‘Brilliant’ ‘Magnificent’ ‘Incredible’ ‘Stupendous’. The press and we have run out of superlatives to describe both our superb Team GB medal tally, the superhuman efforts of our athletes in so many different disciplines spurred on to yet greater efforts by the fantastic crowds, as well as the absolutely outstandingly successful management of the events themselves. The whole thing has just been a highlight in the long history of the UK- and it will remain in our collective memories and influence our image of ourselves for generations to come.

How different it all is to the chattering classes in the few weeks before the Games, who seemed almost to WANT the whole thing to go wrong. Of course there are comments that can be made about G4S, about empty seats, about the potential for gridlock in London (which never happened), about an inadvertent mix-up over North Korea’s flag. Any fool can spot little slips in an enterprise as big as this one is. But overall we as a Nation have showed the world that we really can do things exceptionally well.

There’s a real feeling of National pride around, of athletes squeezing out that extra little bit not for themselves but because they are representing their country. The whole event has been a showcase of all that is truly great about Great Britain.

What a contrast with the mean-spirited,  toys-out-of-the-pram announcement from Nick Clegg that because Parliament would not agree to Lords reform, then he wouldn’t agree to cutting the number of MPs and equalising the size of constituencies since that would mean roughly 14 LibDem MPs losing their seats and ignoring the fact that less MPs also mean savings for the taxpayer. 

The two things have never been linked – boundary changes and the AV referendum were in the same bill. Mr Clegg got a good smacking over AV too. It's a childish piece of playground politics and he will pay dear for it at the Election.

What a contrast between our athletes, volunteers, the 18500 military helping run the games; and the mean-minded self-interest of Mr Clegg. One of the many lessons from these great Olympics is that country comes before self – and before party political advantage.