The FT’s Philip Stephens looks forward to London 2012:

Thinking of visiting London next summer? Here is some gentle advice. Think again. Britain’s capital city is playing host to the Olympics. Unless you have tickets to the 100m finals, you would do well to stay away…London is promised an exercise in authoritarian elitism to rival Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. The people’s games have been turned into the apparatchiks’ Olympics. The stadiums and arenas will overflow with politicians, bureaucrats and corporate sponsors. More than 1m ordinary families have failed to secure a single ticket even to the opening stages of the most obscure Olympic sports.
Civil liberties are to be suspended for the duration of the games. David Cameron’s government is promising draconian penalties for anyone who dares jeopardise the exclusive rights of commercial partners such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
The long arm of Olympic law will reach well beyond running tracks, pools and velodromes. Advertising sponsors have been promised what is chillingly called a “clean city”, handing them ownership of everything within camera distance of the games… The crackdown extends to what the Olympic Stasi call “advertising on the human body”. Freedom of expression can go hang.
…Cars are banned for all but the privileged…All this is to one purpose: to make life comfortable for the privileged elite that goes by the name of the “Olympic family”. I am not talking about competitors. Most would agree the runners, riders and rowers should be cossetted. No, the “family” comprises the 40,000 – yes 40,000 – Olympic bigwigs, national bureaucrats, commercial sponsors, hangers on and politicians who are preparing to slip into all the best seats at all the best events.
These oligarchs of sport have already grabbed every half-decent hotel room in the capital. They will whizz from their Park Lane suites to the Olympic venues along 100 miles of dedicated Zil lanes carved from an already congested road network.
Traffic lights will be programmed to turn green as the limousines approach and red again as they pass. Ordinary folk who inadvertently stray into the reserved lanes will face draconian fines. Penalties for parking in Olympic “exclusion zones” will rise tenfold.

Brezhnev? Well, that goes too far (much too far), but the Olympic Games are the UN in a tracksuit.

Best to keep clear, I reckon.