General Article Four years on, are we still the Britain of Danny Boyle’s Olympic ceremony?

Topic Selected: Citizenship in the UK
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Can it really be four years since the Olympics came to London? As Rio prepares to light the flame for the next Olympiad, it must be so.

Many of our memories of that summer will be personal. For some, going to the Games themselves: taking my children to watch equestrian events in Greenwich Park, undeterred by the occasional shower, or going out to watch the Olympic torch being carried through our streets.

The biggest moments were shared across the nation: that triple gold medal hour for Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Greg Rutherford on the middle Saturday that British athletics will find it difficult ever to surpass. Above all, there was Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony – the night when 27 million of us stopped to take in the sweep of our island story of how we, the British, became us, the people we are today. How the Industrial Revolution came to our green and pleasant land; the democratic changes sparked across a century of war and peace; the soundtrack of our lives through these decade...

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