The true symbolism of the Olympic torch: the capitalist monster is on the run

The symbolism of the Olympic flame, last seen meandering through Kent, has been much misunderstood. Forget the propaganda about ‘shining a light on local communities’. When Toby Young took his children to watch the relay pass through Dartmouth, he found it ‘not merely tarnished, but ruined by the heavy-handedness of the sponsors’ — Lloyds TSB, Samsung and Coca-Cola — whose lurid convoy preceded the torch itself. The following week, I wrote in defence of the idea that companies cannot be expected to put up seven-figure sums for ‘feel-good causes’ without some high-profile publicity in return.

But both of us had missed the point. A pageant made up of a bailed-out bank, a cut-price Korean consumer electronics giant and a nutritionally worthless fizzy drink that reaps $50 billion a year from the world’s poor is a perfect representation of the man-made monster that is 21st-century capitalism. And it’s been on the run all summer, pursued by a mob with flaming torches.