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Thursday 18 August 2016

Toby Young - Olympic Bellend

Team GB’s success at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has not only done wonders for a whole range of sports, it has proved too tempting by half for right-wing pundits to spin into something it is not. We have already had the collective idiocy that has tried to link the success to Brexit, and now we have the singular lack of wisdom from the loathsome Toby Young, aka Westminster’s Village Idiot, to claim the success for Conservatism.
More less than grown up punditry from Tobes

Tobes has been rewarded with a paycheque from those labouring in the service of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre for a Daily Mail article headlinedThe other big Rio winner...Tory values: TOBY YOUNG says Team GB's medal haul is proof of the belief that hard work and dedication lead to success”. It then goes downhill from there.

Tobes begins by framing the story in his favour: “Everyone can be proud of Great Britain’s medal haul at the Olympics - everyone, that is, apart from the country’s rump of embittered Lefties … class warriors find this triumph so hard to stomach … defeatism and lack of vision is all-too- typical of Left-wing teachers who see children as the products of their socio-economic circumstances, forever defined by their backgrounds, rather than the authors of their own destiny”. And there was more.

Yes, welcome to “the power of patriotism, something often sneered at by the Left … some of our most successful Olympians … urged [our athletes] to do their best for Queen and country … theirs are very British victories. With their hard work and unflinching dedication, they exhibit the same old- fashioned grit that belonged to the codebreakers of Bletchley Park and the aircrew serving in RAF Bomber Command”. Pass the sick bucket.

He wasn’t finished, though. “Team GB’s Olympic triumph is also a vindication of the decision by the former Conservative Prime Minister John Major to set up the National Lottery … At the time, the Lottery was attacked by Left-wing critics as a tax on the poor, who were dismissed as too stupid to realise how slim their chances were of winning”. Yeah, it’s a Tory win, and just keep Looking Over There.

So far, so selective, so let me put Tobes straight. Lottery funding was only diverted to fund what became Team GB after a humiliating 36th place in the medal table at the 1996 Atlanta games. After all those years adhering to good Conservative ideals of individualism, self-help and hard work, came state intervention on a hitherto unheard of scale, allied to a team spirit where all individuals are focused on that team succeeding.

Then the scarce resources are allocated to the sports that will bring in the medals - all of which echoes the conclusions of Keynes in The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money. You know Tobes, the Keynes that you and your pals rail against.

But Tobes has one more slice of idiocy to serve up - yes, he too tries to tie Team GB’s success to leaving the EU: “There could be no better evidence than their string of medals - and the bulldog spirit which they reveal - to show why fears that Britain cannot prosper outside the European Union are so hollow”. Oh, just f*** right off.

Not only has Team GB’s success nothing to do with Brexit, it has stuff all to do with Conservative Values either. Tobes’ head is still up his arse - no change there, then.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The real test for the Olympics v, Brexit will come in Tokyo 2020 or (wherever) in 2024, when the inevitable recession has set in and the funding has plummeted. Remind me, as well, how much of the money that the good people of this country hand over to the lottery is actually being grabbed straight away by the government as tax...??

rob said...

And certain football clubs get accused of trying the "buy" the Premier League. There will aways be those with more resources than others - no such thing as a level playing field in professional sport. Ask those countries without medals but who have athletes who can't hope to compete with those who throw money at at sport (some effectively some not).

game_cat said...

Each medal only costs blood, sweat, tears and, er, £5.5 million of lottery and tax payer money. But hey, what's that between friends??

A Kelly said...

And he has the colossal cheek to use a photo of Max Whitlock in his rotten article.

GCU Grey Area said...

Bletchley Park codebreakers and RAF aircrew.

Note to Daily Mail; lots of Poles, Czechs, Indians, Pakistanis and other nations in the ranks. . .

RodJ said...

Further note to Daily Mail: among the other nations in the ranks were one or two Germans who hated fascism as much as the Wail's then owner loved it.