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Telegraph - How come only sport must have a conscience? By Jim White

On Radio Five Live’s breakfast news programme yesterday morning, the presenter Matt Smith was interviewing a 16-year-old runner who was due to take part in the Olympic torch relay through the streets of London.

“So,” he said, “have you thought about whether you really should be taking part in this?” The girl paused for a moment to let the question sink in, then replied: “No, not really.”

Judging by the rather embarrassed timbre of his voice, Smith was probably under editorial instruction. But of all the questions to ask a 16-year-old girl on what she might well reckon to be the proudest day of her life, this was undoubtedly the least productive. Here she was, an athlete herself, hoping that she might participate in the games when they came to London in four years’ time, and there was some bloke on the radio asking her if she had considered whether her involvement in a bit of pageantry was in fact an endorsement of the Beijing regime. All she had been thinking about up until that moment was how to stop her hand visibly shaking as she took possession of the torch. Plus, how she was going to squeeze the day into her GCSE revision timetable. And now suddenly she was being put on the spot as if she were not merely the momentary keeper of the flame, but the upholder of the nation’s conscience. …

No democrat should object to people voicing their distaste for the Chinese regime’s continuing suppression of Tibet. It was right that the protests were allowed to go ahead. There is a sound argument that the demonstrators should have been given more room to get their banners on the international television networks. What seems odd, however, is how the ground has shifted here. Now, anyone engaging with the forthcoming games and its build-up is being targeted as an apologist for a country whose approach to political freedoms generally centres around sending in the tanks. Judging by the anger being expressed yesterday, it was as if sports people are the only ones consorting with the Chinese. Why is no one asking questions like Smith’s of the banks opening up branches in Shanghai, or of the workers hoping that Chinese finance will restart the West Midlands car production lines, or of the owners of the outlet shopping malls across the country selling branded goods by the container-load to Chinese tourists? How come there are no demonstrations outside the headquarters of those firms sending waste plastic bottles out east in order to be processed by Chinese firms and turned into fleeces? Why aren’t there picket lines forming outside the many British schools and universities opening lucrative franchises in Beijing, or the offices of British architects making fortunes in fees from reconstructing the Chinese capital in time for the games this August? How come only sport is required to display a conscience?

Hah. Excellent question.

Incidentally: the word Olympics and all its derivatives (Olympian, Olympia, Olympiad), are really starting to look weird.