The Olympics torch has run into a little difficulty in London today. Writing in the London Sunday Times before today’s disturbances Simon Jenkins provides a little background:

Today’s London publicity stunt for the Chinese regime should be ignored by the public and any reputable athlete or politician, unless to register a fierce protest. The four-month “journey of harmony” of the Olympic torch (or many cloned torches) through 21 nations is an exercise in political laundering. It is appalling that the prime minister is to “greet” his torch in Downing Street. This tour has nothing to do with sport. It has been staged by the Chinese government, not the International Olympic Committee, with “celebrity runners” in each country approved by the commercial sponsors, Coca-Cola, Lenovo and Samsung…Politicians should go nowhere near these Games except in protest. Leave them to sport. Today and at every stop along the way, the torch and its bearers must suffer a tunnel of shame, parodying its protestations of peace, brotherhood and justice. This is an opportunity to publicise and protest against the world’s greatest dictatorship. The BBC’s 400 Olympics staff are on the mother of all junkets, in contempt alike for China’s oppressed and Britain’s licence-fee payers. It will be shocking if such a media bonanza ignores its wretched political environs. China last week welcomed the British government as a member of something called the Olympic family. If this is a family, I hope that for the next four months it is an intensely unhappy one.

That’s well said, as is what Jenkins has written within the main text of the article about the International Olympics Committee. In the midst of occasional speculation that Bloomberg might be Obama’s running mate (most unlikely, I reckon), it’s well worth remembering that the Nurse was prepared to prostrate New York City at the feet of the IOC in order to win the ‘honor’ of hosting the 2012 games. Fortunately he failed…