exceptional to me, exciting?
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/israel-losing-international-support-british-ambassador
    .
    I took a curious look at the Methodist Churches position on the Israel Palestine conflict. Their surprised me despite their connection to involved companies like HP and Caterpillar, their 2010 conference report is one of the levelest and best compiled criticisms of the situation i have come across ,in my admittedly feeble travails.
    http://www.methodist.org.uk/mission/public-issues/peacemaking/israel-palestine

  • technicolour

    Clark: thank you for your apology. I think that both moderating and commenting is difficult.

    For the record, I hope I am free to say that I do not agree that I ‘misrepresented’ Komodo in any way. If I ‘misunderstood’ Komodo, he was free to elucidate. I do not, however, think that I misunderstood his attitude, any more than I misunderstood the attitudes of Giles and OldMark.

    Nuid, CheebaCow, Suhayl; thank you so much for being the moderate, humane voices for the many – one of the reasons I do feel proud of this nation is that you represent us, wherever you live.

  • Blue_Bear

    Clark, cheers for the rule breakdown. Yeah, I enjoyed reading that blog as it filled a few gaps in my knowledge and the links seemed ligit. I’m sure the answer to your question was adverts btw.

  • Clark

    Technicolour, of course you are free to say that.
    .
    However, what do I have to do to qualify as “moderate, humane”, in your reckoning? Do I have to deny logic?

  • Fedup

    Cryptic waffle, is now getting passed as lucidity. How many Russian spies are here? Why of course, seeing as Mr. Darcy and Mr. Blue both comment on this blog, we can ask that question, so that it can be analysed ……………….. (hang on, I am setting up a necromantic link with the spook in the holdall suicide (hahahaha) darn he tells me he is bound by the official secret act).
    ,
    The Plan for Attacking Iran is a top secret affair, so much so, that only thrice a day and that is everyday some ziofuckwit or other keeps threatening Iran, and then some Yank tosser jumps into the affray and confirms it, and then a little none entity in UK jumps to the fore and harrumphs the “valiant efforts” of the first lot of ziofuckwits and tossers, and then adds his threepenny for the effect.
    ,
    Trouble is, ever since the beginning of the 21st century, and for the duration of the last twelve years, US has been unleashed and without any sort of opposition has been waging war on the mid east as a whole, and this the longest war has so far continued to ravage and destroy nation after nation. Without any end in sight, furthermore the list of the nations to be attacked is getting extended after the last murderfest having nearly finished, out comes a new and revised list of nations that will be attacked, soon.
    ,
    Those Russians and Chinese whom thought that US will blow itself out, now fully realise that US is intent on waging war on the planet, but because it cannot do the job in one piece meal, then her tactics have evolved to the death of a thousand cuts. This is doing the job one nation at a time and so on.
    ,
    In other words US is intent on going to war after Iran/Pakistan/Somalia/etc to fight the Russians and the Chinese too. Hence these can wait for the lebensraum redux and fight the Yanks and their minions on the steps or in the Urals, and or Chinese mainland, or on the other hand start the fight elsewhere.
    ,
    Syria is the result of this new strategy, and fact that US, UK are running around like banshees screaming blue murder and promising hell-fire and brimstone, with concocted video clips of atrocities in Syria. This is effectively telling of their bluff has been called. Not that the US warmongers will be giving up that easily, they are now using the ex blackwater mercenaries and others even more openly and aggressively to carry on the Syrian destruction in the hope that Assad will fall anyway, so that the Mediterranean basin can be “enemy free” and be a safe little lake, without any Chinese or Russian naval assets and without any supply basis for the said naval assets, and air assets (no runways and no refuelling and no retooling).
    ,
    Hence the almost quiet meeting of Putin, and Agent Cameron (NB. Mark Golding),none of the usual media fanfare, evidently Putin should have told little Dave to fuck off and mind his own business. Putin is an old hand, he remembers the Beijing Olympics and the oh so democratic sakshvillie attacking and trying to take out the Russians. Hence the joint Naval exercises of Russians Chinese, Syrians, and Iranians, that was penned to run about the same time as the oyl impics. The plans were thwarted because there would been an almighty fuckfest and no mistake about that.
    ,
    ,
    ,
    PS anyone recollect the rose revolution of Georgia and “democratic” rise to the power of the psychotic liar sakashvillie? Does anyone know how many Georgian has this psycho killed, and tortured? No mention of that in any of the “media” so unusual, isn’t it?

