Conservative games

The decision to re-route the 2012 Olympic marathon away from the East End has enraged local opinion. A chorus of Labour politicians have condemned the move and Councillor Peter Golds, who leads the Tower Hamlets Conservative group, has described it as "absolutely ridiculous." Local businesses don't seem happy either, led by the influential Canary Wharf Group . London Assembly member John Biggs has asked Transport for London to make public the traffic management advice that games organisers Locog claim forced them to plot a course that begins and ends in The Mall, rather than passing through one of the poorer parts of town. "I do not believe this is the best we can do," he says. I don't either. The same goes for Tim Williams , the well-connected regeneration expert. He writes : Something doesn't add up in the rationales being offered by Locog and Lord Coe. What does add up is the money from sponsors offered to change the route. My own sources suggest that the compelling reason for Locog to betray East London is a combination of new bilateral sponsorship deals being offered by individual countries seeking their "live sites" to be televised and pressure from Visit London to highlight mainstream tourist destinations along the route. I invite them to deny this. It smells true. Such suspicions won't be lessened by the thoroughly Conservative takeover of the games that is now well and truly underway. Yesterday's presentation of the Olympic Park Legacy Company's plans for the site after the running and jumping is done purged from history the part played by the Labour government and Labour Mayor in securing the games in the first place, and was marked by the always nauseating spectacle of Tories grovelling to royalty. The park itself is to be named after the queen . It will soon come under Boris's control . It's hard to shake the feeling that, with a Tory Mayor and Tory ministers in charge of the DCMS in addition to a Tory Lord running the show itself, Tory values are now invading both the legacy of the games and the spirit of the bid that secured them. As Williams remarks of the marathon affair: "Does anyone really believe that Coe would have got away with this under even Tessa Jowell? Pull the other one." Two London lives Frank Crichlow and Sir Robert Mark were very different men, but both had a civilising influence on policing in London in the 1970s. Crichlow, a Trinidad-born community activist and restauranteur, exposed racist police harrassment during a celebrated court case in 1971. Mark, a Mancunian who became commissioner of the Met in 1972, defined his mission on taking command as to "arrest more criminals than we employ" and enjoyed considerable success. Both men have died in recent weeks. Read their obituaries here and here . Tube strike politics The Mayor's speech to the Conservative conference on Monday began with an outraged condemnation of the continuing industrial action on the Underground as "political". You don't say. Blow me down. How could such a thing possibly be? We could, at this point, divert into an elderly but always relevant debate about how any strike can ever be anything but "political", given that they always arise from arguments about justice and power, but let's resist that potent urge for now. Instead, let's remind ourselves that Boris has made precisely no effort to honour his election pledge to seek a no-strike agreement and watch the Guardian's footage of RMT leader Bob Crow justifying his union's strategy. The way he sees it, he's just doing his job while the Mayor can't be bothered to do his. London blogosphere Greenwich is already one of the best-blogged boroughs and now it has e-shootershill too. A truly local blog, it covers everything from recipes to heritage , from nearly new sales to responses to the proposed neighbourhood free school . Its author also tweets . And if it's more Top London Bloggers you're after, try here . Coming up The present Mayor insists he takes a different approach from his predecessor to London's multicultural character but I'm finding that difference quite hard to define. During his 2008 election campaign he railed against defining Londoners in terms of membership of this or that ethnic or cultural group, yet many of the projects and festivals he supports overtly recognise such categories - for example, the African Weekender . If you don't fancy that, there's the Willesden Bus Garage Open Day tomorrow and the Hampstead Heath Conker Championships on Sunday. Tired of life , anyone?