Wall-To-Wall Olympics Pandas To China

Welcome to Beijing 2008. Home to big profits, corporate sponsorship and state propaganda. That in a country with an appalling human rights record, ravaged by pollution, its people under the thumb and too scared to speak out.

Spies everywhere, internet access blocked, Thousands have been forced out of their homes for the carnival. But the media doesn't give a toss.

The TV teams and anchors are now in place for the most highly politicised Olympics since Hitler and his henchmen tried to use the 1936 Berlin Olympics for their own propaganda.

Last night, Huw Edwards for the BBC, Mark Austin for ITV and Alex Thompson for Channel 4 News blocked out the bulletins with wall-to-wall Olympic coverage. All trying to see through the smog for stories that will capture some interest back home.

Brown will be there for the opening ceremony on Friday. So will Bush, the first US president ever to go abroad to the Olympics. Both reinforcing the oppressive rule of China's communist regime. Thousands of hangers-on will be there for the freebie.

After the TV pictures of the nice opening ceremony and fireworks display, seen through the pollution, what are you left with?

According to an estimate by the Beijing Olympic Game Organising Group, the total cost of the Games is around £33 billion. Five times the cost of the 2004 Athens Olympics and enough cash to feed the whole population of China for a couple of months. So much for communism.

Political leaders, Olympic committees and athletes, try to play down the politics and play up the sport. But the Olympics is politics, and none more so than in China right now.

The political Olympics does sometimes backfire.

Hitler had his Aryan superiority propaganda thrown back in his face by US black athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics.

In Mexico City, in 1968, two African-American medal winners raised their fists in a black power salute.

Instead of sucking up to the Chinese authorities, our politicians, athletes and the vast media army should have the guts to show up the Chinese regime and its blatant propaganda for what it really is.