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.
My son used to listen to a band called The Pharcyde and I must say they really are/were rather good, though British hip-hop seems to me far superior to most of the more recent American offerings. From what I have heard of the genre, the period (roughly) 1997 – 2002 was the golden era, with some timeless classics by the likes of Roots Manuva, Taskforce and Ricochet Kalashnikov, which I keep on my iPod and still listen to from time to time. I recall my son persuading me to attend a Jungle rave about this time, which was also very good.
And why does it seem as though so many discussions these days – most days – ends up spiralling down to ‘immigration’? Could it be because the Daily Mail and the political elites incessantly use it, esp. at times of cuts, chopping up and asset-stripping of public services, etc., as a useful Weapon of Mass Distraction?
@King Felix – “There’s clearly a difference over the kind of cultural mix that accumulates over centuries and that which arises seemingly overnight”.
.
Thats one of the crux of the arguments over immigration i’d say. There’s also the potential oxymoron of multiculturalism; there is the argument that if everywhere becomes multicultural, then multiculturism becomes the mono culture, and any differing or independent culture is dissolved, ruining what creates culture in the first place and turning everyone into undistinguishable identicals
Mary: “Wendy – Dreadful headline on this link but it shows the segment you refer to. I think that the lighting gave the effect of the colour orange. Sick anyway.”
.
yes brown or a burnt orange hard to tell. the lighting certainly gives perception of orange. the dancers are certainly wearing traditional asian style clothing.
.
quite a few people have ‘seen’ it as orange and a commentary against the wars in afghanistan , iraq and resulting terrorism.
.
” @King Felix – “There’s clearly a difference over the kind of cultural mix that accumulates over centuries and that which arises seemingly overnight”.”
.
curiously the ‘media’ manages to present both , overnight changes in culture whilst maintaining the old. largely to do with agenda / politics.
Chris Jones, I think you may be referring more to the impact of globalised entertainment and the hollowing out of societies which can be a feature of advanced post-industrial capitalism. Alienation, through the Society of The Spectacle, as the Situationists might’ve said. Population movement and mixing is the natural state of the world – it often leads to enhanced, syncretic cultures – and even in the ‘New World’, think of the amazing cultures of the USA – jazz, rock, blues, gospel(Gaelic-West African melange), to mention just three manifestations and of ‘Latin’ America. same in the ‘Old World’ – Iran has many cultures, Russia, China too. This the the norm.
o god not the ‘there’s too many of them coming over here all at once’ schtick.
Technicolour, yep. As I said, WMD: Weapons of Mass Distraction. Whih includes the hilarious and bathetic sight and sound of Ed Millband, Brown Man Extraordinaire, son of Ralph Milliband, Belgian, son of Sam, Jewish Pole, telling us that there are too many of ‘them’ coming over and insinuating that the working class is white. Wait a minute, most immigrants and their descendents are working class, overwhelmingly so. I am working class and I am brown, just like Ed Milliband.
.
Ed Millband needs to listen to some northumbrian pipes by the Holy North Sea while ingesting a clutch of magic mushrooms.
@ Suhayl Saadi. I refer you back to KingFelix’ point “There’s clearly a difference over the kind of cultural mix that accumulates over centuries and that which arises seemingly overnight” Of course populations move around and wonderful new ideas and progress can be created when cultures mix and assimilate. Your barking up the wrong tree if you feel its your place to explain that. But realisticly, societies need time for this assimilation to happen, at least if its going to happen effectively – its hardly rocket science. The same thing applies to mass homogonised global entertainment in my view
You talk of “elites” using immigration as a weapon of distraction, Suhayl, but it was they who decided on mass-immigration, for whatever reason (I believe the right for economic reasons, and the left for both economic and ideological reasons (in order “to rub the right’s nose in diversity”). Neither represents the majority view, which is for limited, skilled immigration where necessary, and against any profound change to the ethnic, cultural, religious identity of the country.
.