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Full-spectrum war, Mark Golding. After Syria, Lebanon may be ‘erupted’ as Hizbollah and the Sunni Islamists go to it. Perhaps a covert Israeli incursion as well. Then on, left-right, left-right to Iran, the defenestration and partition of which will make all the preceding look like a tea-party – but who will get the caviar? Meanwhile, to the east, in the brand new US ally, Burma…
    .
    China, Unbound? China, Encircled.

  • crab

    No Clark fall on your sword, there has never been and never could be any real difficulties to address about those phenomena discussed ( only ismisms) and anyone who ever entertains otherwise can not be pure of heart.
    .
    Lets march proudly forward united by the certainty of our minds and purity of our spirits!

  • Chris Jones

    Clark – you have been perfectly logical and even keeled. If people cannot logically and subjectively discuss immigration,population issues and differences in cultures and outlooks, without been branded the R word then we are all doomed – even more so than we might be allready if little shiny headed 1920’s sounding Hague and co gets their way

  • Crytonym

    Is that alternative SANA site genuine. The site hosted by Dallas, Texas US based Softlayer, which apart from scanning the internet at large for many years for what can only be nefarious purposes, has been flagged frequently as wittingly or unwittingly hosting malware.

    There is no dns issue as such sana.sy resolves normally to SCS-NET (213.178.225.233) in Damascus, traceroute runs out of steam, loops interminably after Germany.

    In a strange twist this alternative sana site in Dallas – the Bush family rotten-borough – sprung into life just a few weeks ago and led with a story that persons or organisations were impersonating and intruding bogus transmissions on the frequencies of legit Syrian run satellite distributed TV channels, with a smugness suggesting the the culprits wrote it.

    ‘The Skorpion on the ground is poison’ and all that, nothing new in war certainly.

    I remain sceptical about this ‘other’ SANA, don’t be lulled.

  • technicolour

    hmm, Crab, I asked several times for the ‘real difficulties’ and got:
    a) having to avert one’s gaze when passing through a community like Tottenham. No explanation of why one would want to look away.
    b) Statements about ‘horrendous’ figures and the country being ‘overwhelmed’: no explanation given about why the figures, or anything about the situation was ‘horrendous’
    c) Complaints about one particular national group who make up 0.0158 percent of the population
    d) Finally, complaints about the lack of social housing. No response to the facts about the hundreds of thousands of empty houses in the UK, or the decision not to build social housing from taxes, but instead to spend those taxes on war and on the weapons of war. Which create more immigrants.

    Among all this talk of ‘immigration’ and figures, I am aware that we are talking about real people, with real lives, who are here, and often impoverished, discriminated against and attacked because of the very attitudes displayed on this board. If there is an ism here, it is humanism and I am guilty of it.

  • Clark

    Technicolour, how many people do you think should be permitted to move permanently to the UK each year? Do you think that there should be no limit?
    .
    Do you consider me racist for asking these questions?

  • technicolour

    Chris Jones, by all means discuss all of it. Do you have a problem with immigration? If so, what is it?

    ‘Population issues’. What’s the right amount of people for England, or the UK? Is it less than the current figure? About the same? If the former, what would you do with the excess?

    What is your culture? I am British. I assume you are too. Have you read Saramago? Do you speak Arabic? What nationality was St George?

    What is your ‘outlook’? Mine is that if we are ‘doomed’, which personally I doubt, it will probably have more to do with war and pollution than immigration. Since one is peaceful, and the others tend to kill.

    Btw people are accused of racism when they disparage or attack other people because of their nationality, or their skin colour. Do you have a better word?

    Holding my breath for the answers, would be so much easier over a pint.

  • Clark

    If I’d held my breath waiting for my pint from Technicolour, I’d have died of asphyxiation some years back.

  • Clark

    This is as daft as when some people accuse the environmentalists and anti-global warming campaigners of advocating genocide.

    “people are accused of racism when they disparage or attack other people because of their nationality, or their skin colour”

    That’s fine by me. My problem is that people are also smeared as “racist” by implication because they question the amount of immigration.

