The serious business of having fun

By John Rapley

Nations use Olympic Games like debutante balls: a way to declare their self-image to the world, and to ask for other countries' acceptance of it. At Vancouver's Winter Games two years ago, the Canadians announced they were sick of being also-rans and would finally "own the podium".

Two years before that, the Chinese used the Beijing Summer Games to tell the world that the Middle Kingdom was back at the centre of the world stage, producing an opening ceremony that will probably never see a rival.

When London was awarded the 2012 Summer Games seven years ago, its celebrations were thwarted abruptly, and tragically, by the 7/7 bombings. As if an omen of doom hung over the Games ever since, the British have felt ambivalent about the Olympics these last seven years. The usual whingeing that London's horrendous traffic would only get worse, that tickets would be too expensive, and that London's show would look paltry next to Beijing's, beset the preparations. Surely, said the cynics, the London Games would be a flop.

British gambling

But then, such complaining lies at the heart of the British self-image. Britons have long seen themselves as a people who grumble but get on with it, and somehow manage to always stay in the game. This will be how the country presents itself to the world with these Games. No sooner had the Beijing Bird Nest's last light been switched off than London's organisers said they could never raise enough money to match the Chinese for spectacle, so there was no point trying. Instead, the world was told it would get a low-key Games in which the athletes, not the venues, took centre stage.

Over the last few months, the city has been grey, cold and wet. Despite the sardonic sense that this was an appropriate face for Britain to show the world, there were fears that the Olympics might be a literal washout. But a week before the event, the clouds parted, the sky turned blue, and the heat of high summer returned.

After three weeks abroad, I returned last Thursday to a city that was bouncy, keen and overrun by volunteers. Exhausted by a long flight, I flopped on my bed in Brixton and opened my balcony door to hear the loud cheers of the passing torch relay. These people may not have been able to afford event tickets, but they seemed, at least for now, to be taking what fun they could in the Olympics.

Woes without end

Last-minute stumbles have abounded. The security contractor admitted it couldn't meet its targets for security guards, forcing the army to put soldiers on the streets. Trains broke down and underground lines stopped running. And the road congestion? Well, let's not go there. This is, after all, London.

And, this being England, the rains may yet return. Moreover, the ultimate success, or disappointment, of the Games will hinge on events over which the organisers have no control. Like whether Usain Bolt beats his world record or not. Disappointment in the events may turn what everyone hopes will be a blast into fizzle.

Britain is mired in a recession which shows no signs of ending, and is riven with a worsening class divide that is only aggravated by the shower of foreign, and often dubious, money brought in by Russian oligarchs and Arab oil sheikhs. The London of 2012 is very different, more cosmopolitan, less self-assured than the London which hosted the Olympic Games in 1908. Then, the British Empire was at its peak. Now, Britannia seems well past its prime.

Advocates of a new Britain celebrate that fact, and point to London's diversity as its unique strength. The face the city, and country, manages to present the world may affect Britain's own uncertain image of itself for decades to come. This will be anything but another Beijing-style Olympics. But those who prefer messy democracy to autocratic perfection might think that rather a good thing.

John Rapley is a research associate at the International Growth Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.