I’m over in the UK for the Olympics and to see my family, there is a definite undercurrent about the overbearing regulations and heavy handed implementation and complaints about LOCOG.

The Independent has a great article: Father of Olympic branding: my rules are being abused

DJT1million • 3 days ago • parent −
I’m not sure that the Olympics are widely loathed to be honest. I think that there is, instead, massive indifference with occasional outbreaks of justifiable fury when the G4S scandal came out or when the money lavished on the Games is set against massive and punitive cuts to the lives of ordinary people and their services.

Locog have also been their own worst enemy with their arrogant and patronising attitude along with the heavy handed treatment of anyone daring to refer to The Games without paying the appropriate fee. Even here in the heart of London there’s barely a reference to the Olympics. I did expect people to get the bunting out, have little shop window displays supporting our athletes, schools having Olympic themed summer fetes before they break up for the holidays but there’s nothing. Locog have scared everyone into ignoring the whole party unless they’re a sponsor forgetting (or ignoring) that 95% +++ of the cost has been paid for by UK taxpayers, London council tax payers and National Lottery players. We all have a stake too.

Unintended consequences – these Games highlight just how dysfunctional our society currently is. They’re a perfect illustration that can be understood by everyone of just how far our nation has been handed over to big business at the expense of our wider society and values as a whole. Everything, the control freakery, the needs of the corporate sponsors, the ZIL lanes, the tax avoiding, the lavish (mis)use of public funds to benefit the very few and so on and on and on is the high water mark of 30 years of increasing inequality and the dysfunction inherent in the prevailing economic and political orthodoxy that is currently running out of steam.