Back from a week working in Vienna. Here is my piece for Telegraph Blogs on the London 2012 Olympics:

… maybe I am following the wrong people but there was also a torrent of British abuse aimed at the Closing Ceremony on numerous counts. The songs were wrong: howls of protest at the vapid ideological emptiness of John Lennon’s Imagine, a dirge that called for a world without countries at a ceremony celebrating each country’s own sporting achievement! The singers were wrong: why was Jessie J warbling against consumerism while circling the arena in a staggeringly expensive (and staggeringly beautiful) Rolls Royce? The imagery was ridiculous: why the embarrassing Churchill-quoting-Shakespeare routine demeaning both Churchill and Shakespeare? Who are those awful people?

All of which – and masses more – completely missed the point.

Both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and the Games themselves sent much more important messages round the planet. They presented a free, dynamic, confident, creative, inclusive, efficient, successful and inventive country in which women and men alike stand tall. And while most countries round the world enjoy some of those attributes, only a tiny number seriously can claim to meet them all…

In short, the Games presented our country to a vast global audience in an unforgettable and powerful way. The startling improvement in our medals tally since 1996 to the point where we have left behind our European partners and jumped past Russia into third place in the medals table is itself a testimony to smart investment and fine organisation over many years.

Time will tell if the ‘GB’ aspect of this triumph sinks Scottish separatism. It will not be easy now to trump the slogan that the UK is stronger than the sum of its parts when united. However, a case can be made that the biggest loser from the Games is the UK’s membership of the European Union.

Who now will want to get up and querulously try to insist that we risk losing out if we ‘go it alone’ as and when the European Union slumps into some sort of unhappy federalism and we politely head for the exit? On the contrary, the sheer manic quirky national energy unleashed by these Games shows that once the conditions are right this country can do truly astonishing things – all on its own.

My own favourite memory? A split second when Victoria Pendleton accelerated on the outside past a huddle of riders as if they were scarcely moving. Mind you, Mo Farah was quite good too.

Update   Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun makes a similar point.