Brown Decides

Gordon Brown has finally decided, or rather, finally effectively communicated his decision about his attendance at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

He will not attend the opening ceremony, but will attend the closing ceremony where the handover to London will occur.

At first sight it may appear that Brown has taken on board (albeit late in the day) the calls by some to boycott the opening ceremony. I would note that many of those who call for a boycott seem happy enough to buy Chinese products (clothes, consumer electronics etc).

The reality about Brown's announcement is not quite so straightforward. In truth he was never going to both the opening and closing ceremony, it takes 20 hours round trip to fly to Beijing; the closing ceremony for Britain is far more important, as that is when the games are handed over.

Therefore Brown had long ago made his mind up to only go to the closing ceremony.

The question that remains unanswered is this:

Why did he take so long to communicate this?