They were gathered to make sure that the engines of growth kept on the track, to the benefits of the world at large. Since then, of course, it has become more and more a political forum in which the leaders of the major powers can present a face to the world. But what you need to win the Games is passion, and Coe has been passionate about sport all his life.One of the biggest criticisms that has faced previous Games hosts concerns their failure to utilise expensive facilities once the circus has moved on.There has been careful planning within British sport to ensure that we do not fall foul of this "White Elephant" syndrome.The main Olympic stadium and the indoor arena will be converted for community use, and the London Marathon will put in £3m over a 10-year period following the Games in order to maintain the facilities.The Montreal Olympics of 1976 cost Canadian taxpayers a lot of money. A procession of the impoverished seeking crumbs from the rich men's table? A gesture of beneficence to the "natives" by the white man? Well, yes there is more than a bit of this. Not much notice has been taken of it, but today, attending the G8 summit in Gleneagles, will be the heads of state of India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, as well as the prime ministers and presidents of the Group of Eight themselves. And tomorrow will come the leaders of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Algeria and, again, South Africa. No wonder he doesn't want to define it.simoncarr75 hotmail More from Simon Carr. But what a flat-foot Tony McNulty, the Minister for Immigration, is.He was asked by Bournemouth MP, Tobias Ellwood, to give an example of ID cards foiling a terror threat anywhere in the world "I shan't," he replied.
Nor did he accept the word "terrorism" was useful in a definition of "national security" He didn't want definitions of anything much They were "unduly" or "dangerously" specific. He wanted to catch activities remote from terrorism (renting a car, or a house) that might be a far-flung part of a terrorist process But not mention terrorism. How else could they get convictions?He has 60 separate powers to make regulations under this Bill, but he won't tell us what they are National security, probably. Has some deal been done on the respect agenda? It's not a bad idea - we have merely been taking them on their own estimation after all. If the received idea about our leaders is that they are lying, deceitful, power-mad callous, greedy and cruel, it's only because we have believed what they tell us.Into Standing Committee D for ID Cards We mustn't rush to judgement.
The point about Mr Prescott's gloriously free-form syntax is that one always knows exactly what he means. How different to his highly educated colleagues - what they say could mean anything. As circumstances change they can adapt what they said through a wide arc of meaning. He stuck to his script, down to the pre-prepared jokes. One ended up: "Now we've got the Dirty Dozen!" He was referring to the Tories standing for the leadership. It sounded such an unpleasant thing to say, I started wondering about the lack of nastiness that's been settling around the House. But eight years later, the Los Angeles Games made a profit.London is likely to be somewhere in between these two extremes - but the benefits will be immeasurable.The writer is the chief executive of the Flora London Marathon and chairman of UK Sport's major events group. "Further investigation has to be dealt with announced around in Brussels effect intending to bring it about we're not the ones who brought it in." Those are my notes on John Prescott's view of Common Agriculture Policy reform It isn't him, but it sounds like him It's the fault of my notes not his speech patterns But it's a close call either way.