French president François Hollande has rejected an invite to attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in February, as has German President Joachim Gauck. But what about David Cameron? Although neither Hollande nor Gauck have given an explicit reason, it is suspected that unease over President Putin’s stance on gay and civil rights has played a part. No 10 tells me it “doesn’t usually talk about the Prime Minister’s travel plans in advance.”
Russia has ploughed an estimated £28 billion into the Sochi Games, making our own 2012 London Games cost of about £10 billion look cut-price.
One person who would like to see the PM not go is Denis MacShane, former Minister for Europe, who recently pleaded guilty to false accounting.
“I hope David Cameron and other ministers will join President Hollande and Germany’s President Gauck in boycotting Putin’s Sochi Winter Olympics extravaganza in protest at Putin’s rank homophobia and his ugly authoritarianism in Russia and bullying of neighbours like Ukraine,” he told the Londoner this morning. “At this Friday’s EU Council, Mr Cameron should tell his fellow
EU leaders he will decline any invitation to boost Putin until the Russian strongman starts to live by the European Convention on Human Rights and drops the gay-bashing, imprisoning artists [and] allows media freedom.”
The last time Russia held a major sporting event was the 1980 Moscow Games, also the subject of international boycotts over the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan. Britain didn’t join that boycott.
