Jon Bright (London, OK): What happens when sport mixes with politics?
A lot of police turn up, of course - in this case, plenty of regulars, some bike police who had long since abandoned their bikes, and some well built looking "attendants" the origin of which no-one seems quite sure of. Harriet Harman could have easily blended in among this lot.
You can watch last night's BBC coverage, which was actually not bad, here. It does, however, feature several of our more vacant sports stars trotting out that old favourite: sport and politics "shouldn't mix." Tim Henman especially made the point that, having put in all this effort for four years, it was disappointing for athletes not to be allowed to show off in peace and quiet. Unfortunately for him - and for everyone else who tried to stage manage a nice, happy, smiling torch relay, sport and politics do mix, quite easily, quite often with this sort of result.
Update: Great blow by blow account on West Brom Blog here (hat-tip Quiet Man) - who also points me to the Xinhua reporting of the event. Xinhua are claiming a mini-carnival broke out in celebration of the flame.
