Olympics: What did the London 2012 opening ceremony say about the UK? - BBC Newsnight
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 сер 2016
- The opening ceremony of the London Olympics was seen as a moment of collective national pride. But four years later what does it tell us about the UK? Emily Maitlis debates the issue with Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, and Peter Hitchens, columnist at the Mail on Sunday. Watch the full programme on London't Olympic legacy at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...
Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
UA-cam: / bbcnewsnight
Twitter: / bbcnewsnight
Facebook: / bbcnewsnight
Snapchat: / bbcnewsnight
I wonder what Peter Hitchens is like on his birthday
I think he and his family stand starchily around a piano singing hymns - the piano's legs are covered of course.
He has 7 bottles of blue WKD and 4 jägerbombs.
A miserable twat, like evey other day.
@@BlyatimirPootin Totally agree. He hates everyone and everything. Ive never come across a more morose, bitter and unhappy person in my life. He even hated his own brother,
@@henrysmith883 well said
He's not wrong. 9 billion at a time of austerity to watch a bunch of sports most people don't care about.
Just because you don't like watching people fitter than you doesn't mean that most people don't like watching sport. And besides, it's totally naive to think that the Olympics is just about sport.
MD 98 with the funding having been put in before the 2008 Financial Crisis?
I understand what my 8th Army Veteran Grandfather said to me before he passed away
I don’t know why I bothered fighting for 6yrs when talking about this country and that was in the 90s
"I really loathe compulsory joy" spot on Mr. Hitchens. I hated how she kept interrupting him, something she predictably didn't do with the other fellow.
True, we had compulsory joy then, and we have compulsory misery at the moment.
because hes at least intersting and worth interupting
Harry Potter is on the same level as Dickens and Shakespeare? Get real...
you're right - HP sold far more units
Harry Potter inspired millions of children and adults to read long, relatively complex stories. I'm sure there would be many hundreds of thousands of far less literate people today (especially with the rise of digital entertainment) had those books never been written. Also far fewer who would be familiar with other great British writers like the Bard and Boz, having been exposed to a library, the joy of finishing a good book, or British literature in general for the first time through Rowling's world-wide phenomenon.
@@sullivansongz I doubt that Rowling will endure as well as Shakespeare
J.R. Stutton unless it was a better to worse list.
The media fawning over that ceremony was hilarious.
Kraft durch Freude
Is Peter mellowing with age?
🗣@3:39 secs ... *Excellently* *put* !! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
With Peter all the way
Think peters last comment was the best argument ..
It really was.
The people who organised the Olympics profited from it. It was a private party funded by everyone else. Mr. Jeremy Hunt will know more on the subject.
It didn’t speak to me at all. It was like a BBC ident, just fluff.
I wonder if Peter Hitchens has ever done any debates/appearances with his late brothers son, Alexander? They both have years of work on the subjects of national security and islamo-terrorism. That would be an engaging discussion.
I loved the ceremony and how it displayed prominent black Victorian industrialists who definitely historically existed. London is now a cancer unstuck in time which distorts everything around it.
***** You realise the Egyptians weren't black, right?
*****
www.westernspring.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/28177_407827949314106_1766428408_n.jpg
I'm pretty sure it wasn't trying to be literal lol
Bloke on the left needs a bigger shirt.
You need a bigger brain
I loved the ceremony. It was modern. I especially loved the segment toward the end with the timeline of British music from the 60s to present because even if you have no idea about the rest of its history, there’s no doubt that you have heard majority of those songs before. It connected you as a viewer to Britain even you are not from there
You can just tell how happy he is with brexit even though he knows the fight isn't over
The US version said your NHS celebration was just moms and dads taking care of their kids . not one word about NHS.. We are such idiots... I thought is was a wonderful watch . one of the best!
Why do they always have somebody of African or Indian subcontinent heritage on these programmes lecturing us on what it is to be British?
To rub our noses in it.
@@GreenEyedGod27 Exactly!!!
Because they are also British citizens. This man was born here and has every right to experience British culture the same way as us. He was supporting our country, Hitchens had a very nihilistic view.
@@basildon9008 bull shit
BILLIONS ROUND WORLD LOVE ARE MUSIC ,
Peter is a savage god 😂
The closing ceremony was much better then the opening one.
Hitchens is great on things like this.
Do wish he'd stop trying to correlate the Phenomenon of Global Jihad with cannabis and /or prescribed medicine use, though.
We do need an inquiry of course, but, I think his current line of thinking is unhelpful.
He's not. He's only correlating the recent spate of lone wolf attacks with (various) illegal drug use.
He said Charlie Hebdo & the Nov. 2015 Paris attackers were just "doped up wasters".
He's wrong to lump them in with his usual suspects, even if they did use cannabis, because those mother fuckers knew exactly what they were doing.