Why, then, are you for mass-immigration, Suhayl? You defend it by making excuses for it, or riduculing those against by way of your trademark sarcy responses, at every opportunity, so one must presume you are for it? What are your reasons for supporting mass, unskilled immgration to this country if, as you claim, there is no proven economic justification for it?
Correction: As far as I can recall, I never said there was “no economic justification” for it. I think that’s a straw argument. What’s this spectre of “mass, unskilled immigration”? It’s raised again and again, I’ve been hearing this since 1967 and on this blog for years. It just repeats in echolalic fashion. Poles, Romanians, Afro-Caribbeans, Vietnamese, South Asians and going back further, Italians, ‘White’ Russians, ‘Red Russians’, Chinese, ‘Irish, Jews, Hugenots…
.
Over the past 400 years, immigration has never impoverished this country, it has given it added strength and vitality. And yet, every time, it’s the same spectre, the Phantom of the Opera. Left, Right, Centre, Capitalist, Socilaist, Liberal… it’s the ay of the world, of humanity and has been, always. It’s normal.
I think that Ed Millband should be made to wear pink frilly dresses and to wave a magic wand for seven days in reparation for his shameful opportunism.
.
If Jesus (another brown man) had emigrated to Britain instead of being crucified, the Daily Mail would’ve been calling it Armageddon: !Shock Horror Brown Jews Swamp Albion! Oh, sorry, they already did that headline in the early C20th wrt supposedly “dirty, smelly” Russian Jews. Plus ca change…
.
And how on earth did a thread about the Olympics turn into a mantra about immigration – might it have been the sight of black BRITISH people actively taking part in the Olympic Opening ceremony that offended some eyes?
“…against any profound change to the ethnic, cultural, religious identity of the country.” Giles.
.
What? McDonalds, KFC and Buckfast? A lack of social housing, increased then decreased class mobility, the booms and busts, the retreat from Empire, the death of large industry, widespread asset-stripping of public services… The “profound changes” have arisen from multiple economic and cultural forces during C20th and many of these changes are not unique to Britain – the whole world has been affected, or hadn’t you noticed?
Go on, then, Giles, define ‘mass’ and ‘unskilled’. Because at the moment it sounds like it’s fine to nick other countries’ doctors, but not quite so fine to nick other countries’ waiters. But who, then, would serve you jolly decent concerned white British folk with their tandoori?
I would very much like to know which of you is suffering directly and personally from this mythical ‘mass unskilled immigration’. And no, another European language being spoken in your hearing doesn’t count.
Most of us realize that the country’s elites have made one hell of a mess of the economy, and in my view much worse is to come. In allocating blame as we should, let’s stick to the truth. There are not many immigrants in the Boardrooms of City Banks or in Westminster/Whitehall – so let’s not let them be used as scapegoats “as a weapon of distraction”.
I was expecting another *shitstirring smiley* by now …
.
So instead, here’s D Cameron looking sad and embarrassed on the Tube
https://twitter.com/Number10gov/status/229933099381829632/photo/1
@ Roderick Russell – very true – immigration and all its intracasies is one of the great scapegoats given to us by the elites whilst their banking bretheren scoop and plunder all our money,whether we are black,brown,pink,blue,short,tall,fat or thin
The Earth is NOT flat; keep an eye on Paisley, wasn’t Mrs. Thatch awful: Chavez then must Go!
.
Did Ralph Miliband ever achieve anything concrete with the ‘Low Pay Unit’, it seems to have been a lifelong sinecure, a one-man bonfire proof quango, even more extraordinary than that peculiar setup is the claim that he fell out with Harold Wilson over Wilson’s ‘support for the Vietnam War’, given that Wilson blew the Americans a huge raspberry and kept the budding heroes right out of the Vietnam morass, the claim is bizarre, I can only imagine that the opposite is the true case and that he fell out with Wilson (if they were ever ‘in’) over Wilson’s commendable aversion to involvement in Vietnam, which puts Milliband senior firmly in the vanguard of the neo-con road from vaguely left to far right warmongering US toadie. I doubt Wilson was distraught at the withdrawal of Miliband’s limp support, might even have made his day. There’s always the son(s) though, alas.
