Can I ask vis a vis the London 2012 Olympics what is happening to the BRIC countries?
China is currently heading the medals table but Brazil, Russia and India are languishing far far behind the United Kingdom (maybe Russia is technically just behind, but when you consider the disparity in population this is not saying much)
Of course I am only too aware that pride goes before a fall. "We" could easily slip from our position close to the top. And in any case the achievement is due to individual British athletes not collective national endeavour (despite the Olympics being a form of war without tears).
But what has happened to all those dire warnings about how power, wealth and prestige were passing from the West to the East? Nick Clegg's dismissal of the United Kingdom as a "pygmy nation" (insulting as that was to both pygmies and British people)? Of all the scoffing and sneering of RT television and Agnes Poirier and Mr Ahmadinejad etc etc?
China is currently heading the medals table but Brazil, Russia and India are languishing far far behind the United Kingdom (maybe Russia is technically just behind, but when you consider the disparity in population this is not saying much)
Of course I am only too aware that pride goes before a fall. "We" could easily slip from our position close to the top. And in any case the achievement is due to individual British athletes not collective national endeavour (despite the Olympics being a form of war without tears).
But what has happened to all those dire warnings about how power, wealth and prestige were passing from the West to the East? Nick Clegg's dismissal of the United Kingdom as a "pygmy nation" (insulting as that was to both pygmies and British people)? Of all the scoffing and sneering of RT television and Agnes Poirier and Mr Ahmadinejad etc etc?
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