More and more, Britain is run by the rich and well-placed on behalf of the rich and well-placed, writes Simon Hoggart in the Guardian
Ghastly that so many Olympic tickets have gone to corporates, and to the appalling people who run so much of international sport. While the toads of Fifa will be whisked in stretch limousines to the men's 100 metres final (one million applications for tickets), the people who have paid for all this – the taxpayers of Britain and especially the council taxpayers of London – find they can't even get seats into the heats of the handball, an event which, if it were taking place outside the Olympics, would probably attract seven people and a dog.
But that's the way Britain works these days. Bankers wreck our economy, do nothing by way of reparation, give themselves the same huge bonuses and refuse to lend money to businesses while thousands wait to lose their jobs. Network Rail makes a multimillion pound profit, while ordinary folk who need to travel in the mornings have to fork out more than £120 to go standard class from London to Manchester.
More and more this is a country run by the rich and well-placed on behalf of the rich and well-placed. Which is how they organised things in Soviet Russia, until people realised they were being conned.
