an opinion piece in today's telegraph, though if Iain Martin believes that Paddy Barnes from Belfast was boxing for GB and had the butchers apron draped round his shoulders then he is as delusional as his piece tbh Paddy Barnes born in Belfast fights for the Republic of Ireland not "team GB" - so here is the question does the olympics strengthen the Union?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main … do2101.xmlThese last few years have been difficult for those of us who like to think of ourselves as British. There have not been many victories to lift the spirits as the banging of the nationalist drum grows ever louder in Scotland, Wales and England. The end of the Union has started to seem likely, inevitable even. The devolution programme, which Scottish Labour had cunningly designed to "kill off the Nationalists", produced a government run by the Scottish National Party.
More than a year on, Alex Salmond's personal ratings as First Minister are still high, as are those of his party; he intends to go for a referendum if the Tories win power at the next general election.
Even the Queen, if you believe the whispers, has started to prepare for the possibility of England and Scotland being separated in her lifetime. Our great monarch, source of such stability and good sense in turbulent times, would have to watch her country be ripped apart because several of her prime ministers failed in their duty to hold the Kingdom together.
The Queen is said to enjoy a good rapport with Salmond, but mainly, I suspect, because she has impeccable manners, and he has told her he only wants to unpick the 1707 Union of the Parliaments, not the 1603 Union of the Crowns. This is a trick.
Every SNP MP or Salmond adviser talks of this plan with a smirk, indicating that after enjoying so much success outfoxing unionists in recent years, they have devised a new wheeze. The message to Scots, for now, is: vote for independence in a referendum, and you can still have the Queen.
There would be something called the United Kingdoms - plural - over which Elizabeth II and possibly her successors (although, who can say?) would be allowed to reign. The "UKs" would become a mini-Commonwealth, this neutered little organisation all that would remain of the most successful union in history.
Worst of all, there were suggestions that Salmond had started swapping racing tips with Her Majesty. Having been a tipster for various newspapers, he loves horses nearly as much as she does. On hearing this I thought: well that's it gone, we Unionists really are doomed.
This is how the British establishment usually begins its preparations for withdrawal and disengagement: by edging towards the door, hoping to avoid a fuss.
And then the Beijing Olympics started. Slowly at first, through the smog surrounding the early events and the nagging sense that China was the wrong host nation, the games gradually came alive and, to the astonishment of the nation, Britain started winning medals - lots of them.
Suddenly, the Union flag was everywhere: draped around the shoulders of swimmer Rebecca Adlington (England), cyclist Chris Hoy (Scotland), cyclist Geraint Thomas (Wales) and boxer Paddy Barnes (Northern Ireland).
When Christine Ohuruogu won her 400 metres final in such tremendous style, and Ben Ainslie proved himself our most successful Olympic sailor, the surge of national pride was not artificially generated by politicians. This was a spontaneous outpouring and an unexpected return to habits buried deep in our shared history.
The gold rush has left the First Minister of Scotland with an unanticipated difficulty: this wave of British success was not in the script. So he jarringly claims Hoy's victory as a "Braveheart" moment and complains that the Chinese banned the Scottish Saltire, allowing teams to fly only the national flag.
His parochial form of patriotism runs counter to the prevailing mood of straightforward pride in Great Britain. And Salmond now has to factor 2012 into his calculations about a vote on independence: after Beijing, the London games will be keenly anticipated in all parts of the United Kingdom.
The SNP leader will be asked repeatedly whether he seriously wants to break up Team GB - in 2010 or 2011 - while it is deep in training to try to better its extraordinary performance in Beijing.
To claim that a two-week sporting competition has somehow blocked Scottish independence would be ridiculous. The Union continues to be in danger from the machinations of Salmond, the exemplary strategist. And while the Nationalists are under the direction of one strong leader, the various Unionist parties have suffered from appalling leadership.
Devolution gave Salmond a platform from which to go for independence. Now Labour, the Liberal Democrats and, astonishingly, even the Conservatives, are exploring ways of giving the Scottish parliament even greater powers. Why a second dose of devolution would be a smart idea, when the first put Salmond in power, is unfathomable.
But our Olympic glory suggests that the slide away from Britain and towards separatism is not inevitable. The Nationalists rely on the generation of a Marxist sense of historical inevitability about the break up of Britain, just as euro-fanatics do in regard to our immersion in the European project.
If enough of us can be convinced of its inevitability, then we will assume it cannot be prevented. The success of Team GB is a wonderful reminder that a split is not preordained.
After poor results in various competitions in the 1990s, it was decided under John Major's government to use a portion of the new funds pouring in from the National Lottery to transform our talent-spotting, training and the quality of facilities in sports where we should have been winning. How very British.
The Lottery finally paid out in Beijing, the lesson being that success can be achieved if we want it enough and reach deep into our reserves of technical ingenuity, teamwork and selflessness.
Unionist friends of mine say that this sporting success is a diversion, mere "bread and circuses" obscuring our weakness in the areas which matter: namely the maintenance of the UK and its powers of self-government.
They are wrong. Too often of late, Unionists have made their case in cold and exclusively economic terms, as though this were simply a matter of totting up various columns of pounds, shillings and pence, until a definitive answer on the constitution is arrived at. It is not always just the "economy, stupid".
In Beijing we are rediscovering through these marvellous athletes what previous generations understood: the constituent parts of the United Kingdom achieve more in concert, acting together, than any single country alone.
The young, black English runner and white sailor from Macclesfield were not foreigners to this Scot, they were fellow Britons proving what we can achieve when our national shoulder is put to the wheel.
Last edited by IG-Calibre (2008-08-21 10:03:56)