  • technicolour

    Clark, you are patently not racist. I cannot see you really disliking (should have added that), denigrating or attacking anyone because of their skin colour or nationality or language (should have added that too).

    As for how many people should be ‘permitted’ to move to the UK permanently each year, how about
    a) at least as many people as leave. Currently it is about 150,000 less (my aching hands stop me looking up exact numbers again) since the cap is at 24,000 odd.

    Otherwise, I think it is all rather circular. As Fedup said, if the UK stopped attacking other countries, and meddling in other countries, people would mainly be quite happy to stay where their friends and family are. There will always be adventurous people who want to take their chances abroad, or who fall in love with someone from elsewhere, or just like moving, or who find their perfect job somewhere else, British people among them. Or people who want to move where their families have moved to.I would find room for all of them.

    More generally, the argument that ‘we’ can’t afford more immigration really doesn’t wash, when the research shows that we make money off the back of it.
    The argument that there isn’t enough housing doesn’t wash either, see empty houses, above.
    The argument that we’re overcrowded doesn’t work, both because of the houses, and the vast tracts of unused land in this country, even in Oxfordshire.

    So I think the question is actually ‘what are we scared of?’ and the answer seems to be ‘losing our culture’. But culture is an accumulative thing: it doesn’t stop at Shakespeare (who got most of his stories from the rest of the world’s literature).

    It is a broad and fascinating and potentially positive discussion, and one would hope, though one doubts it, that politicians would have the time to give it its due. Certainly would be easier round a table than online.

  • crab

    Ishmael if you act too seriously you might trigger a response somewhere from your opponents? if you cant be silly like me it might be best you act silly?

    sorry Technicolor i have nothing to resolve your points, but the last post from Chris rings true to me, it has gotten brandy bleugh.
    Reading some of your posts here recently has knocked my socks off, in the best ways but i find it too busy to rap in and submit many acknowledgements, – more posts not pots please 😀
    ,
    I do hope Craig is fine – hes probably emersed in a fine endevour ,but fingers crossed for a note on Goulds statement sometime.

  • technicolour

    “people are also smeared as “racist” by implication because they question the amount of immigration.”

    If that is meant for me, I have not smeared anyone and I object to the suggestion that I have. If someone is ‘questioning the amount of immigration’ they had better have, and be able to give, good reasons for doing so.

  • crab

    on the hand, the Craig-meister should hang back and see how things will play with the infamous Gould – but i am a dreaming that Gould ha been inspired and enabled! always dreaming…

  • nevermind

    Did I just hear this correctly, a Bulgarian athletes Athens test samples have disqualified him, four years after he could have faced aquisations.
    Visited the fringe tonight, michael mitter.eier was funny, he has been coached by Eddie Jzzard and will appear withhim. Grrrrr this Arnova pad is driving my fat fingers to distruction….
    .
    A war withh Persia/Iran would pitch the world into war, a provocation too far, or more likely a false flag attack followed by a full spectrum response too any Iranian defense attempts . Jsrael will perform for its zionist interests alone, money does not come into it, nor are its relations with the US. So when it attacks from naval contingencies in the gulf of Hormuz, as well as from Azerbidjan airfields, it will be assured by US forces and NATO shortly afterwards, my futile guess. Bedtime….

  • Ishmael

    Iran attack plan is not for distribution. You are correct. If Iran is attacked it will set us back very much. To give us time to locate the object it would be highly beneficial if the opposing sides back down the possibility of bringing chaos to the region. It does not have to be nuclear, don’t get blindfolded on this. It is not a game.

    If the opposing sides reject all party talks we have no opposition to this. If they walkout during talks we will conclude them to be preparing an imminent attack on Iran. We are talking about defense only, so they will suffer little casualties. However, the way we will engage an attacker will be different to what has come before.

    Earlier this century we found a painting. Darkish brown tones. It looks like evening. There is a large statue on it, at the top there is a name inscribed into the stone work. At the bottom there are men who appear middle eastern in origin. They are worshipping the structure by kneeling at it and looking up in anticipation, or maybe gratitude.

    We originally thought the men to be Hebrew. We now believe them to be of Arab origin. It is possible the Iranians have found this structure or are currently looking for it. We believe the picture origination date in the past. If anyone has seen this picture, knows the artist, understands the story, please say so. Finding it will assist me to make a decision.