Well said, Roderick Russell and Technicolour!
thanks Roderick – there must be something subliminal in the air…
Crytonym, I think it was Mark Curtis who revealed that the UK were supporting the US in Vietnam covertly. Oh yes, found it:
The myth has long been promoted that Britain refused to send troops to the Vietnam war and played little role in it. The declassified British government files on the war are therefore little short of a revelation, showing that Britain gave important private backing to the US at every stage of military escalation, and also revealing its own covert and military role. The reality is that Britain was complicit in the aggression against Vietnam and shares some responsibility for the massive human suffering that resulted.
http://markcurtis.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/britains-secret-support-for-us-aggression-the-vietnam-war/
And how on earth did a thread about the Olympics turn into a mantra about immigration – might it have been the sight of black BRITISH people actively taking part in the Olympic Opening ceremony that offended some eyes?
Scratch the surface, only a tiny scratch and the ugliness shows its full gory detail.
@suhayl
.
“I agree with most of what you wrote in that excellent post, King Felix, except that immigration drivging down wages is itself a myth.”
.
Actually, though you may be right, I forgot to include one part of the puzzle and that is the savings made in terms of employer tax contributions. In the IT sector, this racket has been running (and growing quickly) for years:
.
—- “The intra company visa does not require a job to be in an area with recognised work shortfalls and it does not need to be advertised to show that the work could be done by UK staff. The few restrictions in place are simple and at surface value they look reasonable. A foreign employee must have been working at a related organisation for at least a year, though it was at six months before April. There is a points based system in place. They must pass the threshold and be paid at least the going or appropriate rate for the job.
.
Typically the salary clocks in at £24,000. Adding up visa costs, flights, accommodation and salary should if anything make using an intra company transfer rack up the expenses tally. It doesn’t look profitable. Until you realise expenses and tax free allowances can be counted towards the “salary”. As a source tells TechEye: “This is complete madness.”
.
IT service companies with the resources can negotiatie with HM Revenue & Customs blanket tax free payments and allowances which cover legitimate business expenses that employees incur having worked at a client site for the first two years. Because these are not salary payments, the HRMC considers them tax free and it means every employee doesn’t have the burden of sending in receipts which must then be counted and tallied. The tax free allowance dispensation can be between roughly £1,000 and £1,500 each month.
.
So if these consultants are on-shore Indian IT workers, they can be sent to client sites. They can be paid a minimum wage salary and grab a tax free allowance of up to £18,000. As a friend of TechEye puts it: “The UK Borders Agency rules are passed, their Indian IT workers are happy, and they can significantly undercut UK workers, void UK income tax and national insurance, both employer and employee.” —
.
@technicolour – you could have done better than dismiss my comment as ‘schtick’. It is not enough to use one word, ‘immigration’, to cover its various forms/assess its impacts.
.
I’m not sure if this will place komodo on the horns of a dilemma, but a Lithuanian I know who has done extensive work with illegal migrants insists that the reason the UK is such a choice destination within the EU is that it doesn’t have ID cards (the only member nation without them?).
.
IT sector demicated
.
Personally, I am not hugely interested in immigration as an issue. Like I said, I don’t feel it has contributed to national decline, etc. But Komodo brought it up, so why not discuss it?
Thanks Technicolour, that’s an interesting link.
.
It does beg the question then, that it can only have been this covert support that Miliband was aware of (never mind how he knew of it, given the extreme secrecy) and why he didn’t go to the press or otherwise blow the whistle on it, would Miliband Snr have been subject to the OSA? Loud condemnation of the war from Wilson could have had him in deep water. It does seem however that much went on before Wilson’s first government and though some support continued, it was early recognised here as a lost cause, after which presentation, spin and preserving US ‘prestige’ were uppermost concerns rather than selling them napalm. Either way Miliband Snr seems up to his neck in a failed attempt on his own initiative possibly, to topple Wilson, by pushing him into a collision course with the US whatever way he leaned. Just as Benn as Minister of Technology claims to have been unaware of nuclear materials being sent to Israel on his watch I doubt Wilson was fully aware of half the things going on whilst he was PM. No smoking gun there however constituting support from Wilson for the US’ folly. The whole story of falling out with Wilson over Wilson’s support for the Vietnam war, lacks all credibility still. The Miliband legend is full of holes.
