The Olympic censorship row

Nick Cohen’s Spectator cover story on Olympic censorship has been a smash hit, and is still being tweeted all over the world. It was followed up this morning by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on its 8.10am slot, and CoffeeHousers who missed it can listen again here. Freddy Gray, assistant editor of The Spectator, is quoted at the beginning on the appalling heavy-handedness of it all. Even the Cubans didn’t copyright the now-famous Che Guevara image (which was drawn by an Irishman

in any case). A liberal society like Britain should let people do what they want with words and images of major people and events. Including words like ‘Olympics’ and those rings. The Radio Four discussion featured Richard Caborn, the ex-minister who drafted the draconian Olympic legislation, defend it on the grounds that the Games needed £2 billion of private money. That may well be, but it ought to be raised within the limits of a democracy. And those limits mean that government should never kowtow to big corporations, or pass laws helping Visa fend off Mastercard or to ban chip shops from selling chips near the Olympic venue because it might offend McDonald’s.

One thing Radio Four’s discussion lacked: Nick Cohen. No one makes the case better than him – as CoffeeHousers know. We held our own discussion, on audio, in our ‘View from 22’ podcast last week where Nick described his trip to the Olympic village and seeing how no shops in the vicinity are allowed to make reference to it.