Monday 6th August

Just for a moment forget the medal table and whether we win more gold medals than last time. None of that is really important; if do not win another medal we have done incredibly well anyway.  What matters is that London, my home town, has shown the world how to do it.  Despite the squally weather London looks fantastic, especially Stratford, where huge posters of our athletes are decorating tower blocks, and everything looks shiny and new.  And on the TV all of the Olympic venues look brilliant, from Greenwich to Wimbledon, and despite a lot of grumbling the marathons passed so many icons of London, the Bank of England, Tower Bridge, the London Eye and of course The Mall and Buckingham Palace.  I love Paris, but even that beautiful city would have struggled to match the glory of London this year.  And I am sure that many visitors from abroad will be amazed at the helpfulness of ordinary Londoners, and what may come as some surprise the fairness of our spectators.  Of course we want our own athletes to win, but we also applaud whoever wins, whatever nationality they might be, and even the two Saudi women got big cheers from the crowd.  After the giants of America and China whose crowds were incredibly partisan this might come as some surprise to many, but it was never in any doubt; that’s the way we do things over here.   So, a spectacular and wonderful games, and win or lose we should be so proud.