Komodo:
.
“No more so than the basic assumption that anyone who describes and values his nation differently from you is a fascist.”
.
Not getting enough sun to warm your blood? I never suggested anything like that.
.
“I rather like “Afro drumz ‘n rantz” as a phrase.”
.
Were you not just bemoaning the state of the English language?
.
“I DO care if half the actors playing industrialists are black/Chinese/Indian because that was simply not the case.”
.
Oh noooooos, the horror! I’m glad you were able to identify the root cause of so many of societies problems, the wrong colour actors. This is serious stuff.
.
“And I’ve probably done more dope than you have*”
.
That’s really really cool man.
.
“so that aligns me with the Caribbeans and Indians, doesn’t it?”
.
Of course, naturally….. Not doubt you are down with the brown people.
.
Chris:
.
Please accept my humble apologies, I’m just a simple boy from the colonies. In my defense, in Australia we seem a little more fond of the Scottish and Welsh, maybe we subconsciously don’t want to associate the people we like with the crimes of the empire 😉
.
Suhayl:
.
Awww buddy, I thought you would see that ‘gangsta rap’ is far from the entirety of hiphop culture. Gangsta rap only exists in the pop world, a money making machine that does its best to defang such a rebellious and grass roots art form. Outside of the charts, hiphop all over the globe is by far one of the most political and personal styles of music that is currently popular. Please check out the following track by my favourite UK hiphop artist (although he has now retired an moved to Australia, yay immigration!).
.
Braintax – The Grip Again (a day in the life of a suicide bomber) youtube.com/watch?v=6IhaL1ighcw
.
If you or anyone else is interested, I will post a few more links below of some of my fav international hiphop artists. I know not everyone will like the sound of hiphop, but please see that it is so much more than the top 40 gangsta rap (just like country is far more than Garth Brooks). It’s a valid and powerful art form, I think the tracks I recommend speak to that.
.
Talib Kweli – Four Women (US, a cover of Nina Simone’s For Women. IMHO it’s significantly better than the original!) youtube.com/watch?v=68PV604xNsg
.
Orishas – 537 CUBA (great Cuban hiphop, very melodic) youtube.com/watch?v=Xem6VE3x8Gg&feature=relmfu
.
Hilltop Hoods – Breathe (Aussie, with the Adelaide symphony orchestra) youtube.com/watch?v=gcUL8NnIHMs&feature=related
.
The Coup – Me and Jesus the Pimp in a ’79 Granada Last Night (US, simply amazing, don’t do anything else while you listen to this heartbreaking tale) youtube.com/watch?v=CPr1JLoYLW4
.
Cut Killer – Nique La Police (from the great French film La haine) youtube.com/watch?v=js2_hBDi2LI
.
“These cats drink champagne
and toast death and pain
like slaves on a ship
Talkin about who go the flyest chain”
.
/hiphop rant, sorry everyone 😉
The Olympics is mass-distraction. To bring your attention back to more important issues like The Leveson inquiry into media standards (which is itself a distraction as it should be a criminal trial of the owners, directors and employees of News International).
.
Mr Murdoch is a great friend of Israel so it is saddening to learn that both Leveson and QC Jay are Jewish. Oh, I hear your (pre-programmed) cries, but exactly the same thing was said when Goldstone was appointed as the UN investigator to Cast Lead and look what happened there, a farce.
.
I’m not saying Jews are not honest but it is clear that they can be coerced by a foreign nation and therefore can not be relied on in any position involving the investigation of crimes by fellow religionists against the UK, particularity as their own religious dogma states that they are not bound to honour any oaths except between themselves.
.
It is this willingness to deceive at the most basic level that has empowered these religious imposters and not some deity deciding that they are ‘chosen’. They are Israel’s fith column, working from the inside to promote Israel’s racist and criminal agenda. Only those brainwashed with lies and nonsense do not recognise this.
