Britain Won the Games and Lost the Plot

 by Nick Cohen / August 13, 2012

Britain may look confident to the eyes of the Olympics spectators, but its leaders are clueless. The Games are going rather well, but a small incident illuminates the wider malaise. Once, Britain’s future seemed clear. It would abandon manufacturing and embrace services. However, the 2008 crash crushed old illusions and paralyzed the British political class. The City could never return to the wild days of the bubble. The “normal” is over and gone. The Olympic opening ceremony revealed that Britain had had a glorious millennium but that its future would be clueless, as the ceremony failed to show anything worth mentioning.