Well as Peter has said he presents you the facts and you come to your own conclusion. The fact is all these atrocities across the globe were done by drug users
@ Ronnie - Although Hitchens is, as you say, great on things like this, I've noticed that he is also capable of extraordinary spite. Re the jihad issue, after watching several of his interviews on religion and reading some of his blog posts, I've come to the disturbing conclusion that in a perverse way he welcomes the eventual turning of Britain into a Sharia state. Not because he likes Islam, but because he thinks Britain deserves to be punished for becoming less Christian and that it will serve Britain right to be overtaken by a religion which is more sure of itself and more uncompromising. (He has actually said on TV: "Muslims say they hate our way of life. Well in many ways I hate our way of life!") Personally, I have quite a lot of sympathy for the Cranmer Prayer Book and the King James Bible, and think it sad they have been overtaken by pop culture and the like. On the other hand, I can recognize the threat of global jihad *in its own right*, not simply as a result of the decline of Christianity in Britain. Of course, there might be something in what Hitchens says, insofar as if a nation doesn't maintain strong traditions and values then it will most likely become vulnerable, which might perhaps be what he means. (After all, Japan is not a Christian country, yet has been very resistant to Islam.) Either way, I may be wrong about this, but I don't think I am. It would help explain his constant and bizarre side-stepping of the issue by changing the subject to drug-taking. As it happens, the existence of ISIS blows a hole through his ludicrous jihadi-drug theory, since there's probably at least one person (to say nothing of a legion of people) among them who is not on nor has ever done drugs.
ben I think it's very tempting to draw the conclusion that Hitchens minor wants Islamism to triumph - and for him to live in Dhimmitude as a man of the book( albeit the wrong one) - but he strenuously denies this only today. I'm not utterly convinced, but at the same time, we have to listen to him when he expresses himself so clearly.
That's the criteria we tend to give Jihadists; if they say, "we are embarked upon a Jihad, that's why Ahmed blew himself up in Burger King"
we don't then do as Regressive Leftists (Nawaz) would do, suggest they are confused about their motives & blame the attack on our foreign policy.
That's what we would be doing, if we 'uncovered' Peters real wishes here, even as he attempts to tell us precisely what his real wishes are.
I'm uncomfy with it, but it's a necessary evil. Not least because I think Peter would definitely find the Islamification proper of GB quite amusing, if undesirable.
The London Ceremony allowed millions of people around the world to know and acknowledge British History and Culture. Everything these days is American in the eyes of every common man.
I may not like Peter Hitchens but I partially agree with him.
''Rock music . . . garbage as far as I'm concerned which has no bearing on culture at all.''
Yet another fail from PH. He really will just say anything these days in some sad attempt to be contrarian.
Great debate. I'm glad we spunked billions on the best Olympics to date, I can still happily watch the whole Opening Ceremony, capped by the Floyd and The Beatles. In fact, I'm about to ! =)
Dan Hare saaaaaaaaad as fuck
That last comment from Peter Hitchens is a zinger: bet it was a few months before the Blairite BBC let him back on after that.
Harry Potter hahahahaha! No sign of the King James Bible or anything important and influential. I didn't watch ANY of the Olympics - I just heard about it and the ceremony.
btw .. we didn't invent the 'Internet' only the world wide web www. Doris.
I agree with most of the things Peter Hitchins says.
Few understand that Mr.Hitchens is one of the few asking to protect the poorer working family and his criticism is based on true values of all religions and common sense!
Lol
I know but unfortunately we are run by metropolitan bourgeoisie elites who love cheap labour and cheap products while harping on about slavery
The irony is there for those that see
So basically Peter wanted us to show Britain as it was in 1900 rather than Britain as it was in 2012. No thanks.
The Britain with better state education, a powerful navy, brilliant statesmen, full emplyment and an empire? Yes, please.
He wasn't referring to our place in the world, he was specifically referring to culture and whining about the fact that the ceremony dared to include things like *gasp* rock music.
On a side note, state education was garbage in 1900 (unless you think leaving school at 13 is a good thing) and the "full employment" was largely on the backs of the poor working masses making a pittance and working in crap conditions.
Diwrnod: Yes, captain obvious, everyone is aware of different periods of history having different living standards. That's the entire point. Hitchens and the like are nostalgic for an era where life was
objectively worse for everyone.
And no, moving to cities to work in factories with crap working conditions doesn't provide any kind of solace when it meant families cramming themselves in to one room and living in slums that were rife with disease.
What is it with this kind of person that goes "so basically" then goes on to distort someone´s opinion? Does no one call you on this bullshit in real life?
jaykaykaykay What a weird thing to get annoyed about.
So sad Peter Hitchens died
u mean christopher?
Oh man I laughed
So sad you don't understand what he was saying.
Olympics!? Bah, humbug! And quite right, too. (I shall be in hibernation during the current Rio extravaganza.)
every olympics - 1st week "full of cheats" then during the 2nd week "great olympics" (this clip was from the 1st week obviously) - as predictable as everyone hating a simon cowell tv show until the last week.
The best thing we have done for decades and Peter Hitchens pours cold water on it. Jesus he’s a happy soul isn’t he.
Evil Occult ceremony, proves London is the capital of The Occult that shocking evening
I usually like PH but he’s literally just being a grumpy old man here. Doesn’t really have a salient point.
