For ALE's December theme of liberalism we go back to the moment that makes liberals misty eyed, the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Rivers, railways and roads, the Churchill statue waving, the green mound that turns into an industrial hell, Kenneth Branagh, The Queen and James Bond jumping out of helicopters, Mary Poppins and the NHS beds jazz sequence... 

 

A high watermark for the Kingdom or a revealing window into the papier mâché heart of 21st Century liberalism? Who can say?  

 

Our Patreon

 

Buy our merch  

 

Second Row Socialists on Twitter  

 

Comradio on Twitter    

 

Alternative Left Entertainment  

 

Follow ALE on Twitter  

 

The Complete London 2012 Opening Ceremony 

 

Nick Clegg backs face-sitting protesters over UK porn ban - Andrew Grice in The Independent (2020) 

 

Baron Harkonnen 

 

Industrial Revolution sequence from the ceremony 

 

Brunel giving Caliban's speech from The Tempest  

 

The Queen and James Bond sequence from the ceremony 

 

Carl Schmitt at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

 

NHS sequence from the ceremony 

 

London 2012 organisers had to stop Jeremy Hunt putting Hitler in the opening ceremony, documentary reveals - Caroline Mortimer in The Independent (2016) 

 

Comradio Film Club #1: Mank 

 

Eclipse section from the ceremony 

 

"WHEN ERIC CLAPTON’S BIGOTED 1976 RANT SPARKED ROCK AGAINST RACISM" 

 

What the Olympics didn’t say about Britain’s place in the world - Eric Taylor Woods (2012) 

 

Neofeudalism: The End of Capitalism? - Jodi Dean in LARB (2020) 

 

Does Neo-Feudalism Define Our Current Epoch? - Louis Proyect for Counterpunch (2020)