Lancing the Olympics Leftist Boyle

Let's be clear, the Olympics opening ceremony had its moments. The Bond cameo (minus the bizarre parachuting Queen episode), Rowan Atkinson's role in the Chariots of Fire piece, for 'forging' of the Olympic logo, and the excellent Mike Oldfield. But the bottom line was that it was Danny Boyle's leftist politics that, ultimately, took centre stage.

The perverse NHS nonsense, the leftie 60s images (the CND insignia etc) but most of all Boyle's appalling understanding of what he views as an oppressive industrial revolution - a capitalist revolution that pulled millions out of poverty and led, ultimately, to a much cleaner, healthier way of life.

But by far the best take on the whole show came in a short piece in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph from, of all people, Rodney Atkinson, Rowan Atkins's brother. I commend it to you:

Rowan Atkinson's amusing turn was one of the highlights of the Olympics opening ceremony, but his brother, Rodney, is not impressed with Danny Boyle’s production.

“It had strong strands of the parochial Left,” claims Atkinson, who was annoyed by the ceremony’s “assumption that the industrial revolution was oppressive”.

He tells Mandrake: “The truth was that it emancipated us all and especially the ex-rural workers who suffered heavy labour in cold, rain and heat. They then had, by comparison, much less strenuous, mechanised lives.”

The academic adds: “Obviously, the pseudo-intellectual Left have never worked on a farm, as Rowan and I did when we were young. The Left never understand internationalism and the wealth which arises from free trade among free peoples and cultures. That is Britain’s greatest achievement.

"Their aim is supra-national, where peoples and cultures are subsumed, as they were in this ceremony, into a 'levelling’ Statist mish-mash, which inevitably leads to failure and conflict.”