Lord Coe fearlessly speaks out

Well in fact he was recorded making these remarks by a Channel 4 reporter, they were not intended to be made public. This is what THe Daily Mail report that he said "Referring to the Chinese security guards, who were in France yesterday with the torch on the next leg of its world tour, he said: "One thing in Paris is to get rid of those guys. They tried to push me out of the way three times. They are horrible. They did not speak English. They were thugs."

Konnie Huq has also commented on the Chinese "Flame Attendants", the Mail reporting her as saying "The men in blue perplexed everyone. Nobody seemed to know who they were officially or what their title was. They were very robotic, very full on, and I noticed them having skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities before our leg of the relay, which was confusing. "They were barking orders at me, like 'Run! Stop!' and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, who are these people?' "They kept pushing my hand up higher when I was holding the torch, so they were...interesting."

I asked at the weekend "what were those Chinese "Flame Attendants" doing? Under what law were they allowed to push people about in this Country? The way they were allowed to organise the Olympic flame handover in Downing Street was rather sinister."

Today the Daily Mail claim that "It was reported the men have been recruited from Chinese special forces brigades. Some came from the feared Flying Dragons and rthe Sword of Flying Dragons counter-terror units."

Meanwhile "The Greater London Authority, which coorganised the event, said: "They were brought over by the Beijing organising committee. They were the responsibility of Beijing.""