gph
4:12 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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*looks forward to Bruno Ganz playing GO in 2024*
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Infidel
2:38 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Gavros
The way Blair justified the grotesque cost of the Olympics was by suggesting that the regeneration of Stratford could never have happened without it.
Stop for a moment to think about that. Is he saying that no urban regeneration is ever possible without staging a massive sports event there first? I doubt it, as most urban regeneration projects happen without it.
Or is he saying that there is something unique about Stratford that makes it a special case, an area where only an Olympic Games could trigger the necessary spending?
I have never heard any case for the latter but who knows, Alistair Campbell could make one up I would guess.
As for me not being much of a West Ham fan... are we really back to that old chestnut? My views on the Olympics are invalidated because I don't go to as many games as you do?
For the record, I have been a West Ham fan all my life, my dad before me and my two sons, who are both fanatical Hammers.
I started going to Upton Park in 1968. I was at Wembley in 1975 when Alan Taylor scored both goals against Fulham - on my own because my dad could only get one ticket and in the Fulham end, dressed head to toe in claret and blue.
I was also at the Millenium for two of our three appearances there (the defeat to Palace and the Cup Final - I missed the one in the middle, the only one we won)
I have been a season ticket holder (although not now because I live in Denmark); my sons too have been ST holders.
But according to you I am not a proper fan so I shouldn't have a view on anything.
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,
1:51 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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"No Policy" unit sounds right to me.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:43 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Gavros 1:15 Sat Nov 29
True.
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Gavros
1:36 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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So, infidel, you would have preferred that what is now the olympic park would have remained a tyre / fridge dump/ pikey home?
As surface says, the benefits of the olympics are largely intangible as the area in particular continues to benefit from the money going into it. Surely any West Ham fan would welcome that....but then Ive never actually seen you post anything relevant to West Ham.
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Infidel
1:28 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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*No. 10 Policy Unit
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Infidel
1:27 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Gavros
It was certainly not 'always going to go over the original budget'
The original budget was put together by the neurotic American, Barbara Cassani, whom the government originally appointed to run the bid before Coe.
Her qualification to lead the bid for London 2012 was that she had set up British Airways' budget airline 'GO'. Thus we appointed someone who had no experience of large projects and wasn't even British.
It was Ms Cassani who put the original budget together but to be fair to her she had been instructed to lie to the public (and especially to Londoners) about the cost by Blair and Alistair Campbell.
In an amusing aside there is a document gathering dust somewhere in the No. Policy Unit in which Blair's advisors came up with the 'wrong' answer on hosting big sporting events. They extensively analysed the costs and benefits of all the recent Olympic Games, World Cups and European Championships and found that they were all, without exception, a black hole into which public funds would be poured with no return.
I am reliably told Blair flew into a rage when he was given the findings. He had already decided these events were an excellent legacy (presumably for him) and did not want to be told they were financially disastrous. The advisor who presented the findings to Blair was sacked.
Thus the public was told the Games would cost £2.3bn to host, a number cooked up by Tessa Jowell's office to placate her boss. Ms Cassani didn't have the experience or the credibility to challenge it.
Ms. Cassani had a meltdown before the bid process got into its final stages and Coe stepped in to replace her. He also presented the £2.3bn budget as the full and final cost of the Games, although to be fair he also had no experience in these things.
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Gavros
1:16 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Oh and it was always going to go over the original budget, which was merely a minimum figure.
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Gavros
1:15 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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the other argument to that is that the IOC would have been persuaded to vote for Paris had London not promised a dedicated legacy for athletics.....that said they had the opportunity to go with a multi use stadium design with the Icelandics fronting £150 million of it (prior to the crash) and decided not to do so. That was more the decision of Tessa Jowell and Livinstone, who to be fair at the time wanted West Ham to take the old Parcelforce site.
In a nutshell, its a convoluted 'what if'.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:10 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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But yes. Coe was catastrophic. He wasted hundreds of millions of tax-payer money to ensure a legacy for his own vested interest - track and field athletics. Without his selfishness the profit would have been far higher.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:08 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 12:48 Sat Nov 29
The larger figure includes 6.5 billion allocated for the regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley area. Unless all those houses, railway lines, parks etc were blown up at the end of the games that figure can't be included in a P&L appraisal.
No account has thus far been made of additional tax revenues from bulding, tourism and legacy income streams from regeneration projects.