Ah. We’re into the phrase-by-phrase deconstruction phase. Very well.
“I rather like “Afro drumz ‘n rantz” as a phrase.”
.
Were you not just bemoaning the state of the English language?
.
I was. A student of English literature would have recognised the intentionally sarcastic use of my phrase .
.
“I DO care if half the actors playing industrialists are black/Chinese/Indian because that was simply not the case.”
.
Oh noooooos, the horror! I’m glad you were able to identify the root cause of so many of society’s (-FIFY – K) problems, the wrong colour actors. This is serious stuff.
.
On a blog which is mightily concerned about the accuracy of the information the public is given, promoting a false historical image would appear to be serious, yes. But I do understand that anything is justified in promoting the PC line, and it is entirely unacceptable to object to one’s history being bastardised. I’d apologise, except that you might think I meant it.
.
“And I’ve probably done more dope than you have*”
.
That’s really really cool man.
.
All part of life’s rich tapestry. But thank you. You objected to my using a mention of dope as an alleged dogwhistle. To spell it out for you, it is unlikely that I would do so if I had used it frequently myself.
.
“so that aligns me with the Caribbeans and Indians, doesn’t it?”
.
Of course, naturally….. Not doubt you are down with the brown people.
.
Again, for the hard of comprehension, of course it doesn’t. But it might be expected to by someone who regards the mention of dope as a rightist dogwhistle.
.
Carry on.
Chest Pain:
.
“I’m not saying Jews are not honest but”
.
I’m not a racist but…
.
How many western politicians back Israel to the hilt who aren’t Jewish? None of my Jewish friends who weren’t born in Israel have any particular affinity or loyalty to Israel.
.
“but it is clear that they can be coerced by a foreign nation”
.
Who is ‘they’? All Jews? Norman Finkelstein seems pretty impervious to Israeli coercion.
Still, glad to see some serious discussion of one of several issues which divides the nation, with an occasional flicker of recognition that multiculti, while perhaps a noble ideal, has some significant snags in practice and execution, not least that it strongly implies the encouragement of faultlines in the community.
.
I’d like to explore the possibility that some sort of humane nationalism might offer an alternative to greedy global corporatism. Which promotes what it calls flexible labour markets, in which it is desirable (for the corporations) that cheap labour from other countries is encouraged to migrate here, for instance. But only for instance.
.
Putting on my scoundrel hat (patriotism is the last refuge of…) allow me to suggest that corporatism has succeeded in subverting and devaluing nationalism while supplying nothing socially advantageous in its place, and has done so intentionally. I’d also suggest that whatever the theories of Communism and its diluted leftist thinkers, the driving force behind any successful implementation of leftist theory has been an appeal to national identity.
.
Which we are losing.
“How many western politicians back Israel to the hilt who aren’t Jewish?”
Most of the US Senate. Most of the US Congress. Check it out, Cheeba.
.
“None of my Jewish friends who weren’t born in Israel have any particular affinity or loyalty to Israel.”
.
I think that may be true of a majority of British Jews, some of them very influential. Which is not to say that they do not consider Israel a cause worth supporting, regardless of its morality.
Komodo:
.
“society’s (-FIFY – K)”
.
Cheers mate, appreciated, and it certainly does add a lot of weight to your argument.
.
“On a blog which is mightily concerned about the accuracy of the information the public is given, promoting a false historical image would appear to be serious, yes.”
.
Really? The systematic coverup of government abuse and torture across the globe is comparable to not having the right skin tone in a feel good pap Olympics ceremony? I can see it now, millions of British school kids fail when they cite the London opening ceremony for their next history assignment. Did you know that historical dramas on the TV aren’t 100% accurate? The sky is literally falling.
.
“You objected to my using a mention of dope as an alleged dogwhistle.”
.
I think the fact you started talking about weed as soon as hiphop was mentioned shows how one dimensional your view of hiphop culture is. BTW the more you talk about how much weed you smoked, the more convinced I am that you are the real deal. It’s impressive stuff.