Fame game

The summer is over, the Olympians have gone, and Lord Coe has been put back in his box for another year. But some memories will linger on, like a stubborn cold. Music fans, in particular, will struggle to forget George Michael’s performance in the closing ceremony. Other acts came out and played their most famous song for a TV audience of somewhere between nine and ten billion, according to industry insiders. George, wilful to the last, gave us his execrable new single. No one wanted to hear it, everyone was just waiting for it to end, but George wanted to play it, and afterwards he wanted us to buy it.

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Rupert Darwall

Labour has walked into a net-zero trap of its own making

Maybe you need to be that famous to misjudge your audience so acutely. Anyone whose ego does not travel separately would realise that people only want to hear the hits.