    Thank you all.

    In other news: Supplying the Syrian opposites with weapons to achieve their objectives will be strongly condemmed by the Russians, I think late weekend.
    The Russians may give Syria Russian hyperspeed, nuclear cruise missile. A big bomb that goes bang when it goes off. I smell a trap but i’m not sure. When targeted by missile defences the weapon calculates the greatest risk to its survival and attacks that target. The Russians will not give Iran S series missiles because they know the Iranians will perform very highly, and these missiles would make it easier.

    Soldiers on a Russian ship heading towards Tartus looks like the Russians are going to deploy these guys as peacekeepers. Find the picture. You may come in handy after all. If you are good at finding relevant information, please do so. It not a secret.

  • Clark

    Technicolour, rates matter as well as final figures. To give a physical example, if you’ve ever made cheese sauce, you may have discovered that if you add all the milk at once it all goes lumpy.
    .
    You’re still not arguing honestly. People were objecting to the higher numbers under the Labour government, not the 24,000 cap that’s been recently introduced.
    .
    Something that hasn’t been mentioned is that the UK’s strong currency attracts people. My guess is that it’s never mentioned because Left, Right and the corporate media all promote a strong currency as a good thing. However, it reduces exports and hence manufacturing, which would seem to be bad for the working class.
    .
    Chris Jones linked to a very interesting article in the Daily Mail; here’s the link again:
    .
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249797/Labour-threw-open-doors-mass-migration-secret-plot-make-multicultural-UK.html
    .
    Another stupid Left-Right ideological battle. Discussion and compromise are needed, not secrecy. And this also ties in with the accusations Craig made of using immigrant communities for gerrymandering.

  • Chris Jones

    Technicolour. I’m Welsh. I don’t have a problem with immigration no – with mass unsustainable and unregulated immigration yes of course. Based on the notion of common sense, the more people that are allowed to be crammed in to a county or countries in such large numbers, the more problems you are going to have in providing resources/food/water/welfare, employment and effective social cohesion to everyone,whatever their creed or colour.
    .
    Attacking other people because on their nationality or their skin colour obviously doesnt help anyone but i have not seen examples of that here. But if sensible objective debate and discussion,even passionate ones, are always suffocated and shouted down,the outcome can be far less productive and more damaging in the long term – and polarization etc occurs a la Nato v the rest of the world.
    .

    In terms of figures: a net migration of at least 250,000 a year is just silly. I would say that a more sustainable figure would be 50,000 a year: 25,000 for genuine asylum seekers and 25,000 for skilled workers on a point based system – quite a challenge to the EU civil service there…If the number of people emigrating stayed as high, the number allowed could be increased to match the numbers leaving so that the ebb and flow of the population stays fairly constant, in an interst rate/inflation kind of scenario

  • Clark

    Chris Jones, you’re Welsh. The English pretty much decimated Welsh culture by English immigration into Wales. The Welsh language was almost wiped out. Complements to you for being so tolerant in this argument.

  • nuid

    I’m on my way to bed. But I find it very interesting that nobody on the anti-immigration (or limited immigration) side has mentioned the huge migration of the Irish into Britain.
    Dare I suggest that it might be because they’re 1) white, 2) English-speaking, and 3) at least nominally-Christian?
    .
    I could say more, but I won’t. If I get too involved, I know I won’t sleep, because the subject will go round and round in my head and keep me awake.
    .
    Great to see you back, Tech.

  • Clark

    Technicolour, “smeared” – yes, I did mean that for you. You re-quoted, out of context, Komodo’s use of the word ‘horrendous’, over and over again. Thirty-five minutes after a contributor had pointed out that 250,000 per year was a net increase, you were still making out that the numbers that leave had to be subtracted from that. You lumped everyone you disagreed with together, so Komodo’s arguments were grouped with Giles’ racist offensive insults towards Suhayl Saadi. You have argued dishonestly throughout.
    .
    If I hadn’t respected you, I probably wouldn’t have got so cross.

  • Clark

    Nuid, your fears of Technicolour running away did not materialise. But we’ve seen nothing of Komodo, who has brought diverse sources and diligent research to this site.

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