Olympic Hurdles
Aren't we lucky to be hosting the Olympics in 2012?
No?
Correct. We aren't.
The whole thing was put together by Mr Blair as a kind of final glory, something to be remembered by. The Labour Party got us these Olympics, they'll say in 2012, when they are no longer in power, remember how great we are bringing all this attention to Britain, and please vote for us again in the next election.
Unfortunately for the taxpayer, and by taxpayer I specifically mean those in London, including myself (I live in an area described variously as both London and Surrey, depending on whether it's the Taxman or an Estate Agent speaking), the cost will be carried by us. But I suppose by the time it's gone a few more billion over budget, the Chancellor will be forced to claw it back nationally, to plug the hole. The National Lottery and further tax on Londoners isn't going to be enough.
It's just been reported that the cost has risen by about a billion pounds, due to a couple of miscalculations:
Firstly, steel has doubled in cost. Just how much of the budget was actually going to be spent on steel, I don't know, but it can't be that much in total.
Secondly, transport costs have gone up. This is such a stupid statement as I've not seen any qualifiers to determine exactly what they mean. At the moment, this statement means absolutely nothing.
Thirdly, things will cost more in 2012. Yup, the (presumably) highly-paid financial and organisational minds who put the bid together forgot to take inflation into account.
Fourthly, they paid £400m to a consulting firm to make sure it doesn't go over budget. No, I don't understand how paying £400m over your budget to someone so they can ensure you don't go over budget works either.
The government does not have a great track record when delivering large projects. In fact, the country as a whole doesn't. This is basically down to red tape and health-and-safety. Brunel would have built the whole lot in a weekend using nothing more than a handy foundry, and a few thousand men willing to work for pittance. He would have needed no consultants, no project managers, no quangos. He'd have whipped up some plans on the back of a napkin and it would be built and last 1000 years. These days we can't build a Dome, or a Wembley Stadium with anything like success. Even the new footbridge over the Thames wobbled about before they fixed it.
How they will deliver the Olympics is beyond me. I absolutely guarantee that the budget by the end will be at least doubled, and that it'll barely scrape in on time. At least those 500,000 Polish immigrants will find work building the thing, because no sane Englishman will want to be associated with it.
There is also no chance of it generating enough money to cover it's costs. Australia managed to turn in a profit on their games in Sydney, but the Australians have a lot more common sense than we do.
I also bet that if you ask Londoners if they want a choice of higher taxes and no games, or paying a fortune and having them staged here, that the answer would overwhelmingly be "No games, please, we're British". But, of course, nobody asked the public. The government somehow assumes that it has the right to spend billions of public money on whatever it wants to, without consulting us, despite the fact that it was our money to start with. And then steal more money from us to cover up it's stupid decisions and general incompetence that led it to go over its budget.
But then, if they had said it'd cost £10bn to start with, it wouldn't have got off the ground. Better to say it'd cost £3bn and then gradually increase it as time goes by, because it's too late by then.
In fact, I think the whole thing is a ploy by the Labour Party. They know that they'll be out of office by 2012, and having a vastly overbudget Olympic Games will force the Tories to raise taxes for it once they realise the cost hasn't been met. And because the Tories are in power, they'll get the blame for it.
In fairness to Labour though (and it's not often you'll hear me say that), the Tories did the same to them with the Millenium Dome, which was conceived under Conservative leadership, and then ridiculed under a Labour one.
It's just the public schoolboys flicking each other with wet towels again, really.
No?
Correct. We aren't.
The whole thing was put together by Mr Blair as a kind of final glory, something to be remembered by. The Labour Party got us these Olympics, they'll say in 2012, when they are no longer in power, remember how great we are bringing all this attention to Britain, and please vote for us again in the next election.
Unfortunately for the taxpayer, and by taxpayer I specifically mean those in London, including myself (I live in an area described variously as both London and Surrey, depending on whether it's the Taxman or an Estate Agent speaking), the cost will be carried by us. But I suppose by the time it's gone a few more billion over budget, the Chancellor will be forced to claw it back nationally, to plug the hole. The National Lottery and further tax on Londoners isn't going to be enough.
It's just been reported that the cost has risen by about a billion pounds, due to a couple of miscalculations:
Firstly, steel has doubled in cost. Just how much of the budget was actually going to be spent on steel, I don't know, but it can't be that much in total.
Secondly, transport costs have gone up. This is such a stupid statement as I've not seen any qualifiers to determine exactly what they mean. At the moment, this statement means absolutely nothing.
Thirdly, things will cost more in 2012. Yup, the (presumably) highly-paid financial and organisational minds who put the bid together forgot to take inflation into account.
Fourthly, they paid £400m to a consulting firm to make sure it doesn't go over budget. No, I don't understand how paying £400m over your budget to someone so they can ensure you don't go over budget works either.
The government does not have a great track record when delivering large projects. In fact, the country as a whole doesn't. This is basically down to red tape and health-and-safety. Brunel would have built the whole lot in a weekend using nothing more than a handy foundry, and a few thousand men willing to work for pittance. He would have needed no consultants, no project managers, no quangos. He'd have whipped up some plans on the back of a napkin and it would be built and last 1000 years. These days we can't build a Dome, or a Wembley Stadium with anything like success. Even the new footbridge over the Thames wobbled about before they fixed it.
How they will deliver the Olympics is beyond me. I absolutely guarantee that the budget by the end will be at least doubled, and that it'll barely scrape in on time. At least those 500,000 Polish immigrants will find work building the thing, because no sane Englishman will want to be associated with it.
There is also no chance of it generating enough money to cover it's costs. Australia managed to turn in a profit on their games in Sydney, but the Australians have a lot more common sense than we do.
I also bet that if you ask Londoners if they want a choice of higher taxes and no games, or paying a fortune and having them staged here, that the answer would overwhelmingly be "No games, please, we're British". But, of course, nobody asked the public. The government somehow assumes that it has the right to spend billions of public money on whatever it wants to, without consulting us, despite the fact that it was our money to start with. And then steal more money from us to cover up it's stupid decisions and general incompetence that led it to go over its budget.
But then, if they had said it'd cost £10bn to start with, it wouldn't have got off the ground. Better to say it'd cost £3bn and then gradually increase it as time goes by, because it's too late by then.
In fact, I think the whole thing is a ploy by the Labour Party. They know that they'll be out of office by 2012, and having a vastly overbudget Olympic Games will force the Tories to raise taxes for it once they realise the cost hasn't been met. And because the Tories are in power, they'll get the blame for it.
In fairness to Labour though (and it's not often you'll hear me say that), the Tories did the same to them with the Millenium Dome, which was conceived under Conservative leadership, and then ridiculed under a Labour one.
It's just the public schoolboys flicking each other with wet towels again, really.
posted by Nej at
2:00 pm
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