This was not the first and it definitely will not be the last, but Andrew Anthony has produced a thought provoking assessment of Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe, Knight of the British Empire, twice Olympic 1,5000m winner, former Tory MP and advisor to William Hague, and current Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games. That’s quite a title. Anthony’s article is good because it throws up all the usual ambiguities and paradoxes surrounding not just the London Olympics but all modern Olympic jamborees.

The central dilemma to unravel is whether such gigantic sporting projects should be simply dismissed as nothing more than corporate and national flag waving, or whether, behind all the hubris, there is a genuine act of internationalism where the brutalities and tribalism of planet Earth are momentarily transcended. The easy option is to go for a bit of both, a few bob each way and I suspect that our Observer journalist has done just that. Not that you can blame him because that is where the evidence leads us.’

The first spot of ambivalence starts with Sebastian Coe himself. The generally accepted consensus of the man is of a self weaning, Tory toff from Oxbridge. The reality, according to Coe himself is different. ”. I went to a secondary modern school, I was brought up in inner city Sheffield, my mother was half Indian and my dad was brought up in East London.’ Despite these protestations of a proletarian upbringing and despite being a student of Loughborough University as opposed to Oxford or Cambridge, I know what I see before me. To paraphrase the old proverb; if he talks like a Tory and walks like a Tory, then you can bet your last dollar that’s exactly what he is. His idea of a lasting Olympic legacy is to down-size the Olympic stadium into a 25,000 seat athletics centre where young men of similar socio-economic disposition to himself can strut their stuff for the empire. It’s ‘Chariots of Fire’ for the 21st century. ‘

I do believe that in his own Tory mindset he is genuine in his belief that sport can transform lives and that the London Olympics will do just that. Anthony describes Coe as being, ‘evangelical about what he sees as the vital role of sport in society.’ But when it comes to the follow through Coe washes his hands of it all. When questioned by Anthony about the Olympic legacy for the dysfunctional and despairing youth, Coe replies, ‘The legacy will not fall into our (LOC) hands.’ So the transforming potential of the Olympics is great in theory but Lord Coe has no intentions of getting his hands dirty. Don’t expect athletics to be taking off in and around Britain’s housing estates any time soon. It ain’t my job guv’

When interviewed by Anthony, Coe is happy to make comparisons with the failed Millennium Dome project. For Coe the problem was a lack of a ring master to pull it all together. No recognition by Coe of the facile, corporate blandishments that went to fill the meaningless zones. No recognition that the corporate world of consume, consume, consume had no real message for the new millennium. No hint that the gigantic debt bubble was about to burst plunging the entire world into the greatest recession since the Great Depression. No recognition that the capitalist logic of growth without reason was and is tearing the ecological fabric of the planet apart. So here we go again. A real chance to make a powerful statement about human development on a global scale and what does Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe serve us up? The same old corporate carnival, totally disconnected to the crumbling no-go housing estates of London. ‘2013 and it will be business as usual for the disconnected, impoverished families trying to eke out an existence on the post WW2 housing estates of one of the richest cities in the world. Coe just doesn’t get it.’