'The Great British Summer' of 2012 is well and truly over. OurKingdom takes a rollercoaster journey back through the season to close its series.
Today OurKingdom is concluding 'The Great British Summer' series with a debate at London's Cafe Oto. Anthony Barnett introduces this conversation, reflecting on the political significance of the Olympic celebrations. Who will be empowered in the aftermath?
The Olympics have revealed once again that the British are fascinated with themselves and how they feel about who they are, now that they are a multicultural country that is no longer the centre of an Empire. Here we see some of the shifting responses detailed in polling responses run by the new t
As the Great British Summer reaches its twilight, John Osmond reflects on the continuing resurgence of Welshness marked by last week’s Eisteddfod.
As London 2012 draws to a close the questions of Legacy and how to measure the Games' impact emerge as present tense issues. In this week's Friday essay Phil Cohen challenges the starting point of these discussions: the assumption that the population who use and will come to use the space all shar
With London 2012 drawing to a close, Mark Perryman rounds up the books which can help us to understand the long term significance of the Games.
"Bread and circuses" really was the formula the Roman emperors used to buy the social peace needed to exercise their own power. And not just the Romans - every ruler in all time has always sought to bask in the divine glories of communal spectacle. Can't we grow up and reject these ostentatious ve
London 2012's opening ceremony offered an epic history of the British worker, but with no acknowledgement of what contemporary work is like. Its celebration of modern Britain was a trans-historical mash-up, flattening all history as repackaged and 'inevitable' British national identity. In fact, t
Mark Perryman spent a day at the Olympic Park in East London and concludes that the Games are a good thing - but could be so much better.
London 2012's opening ceremony evoked a 'gently fierce' national pride that was uniquely British in character.
London 2012's opening ceremony paid tribute to Britain's rich history of political dissent. But outside the Olympic village, a group of peaceful cyclists on their monthly ride around the city were being kettled by police. One of the 182 arrested gives her personal account
