Defeat leaves a sour taste for Chirac

It was appropriate, then, that we should give the French a grand Olympic beating in the 200th anniversary year of Lord Nelson famously giving them a glorious naval beating.

Oh, and where did we chose to hold the party to celebrate Lord Coe's victory? In Trafalgar Square, of course.

After a week in which the French President has been so childishly insulting about our food, it gives the British much glee to force him to eat his words. Big Ben has once again bested the Eiffel Tower.

It wasa French aristocrat, Pierre de Coubertin, who created the modern games more than a century ago. France had hoped to proclaim that the "Olympics were coming home" as Paris became the first city to host three games.

Now that honour has been stolen by London. How galling for the Gallics.

But, more seriously, Britain's gold medal could have profound political implications - especially over the Channel.

The battle to host 2012 was billed as a showdown between French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. For Mr Chirac, defeat is crushing.

He is 72 years old. This is his fourth defeat in 12 months. Last year, his party lost regional and Parliamentary elections; in May, the French overwhelmingly rejected the EU constitution in a referendum which Mr Chirac believes he was bounced into holding by Mr Blair. Indeed, Mr Blair was the biggest winner of that referendum, because it meant he avoided being embarrassingly defeated in a similar vote in this country.

In June, Mr Chirac's popularity rating dropped 12 points to 28 per cent, and now comes his fourth rejection - this time by an international audience.

More than this, France is moribund. There are three million unemployed - 10.2 per cent of the workforce, a five-year high - and taxes are high to support them. There are growing social and racial problems, and the right-wing is on the rise.

Plus, Mr Chirac has desperately fought to protect the EU's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) that provides French farmers with large subsidies.

This may have shored up support in his rural areas, but it has coincided with Live8, when the rest of the world is focused on making African poverty history. The CAP increases African poverty, preventing African farmers from selling into Europe and causing French farmers to dump cheap produce in Africa. Defending such a practice makes France look immoral.

So Mr Chirac arrived at Gleneagles something of a busted flush with yesterday's Olympic vote looking like his personal Waterloo.

But Mr Blair arrives to take the G8 chair full of renewed vigour, his speaking fluent French during yesterday's bid was a tour de force.

Two years ago, an international audience decreed that the British were worth "nul points". Our entry in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest - Cry Baby - was particularly awful, but the reason for our failing to pick up a single toadying point was our unpopularity. We, and in particular Mr Blair, were seen as George Bush's poodle, led into war in Iraq.

Perhaps the rest of the world is beginning to forgive Mr Blair.

Yesterday, the International Olympic Committee showed it had forgotten his Government's last sporting fiasco over Picketts Lock, which resulted in the UK embarrassingly handing back the 2005 World Athletics Championships.

Mr Blair laid his reputation on the line by going to Singapore. He could quite easily have stayed at home and prepared for the G8 conference, saying that ending African poverty and tackling global warming was more important than silly old sport. Instead, he went to work and lobbied.

In fact, according to the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, he lobbied too hard.

Mr Delanoe told Le Figaro newspaper yesterday: "When I was going up to my room to sleep, there were people coming down the stairs who had been at successive meetings with Prime Minister Blair and the bid leader Sebastian Coe. I didn't think that was what it was about, myself."

Does Monsieur le Mayor really think that Mr Blair should have shut himself in his hotel room eating le rostbif?

Yesterday, Mr Blair was pacing around the garden of his Scottish hotel, unable to watch the Olympics result.

His spokesman said: "The hotel erupted in cheering and we all literally ran down to greet the PM.

"He has always been reasonably calm but I haven't seen a smile as wide as that for a long time."

Which means it must have been one helluva wide smile.

The spokesman concluded: "There were quite a few hugs - this is a big moment. It's a genuinely big moment."

The victory should embolden Mr Blair in the G8 forum and in the EU, where his presidency is seeking to replace the French "social model" of Europe with practical British free markets.

It is said Mr Blair, who will step down before the next election, is worried about his legacy. From out of nowhere, he has become the first post-war British Prime Minister to win the Olympic Games.

Whatever you think of the politics of the MP for Sedgefield, you have to marvel at his resilience.

And immediately after the news from Singapore, bookmakers William Hill shortened the odds on Labour winning the next election from 4/9 to 2/5.