How is that not salient?
Yawn
The other bloke is real British😂 think his ancestors fought at the Battle of Hastings
Always funny to hear the WASPs and secularists namedrop the quite Catholic Shakespeare, although they clearly don't bother reading him. A Classical pagan would be more at ease referencing Shakespeare than the modern British. The Glorious Revolution actually wiped out the Shakespeare family for good, but no one's considered the historical weight of that fact.
Shakespeare even uses the *Roman* Five Act method of structuring a Play. It's not as if this is hidden knowledge.
Hitchens is such a fuddy duddy. Majority of uk liked it, he didn't oh well go read a book mate.
@Mick Langley Well then let them have their illiterate lefty ceremony
They liked it because there imbercile
Hitchens needs to relax ... His comments on rock music shows areal ignorance and lack of understanding of the complexities it involves .....
And as per usual no Celtic references were in it..no Celtic history at all
There were nods to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it was mainly about England because London is ultimately an English city.
There was barely anything English in it either
I hated it !
Peter has to be the grumpiest man alive.
I disliked the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony even the Olympics to lesser extent , living only a couple of miles away I felt the Olympics completely ignored the local community
I thought the industrial revolution bit was spectacular (I'd also have liked to have seen the profound role of the Navy portrayed as well), but Peter is right about the latter half. It was garbage.
Yes, that bit was indeed spectacular and quite emotional
I admire Peter Hitchens and have found his logic and consistency refreshing over the years. However, his position finally unravels with this one, tellingly by his reference to rock music as 'cultural garbage'. No doubt he says this because he believes the 1960s was when the rot in the UK set in, which helped bring about - with the assistance of devious marxists having wrested control of the policy direction of the state - the fall of the church, patriotism, law and order etc. What he doesn't realise is that this was (a) a phenomenon that happened in the West generally and was not specific to the UK, and (b) a result of the creation of a mass produced contraceptive pill. There was little action that could have been taken by a conservative government to prevent it.
It's lamentable, yes, from the point of view of a social conservative but unavoidable.
Finally, while we may enjoy the kicking Hitchens gives to the modern UK, I think if given the choice we wouldn't want to live in his ideal word because we would find it a little sterile, even if some of us would prefer the whitened demographics. That's why the 1950s British youth embraced the arrival of American rock'n'roll like they did (music, by the way, shaped by working class youth).
The director of British Future is an Indian.
The british didn't invent the internet. What a ridiculous statement.
Was obviously referring to the World Wide Web.
No, not obvious. You think the general public understand the difference? This presentation, and all others regarding that fraud, Berners-Lee are specifically tailored to give the false impression that the wonders of the internet were created by UK Berners-Lee and the central hub of pseudo science CERN
Il go one further. Anybody who understands a computer knows its about the transistor. The uk invented this also.
Graham6762 Yes they did !! They also invented Morden computers ! Do some research !
its too late to overturn. mixed race children of immigrants will never be British and frankly they don't actually want to be. All of the old traditions have been more or less erased or on the way to extinction along with the culture and character of the English, Scottish and Welsh nations. The nerve of all of these strangers landing in some country, reinterpreting your entire history whilst mocking you, then insinuating you're awful for having a problem with this....is simply quite breathtaking.
Sunder Katwala is a British political activist of Indian and Irish family heritage. He is the director of the identity and integration think-tank British Future. Also involved with Fabian society. How or why did he want to be part of an identity think tank? because he's mixed race and confused, and wants to feel more at ease so projects onto others his own insecurity. believing any nation on earth can absorb endless waves of different peoples, religions cultures is the height of insanity. we wouldn't expect it of Bangladeshis so why the hell should Europeans accept this vast programme of colonisation?
He's yabbering on about 'social progress'. Rotherham and white flight would throw a spanner in that particular argument. virtually every older Brit I've met is gloomy about the future, as their entire history is being erased both demographically and via the rewriting of history. what a tragedy
sunder is such a beta
3:38 Every so often the mask of civility slips just a little and the well concealed rage towards any opinion not of the far left nears the surface until concealed again.
Oh look, Peter Hitchens is right *again*!
Two Jews and an Asian get to discuss British culture on British TV. Any chance that an actual British person could be allowed to join in the discussion?
Peter has consistently called himself a British Patriot and Anglican.
What are you on about?
LOL. He's Jewish. What are YOU on about?
Tom Rogers Alright, I need to find out what kind of an Anti-Semite you are;
Is he ethnically a Jew?
Do you think he practices Judaism in private?
Is this because he supports Israel?
Please, enlighten me.
Goodness, an 'anti-Semite', we can't have that!
He is, by his own admission, a Jabotinsky Zionist, yet at the same time he openly ridicules British ethnic nationalists, claiming that 'racism' is something terrible, nasty and awful. That double standard speaks for itself and tells you everything about where his true loyalties lie.
No he is British.....he used to be a leftist though.....something he regrets.
It was full of woke nonsense.