The BBC reports on the entirely predictable saga of ever rising costs for the London 2012 Olympic Games:
Last Updated: Saturday, 24 February 2007, 04:57 GMTLondon Olympics could cost £9bn
By Mihir Bose
BBC sports editorThe cost of the 2012 London Olympics could rise to nearly four times the figure set out in the city's bid for the Games, the BBC has learned.
The Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are discussing a price of £9bn - up from the £2.35bn set out in London's bid document.
The government believes construction alone could cost £3.3bn, with an extra £2bn allocated as a contingency fund.
Regeneration costs of £1.8bn and a £1bn VAT bill have also been added.
Security costs have also risen to at least £900m.
[...]
In the wake of heavy criticism of the government's handling of the games, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell admitted to parliament in November that the cost of the Games would rise by £900m - 40% - to £3.3bn.
But critics have continued to express wide-ranging concerns about planning, over everything from transport to the burden on the tax payer and effect on the National Lottery's funding of good causes in order to meet costs.
[...]
Remember that any cost overruns i.e. anything above the original budget, will be split between the National Lottery (which can only raise a certain amount every year) and the Council Tax payers of London !
Why should we tolerate the politicians and bureaucrats and commercial vested interests who are ripping us off in this way ?
I totally agree with this and it should not be tolerated, the only thing that i would say is that i don't know what we could do to combat this but that it would be worth looking into.
I operate a running blog on the Olympic games at http://dowereallywantthegames.blogspot.com/ just copy and paste into the tool bar
I cannot understand how the air ambulance for London is fund raising to raise �0.5m to keep in the air and yet we are pouring obscene amounts of money into the Olympics. The only people to win out of the Olympic white elephant are those like Seb Coe who have business relationships with companies tendering for work on the building and run up to the games. It amounts to stealing tax payers money