Lord Addington
Main Page: Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Addington
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for raising this subject, primarily because it takes people out of the normal boxes in which they think. A few of us will do sport, a few of us will do international development and a few of us will do other things, and we try to look at them across our little silos. I have often berated parts of government for not talking to each other—indeed I have a standard speech for doing so—but we all do it. This has brought home to me the fact that we occasionally think that sport does X, international development does Y and other things do other things. However, it also shows the power of the Olympic Games as an international celebration and how they can go on to mean something else.
The Olympics have clearly grown in most people’s eyes over the past few years. The ending of the Cold War did more for the Olympics than anything else because it is no longer a “them and us” situation and our bloc doing better than theirs. Looking through the history of the ancient Games, I found out that it was not so very different when the Athenians and Spartans competed with one another in internecine warfare. Did one prefer the totalitarian side that treated its women better or the democratic side that ignored its slaves and kept its women at home and under veils? They were appalling states of affairs and appalling peoples. Let us remember that, just because they gave us nice columns and beautiful buildings and discussed things in public, it was not the ideal society.
However, the idea that a mass celebration—it is not just a nation’s celebration, but a worldwide celebration—should aspire to do something more is a good one. We can celebrate something tangible in a sporting context. That by the time you get to the field you should be on even terms and have a chance to interact as equals is probably the greatest idea of sport. Let us assume that we all have the same budgets and preparation, although here I am possibly going back to my normal silo. If the Games can take place and people can watch, they are surely a very good vehicle for taking forward other ideas.
The London Games have set themselves a very high benchmark in being concerned with legacy. An international legacy that can be built on, or at least a model for our country that other nations can follow, is incredibly difficult to achieve. If London gets it right, it will be surpassed fairly quickly because it will have taken the first steps on a difficult road—we are almost guaranteeing that we will take the first step.
The programme for international inspiration is probably the most interesting of the many projects that are emerging at the moment. The organisers are saying, “We will take this abroad, speak to other nations and try to get young people involved in sport”. Are we going to try to develop the idea beyond our legacy and prepare it for the Olympic legacy? Do we want to leave something that will be remembered and which somebody else can pick up, take forward—it will be Brazil next time—and expand and grow? Hopefully, we may even bring it home one day. If we can do that, we will have done something very special.
When we look at the ancient Games, we always forget the other games that went on at the time and how they became a circuit building up to the Olympics as the major event. I suggest that we try to bring in competitions such as the Commonwealth Games and the various world championships and make them more a part. We were talking about silos. The organisers of the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games like to talk to themselves rather than to each other. Indeed, they have squabbled in the past about which has the greatest participation in certain sports. For instance, I heard doubt expressed for a long time about whether Scotland takes hockey seriously in the Olympics because it enjoys the Commonwealth Games more. If one can see the bigger picture, silly interactions of this type will hopefully be cut down, helping sport along the way.
The noble Lord, Lord Bates, has started a very interesting discussion. I feel that most of us are not well enough prepared to go into it at any great length, so I shall sit down in a few moments. How are the Government making sure that we as the host nation are starting something that can be carried on? How can it go beyond the Olympics and be seen as something else? The truce is a good symbolic start, but if we say that it means simply, “Please stop fighting”, it will not work. It should mean, “Please stop fighting so that we do can something and reach for something”. The truce’s original purpose was to allow people to get to and from the Games without being killed. We should remember the brutality of the state in Greece and where the idea for the truce originally came from.
Let us go further. Then, you had to be Greek, not a trouser-wearing barbarian, which I believe is the ancestry of just about everyone taking part in this debate or listening to it. We can go beyond that and reach out to see how we can touch the rest of the world. When the Minister responds, if she could give us an idea about reaching out so that something that starts with the Olympics will go on and be renewed and given greater incentives at various points, we would be doing good here. We have proved that people are interested in the Olympics. They want the Games and will take time out to watch them. Surely, asking people who are taking time out to watch the Games to take time out to stop killing each other with such vigour is not that big a shift.