REACTION:FORMER SMITHS singer Morrissey has condemned the London 2012 Olympics as "blustering jingoism", comparing the public reaction to Britain's medal victories to emotions in Nazi Germany in 1939 on the eve of the second World War.
Often controversial, the singer posted a letter on his website declaring: “I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? “The ‘dazzling royals’ have, quite naturally, hijacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness,” said the Manchester-born singer.
“As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. Meanwhile the British media present 24-hour coverage of the ‘dazzling royals’, laughing as they lavishly spend, as if such coverage is certain to make British society feel fully whole,” he went on.
“In 2012, the British public is evidently assumed to be undersized pigmies, scarcely able to formulate thought.
“As I recently drove through Greece I noticed repeated graffiti seemingly everywhere on every available wall. In large blue letters it said, ‘Wake up, wake up’. It could almost have been written with the British public in mind, because although the spirit of 1939 Germany now pervades throughout media-brand Britain, the 2013 grotesque inevitability of Lord and Lady Beckham (with Sir Jamie Horrible close at heel) is, believe me, a fate worse than life. Wake up, wake up.”
During a homecoming concert in Manchester last month, Morrissey complained that the Smiths’ music had not been used in the opening ceremony choreographed by film director Danny Boyle.
He told fans: “You may have noticed I wasn’t invited to the Olympics opening ceremony. This was because my smile was thought to be too sincere.”
During a concert in Argentina earlier this year, the singer told fans the Falkland Islands had been stolen from them. He later dressed his band in T-shirts bearing the slogan “We Hate William and Kate”.
Never a fan of the British royal family, Morrissey compared Queen Elizabeth, on the eve of her visit to Ireland last year, with the then Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy.
“The very existence of the queen and her now enormous family is entirely against any notion of democracy, and is against freedom of speech,” he said in an interview.
“For a broad historical view of what the queen is and how she ‘rules’, examine Gadafy or [then Egyptian leader Hosni] Mubarak and see if you can spot any difference.”
Meanwhile, the party mood that has engulfed London in the last week is to be rekindled in September when the British Olympic team takes part in a victory parade in central London.
London 2012 head Sebastian Coe said the images of London beamed around the world since the opening ceremony of the Games countered images broadcast a year ago of the city’s riots.
“The world saw a very different London a year ago, and you know exactly what I’m referring to. And I think I said at the time, it was a London that I didn’t recognise,” he said.
Meanwhile, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said he wants to create an Olympics-style competition for children in the UK to increase involvement in sports.
“Primary schools is where it all starts and catching people young is incredibly important,” he said.
