In 1996, after 17 years of Conservative government, the past six under the premiership of the cricketing Major, Great Britain went to the Atlanta Olympics and won precisely one gold medal. We ended that Games in 36th position, just behind Ethiopia and just ahead of Belarus. It wasn't just that Greece did better than us - Kazakhstan got four golds. If one were to take the Olympics as any kind of indicator of national health (and why should we not?) we would have to conclude that the past 12 years have been very well spent.So on Aaro's reading by 1996 Britain was in a worse state than Ethiopia and Kazakhstan? I wonder how he would explain the 1988 table where the two leading countries ceased to exist by the time the next games came around, no doubt to the consternation of the East German and Soviet Aaronivitches.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Toad Denounces Lizards
David Aaronivitch has churned out his latest piece denouncing the "lizards" who don't believe that under Labour, tractor production is reaching heights barely believable under previous governments:
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2 comments:
"If one were to take the Olympics as any kind of indicator of national health.."
Why on earth should that be any kind of indicator to anything, other than the desire of some people to get a little gold badge for running, jumping or throwing things further than antyone else...?
JuliaM is correct. Indeed, any improvement in performance by Britain has come about largely through John Major's introduction of Lottery funding, from which the outcomes have (rather obviously) appeared years later.
Airhead-wrong-ovitch is so desperate to keep plugging away his pro-Labour stance (just as Kevin Maguire is doing, if anything even less credibly) that we are going to keep reading this sort of nonsense -- if we even bother to read it.
I do sometimes just to remind myself of how warped and twisted these columnists are, including Polly and others. I even wrote a piece based on them all a couple of days ago.
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