The accidental hero

Downing Street is distressed. Why? The rest of the world is at risk of thinking the British prime minister a hero.

Hillary Clinton interpreted Gordon Brown's announcement that he wouldn't be at the opening ceremony of this year's Beijing Olympics as some lesser-spotted political idealism and called on George Bush to follow his example.

Now it seems China may struggle to fill the world leader's ringside box: Ban Ki-moon admitted today he wouldn't be turning up. German chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper had already said they were staying away.

Brown has a history of snubbery. His decision to stay away from a European summit in protest at Robert Mugabe's attendance was an example of a snub of which he was so proud he let it be called a "boycott". His decision to arrive very late at the signing ceremony of the European treaty last autumn was more of a sheepish snub.

The pity for Brown is that he's probably not boycotting the games. And he's so in awe of China's economic might, he won't even be able to bask in Clinton's warm words.

But if he does come to spearhead a popular world movement against China (at least in the eyes of others) he'll have fared better than Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher asked British sportsmen and women to stay away from the Moscow Olympics in 1980 (in protest at the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) - but they went anyway.