The Debatable Land #11: A disgraceful Winter Olympics

We cannot pretend we do not know the truth about China. We do.

Hello! Welcome to the eleventh edition of my newsletter. Thanks for being here. It is much appreciated. As always, it would be lovely if you felt like sharing this with friends or family or on social media or wherever. It does help and make a difference. Thank you.

A Five Ring Disgrace

No-one ever accused the Olympic movement of suffering from a surfeit of morality. Even so, the winter games currently taking place in and around Beijing are a disgrace. The sport - even the makey-uppy contests of dubious athletic endeavour - will doubtless be grand but even as we enjoy the circus we might, just occasionally, pause to reflect upon the species-shaming wickedness in awarding the games to a country more than plausibly accused on carrying out a genocidal campaign of extermination against its own people.

The poor damn Uighurs’ suffering is one of those stories lurking at the back of many minds but that is rarely allowed to venture towards the forefront of our consciences. There is only so muc…