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Gavros
1:06 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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took you a while to scrape those second rate criticisms together, didnt it infidel.
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Infidel
12:48 Sat Nov 29
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Surface
The official report of the National Audit Office on the games reports that it cost the taxpayer £8,921 m.
That is net of the receipts from ticket sales, sponsorship, advertising and merchandise, the four main sources of commercial revenue.
It is sometimes suggested that the regeneration of Stratford could not have happened without the Olympics. That is obvious nonsense, Canary Wharf and Docklands was created from the rubble of the docks without an Olympic Games, as were many other important urban regeneration projects.
While we are on the subject, the organisation of the 2012 Olympics was an unmitigated disaster. Coe's promise to keep a running track in the stadium was idiotic, adding cost for no benefit whatsoever other than to a tiny handful of running enthusiasts like him.
The ticketing system gave all the best seast to sponsors and 'Olympic family' resulting in many of the best seats being empty during even big events. The online ticketing system for the public crashed repeatedly and never worked properly.
LOCOG spent £400k on a logo that was so bad that hardly a stitch of London 2012 merchandise was ever sold,the public instead opting to wear GB team merchandise - therefore eliminating the revenue stream other Games organisers have enjoyed.
Three weeks before the games we discovered that there was nowhere near enough security staff. Embarrassingly the Army had to be mobilised at short notice to fill in the gap.
The aquatic centre is too large and poorly designed. It costs a fortune to heat and cannot now be used without enormous state subsidies in perpetuity. No thought was given to its long term use as a public facility.
The Torch relay was one of the worst in Olympic history, stuffed full of pointless celebrities instead of ordinary deserving members of the public. London was the only organising committee not to learn any lessons from the triumph of the 1996 Atlanta Torch Relay, which banned celebrities and gave all 15,000 torch bearer slots to local heroes chosen by each community it went through. 1996 was by a mile the most successful Relay in history.London's was an embarrassment.
Coe was incompetent. He spent four times his original budget and every decision he made turned into a catastrophe of one kind or another. He was saved by the magnificent performance of Team GB, which had a spectacular medal haul and gave the Games a feel good factor that swept the whole nation along. That of course had nothing to do with Coe.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
11:50 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 11:47 Fri Nov 28
I just find stuff that says it made 54 million pounds profit without taking account of increased tax revenues generated by tourism.
Are you taking account of every piece of regeneration that took place in London and the South East?
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Infidel
11:47 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Surface
I believe if you Google: 'cost London Olympics' you will find multiple sources saying much the same thing - that it cost £9bn.
As for the original cost of £2bn or so that is also Googleable, if there is such a word.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
11:30 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Infidel 11:28 Fri Nov 28
Have you got some sources to back that up? Only it seems completely at odds with reality.
I'm not really arguing with your main point, just the bit about the Olympics.
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HairySpotter
11:30 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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biti shitty that u know for a fact he wasnt off his tits and used a bit of footage to support it and a row. when im off my nut, i cant even do a windsor knot. bollox thread
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Infidel
11:28 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Surface
The original budget for the London Olympics - the one that went into the bid document - was just over £2bn. The final bill was over £9bn. Of course it didn't 'make a profit'- it made a staggering loss.
But I am not suggesting that cancelling the Olympics would have saved the economy. Even at £9bn it isn't enough to make more than small dent in what was then a £150bn deficit.
My point is that the new government in 2010 had a chance to save the country by restoring order to the public finances and cancelling the Olympics would have sent shock waves through the public. It would have served as a wake up call, a signal that we are in very deep trouble.
We need to make very drastic cuts in spending - but how are we ever going to do that when politicians are so afraid to tell the truth for fear of the backlash ?
The UK economy is on a course to bankruptcy and without drastic action it will descend into chaos and rioting.
It really is that bad. You can't run £100bn deficits and print money to fund them, it's insanity. What amazes me is that the concept of living within our means appears to be so controversial.
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Nurse Ratched
5:50 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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*raises hand timidly*
And there is a part of me that mourns.
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gph
5:48 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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I've never gone to work off my tits.
*gives self gold star*
However, when I worked in a brewery, I often came out of work off my tits
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ohgodno
5:35 Fri Nov 28
Re: George Osborne out of his head at PMQs
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Who hasn't gone to work off their tit's at least once?
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