So let me get this straight: we are supposed to boycott or protest against the 2008 Beijing Olympics, because the Chinese Government buys oil from the Sudanese regime engaged in a civil war in Darfur. I carry no torch for the Chinese authorities, but once you fire the starter's pistol for such a stampede of moralism, where does it stop?

Should the 1908 Olympics have been held in London? After all, millions were toiling under the yoke of the British Empire and Parliament had refused to allow Ireland Home Rule, leading to a boycott of the Games by the Irish team.

Or should we disown the 1948 London Olympics? Barely a month before those Games the Labour Government declared the Malayan Emergency, a colonial war against insurgents that involved shifting half a million Chinese into camps ringed by barbed wire.

And what of the 2012 London Games? Those mounting their high horses about China today may come to regret it if British Forces are fighting unpopular wars such as Iraq by then (and the Foreign Secretary made it clear this week that marching into other countries under the banner of democracy remains part of the new Labour game plan).

Anybody listening to the protests might imagine that Britain and America have no dubious allies around the world, and nothing to hide. The reality, of course, is that every nation that ever held an Olympics could have been boycotted over something. This is not about the reality of international sport or politics. It is about global moral grandstanding. Contrary to the impression given, there is no consensus over labelling the Darfur conflict a genocide, the violence peaked five years ago and, despite their links with Khartoum, the Chinese are not killing anybody there.

Never mind all that, let's bring on some actors to read the fantasy script about Beijing 2008 being like the Nazi Olympics of 1936.

The high principles attached to the Olympic torch make it a handy stick with which to beat the uppity Chinese for those who are increasingly fearful of China and who still see Africa as the White Man's Burden, not the Yellow Man's. That is why, as Brendan O'Neill, of the online magazine Spiked, puts it, China-bashing has become the new Olympic sport.

Who better to lead the race to demonstrate the West's ethical superiority than our celebrity champions? When I read that Steven Spielberg had “pulled out of the Olympics”, I wondered in which event he was competing. When the TV news reported that a protest

was led by “Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Joanna Lumley”, I thought it must be a Chris Morris send-up.

No, we cannot hope to separate sport from politics, but that surely does not mean that we have to turn the “greatest show on Earth” - a contest to be swifter, higher, stronger - into a celebrity sideshow designed to put the Hollywood-led West atop the moral podium.

Political double standards are a poor substitute for the gold standard of sport.

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