The warm glow of Team GB's best performance in 104 years and pride in an Olympic Games well received at home and abroad have led a clear majority of the British public to conclude the £9bn they cost is good value for money.Clearly, very few of the respondants to the poll come from East London, where rents have more or less doubled in a year. But it's interesting given the relentless, noisy and often illogical promotion this event has been given. Not everyone loves Seb Coe. The Olympics is a brute festival of corporations and states. Despite the soft-left wishing really wishing hard, you just can't square that with any kind of progressive agenda, and it shows:
Despite the success of minority ethnic Britons such as the Somali-born 10,000m champion, Mo Farah, voters remain inclined to doubt that most newcomers do anything positive for Britain.
By a narrow 53%-47% margin, the survey finds agreement for the suggestion that "More often than not immigrants … do not bring anything positive, and the likes of the Olympic-winning athletes are an exception".
Faith in the contribution of immigrants is much stronger in London, where 62% disagree with this statement, and a majority of respondents aged under 45 likewise disagree, but among pensioners there are particularly marked doubts about newcomers – with 64% of the over-65s describing the Olympians as "exceptions".
Attitudes harden further when the question switches to immigration in general. Only 32% of respondents say the Olympic successes make them "more positive (or less worried)" about it, against just 68% who disagree.This is just one example, albeit the most pointed. This is where nationalistic tubthumping gets you, regardless of your intentions. Everyone in the mainstream wants to graft their own political outlook onto the Olympics, but some philosophies will do better than others. For David Cameron the British team's success at the Olympics proves that there is scandalous lack of competitive sport in schools (as opposed to "Indian dancing or whatever"). By that logic Britain's schools need more inclusive activities, not fewer. This is also something which he has only just noticed as, clearly, his mind was on something else when he got rid of the two-hour a week target, set by the previous Labour government.
The entire political class thinks though whimsy and daydreams (Boris Johnson wants state school sports to be just like it was when he was inb Eton - oh how jolly). We have to live with the nightmare.