Let the games end

One week in October 2024 has underlined in stark terms the truth that the Commonwealth has outlived its utility, if it ever had any.

- KANIKA DATTA

On Tuesday, an Australian senator and indigenous people's activist heckled King Charles on a visit to Canberra accusing Britain of committing genocide and demanding back the land his colonising ancestors pinched from the continent's original inhabitants. On Friday, the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government (or Chogm) meeting was dominated by pointless discussions of reparations that Britain should pay Caribbean nations for slavery. Britannia may have ruled the waves on the back of colonies and slaves. Now it's just a broke, insular power struggling to finance its healthcare system. But nothing underlined the pointlessness of the institution than Thursday's decision to drop nine sports from the 2026 edition of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The road to the Glaswegian games has been embarrassing enough. The Scottish government spared Britain's blushes by agreeing to host the Games after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew last year citing rising costs and no other member country stepped up. The upshot of this face-saving decision is that the Games has been pared down to 10 disciplines from 19.