Richard Attias

Global sports tournaments have a range of benefits that go far beyond the games themselves. They can transform the image of a country or a region. They bring people together and reveal new possibilities to a nation's youth.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

When ministers in this government talk about investing in education and skills, about making the planning system work; about employment law reform and delivering transport and power generation and broadband communication infrastructure, we are talking about raising Britain's productivity.