The London Olympics

[flip-flop]

Good or bad? Yay or Nay?

Bearing in mind they are 6 years away and we were only awarded them 18 months ago, it does concern me that the budget forecast has already been increased.

I'm afraid I'm a killjoy and I say Nay - the money can be better spent elsewhere (we just know things like the new velodrome, built at a cost of millions, will be barely used after 2012).

[LazyGun]

Good, and yay :)
We are one of the richest countries in the world, with a history of being involved in major events, both political and sporting. I think there are all sorts of benefits to be gained from this, so overall i think it will be money well spent.

[laurence2]

its the biggest sporting spectacle in the world, i appreciate your concerns on money being spent elsewhere, but i'm all for the olympics being staged here, a major factor for me would be to take advantage of this and get the whole country motivated, especially seeing we have an obesity problem with the younger generation, yes admitterly it is a huge cost to the country, but it will be beneficial long time i believe, i for one will be going to some of the events with my family.

[Dom Tuk]

What was that about global warming and carbon emissions. We have to be brave to stop this earth from being destroyed and one way is to stop all the building work for the London Olympics. It is unnecessary carbon emmissions. Think of the number of air travel that will be cancelled if the Olympics were cancelled. Atleast a million journeys. thats a lot of saving in carbon emissions. But then all the scare mongering about planet change is only to raise taxes. If they are so concerned ban this olympics.

[mushroom25]

whilst I say "yay" to the olympics, I'm realistic enough about this country's Project Management skills to forecast that the 2012 athletics events will be held at the Stade de France. (I hope I'm proved wrong).

[NH]

Dom Tuk, you're forgetting that around 70% of harmful emissions are actually created by corporations, and that the common man actually does relatively very little in terms of environmental damage. Nothing will stop climate change except huge economic reform/upheaval/revolution.

Olympics- I say yes to them. But why the hell do we never anticipate the cost of these things correctly? Surely we shoulda just doubled the budget to account for at least one severe ****-up. But no. We just do the same mistakes again.

[ELVIS68]

I agree with flip-flop........I say Nay, too much money spent for a sporting event, Ok, it might be the biggest sporting event in the world but so what....it will still be a waste of money .
Anyone remember the Dome??

[phaloides]

Paying millions or billions to watch a bunch of junkies running, jumping and chucking things around doesn't bear thinking about and no matter what ministers and officials promise the tax payer will have to cough up most of the cash.

[phaloides]

On re-reading the answers I see the the word 'obesity ' used. I cannot see that encouraging kids to sit in front of a telly watching this nonsense is going to help. There will be no role models produced and apathy will return about a fortnight later.

[laurence2]

i used the word ''obesity'' and i wasen't insinuating that children sat on their ar$e watching the olympics, i was trying to say that their is 6 years before the olympics, and what better way than for the goverment & local councils & schools to get children inspired into ''sport''

Its quite sad that narrow minded people like yourself feel that every athlete is a ''JUNKIE'' who just throw, chuck things around, Sport is the one thing that unites people these days, i'll be interested to know what you feel we should do with the money rather than waste it on the olympics.

Shhhhhhhhhhh

[drchasuble]

Nay. As I'll never get onto the property ladder.

[jump79]

Well in Greece although they got a lot of media attention and tourism because of the Olympics, it left them billions of dollars in debt for many years to come. It's a common side effect of this event for almost every host country... whether it'll be an overall success for London depends on how much of the infrastructure is improved and whether tourism picks up afterwards and helps balance the overall incurred debt.

[Carakeel]

I gave this answer only a short while ago on the same subject. My Mind has not changed since ...

In all honesty, I have never understood why on earth anyone wanted the Olympics here in the first place.
History shows us that, out of all the Olympic Games held so far, only one (I repeat 1!!!) ever made a profit. The rest cost the governements huge losses! This is a country that spends exorbitant amounts of money on wars, foreign aid etc etc, and yet is UNABLE to cover the costs of running its hospitals and schools properly! What on earth is going on??? Of course the increase in the costs for the Olympics is partly the government's fault, i.e. the government has hired a company to produce a report on how to "reduce the costs of the games" and have agreed to pay out �400 mil (that is 400 x �1,000,000!!!) for the report!!! This is insane! While we are letting patients die because NICE says we cannot afford medicines that are available in most European countries, we can't aford to save the lives of our own people - we are happy to throw away billions on Olympic Games that are going to throw us into yet more debt than ever before and have no hope in hell of actually benefitting the population of this country! This is simply wrong!!!

[NH]

Thing is, why the hell are we building a stadium in Hackney when we could use Wembley? The only way that Wembley couldn't be used for at least some of the events is if it was five years late relative to its current finish date, which even considering the way it's currently gone, would take some doing.

[lightoftruth]

NH-whats this you say about a revolution?

I honestly do think that there will be revolution soon.

all this about "sleeping walking into a fascist state" is a lie

WE ARE ALREADY IN A FASCIST STATE

Seriously, if u read up on Periclean ( i.e the truest form) democracy you will find that we do not live in a democracy...we simply get to choose the face of the oppression every 4 or so years.

Soon....hopefully very soon... when the countries eyes are finally opened there will be revolution.

[dyli795]

waw !

[NH]

lightoftruth, two slight flaws in that argument...

Athenian democracy wasn't really fair at all; it banned women, slaves, people under 20, those not born in the city-state of Athens...essentially most of the population. It also had torrid issues with political apathy amongst those who did qualify as citizens and it didn't allow for a secret ballot, so those in the minority could be castigated and bullied into voting with the majority.

Another slight problem is that your answer has jack **** to do with the Olympics.

[phaloides]

I am glad that laurence2 thinks that sport unites people.All those fans of north London football clubs are one big happy family? Cycling, athletics drug free? ha! ha!
As has been previously stated, spend the money on the NHS ,
schools and libraries.

[LazyGun]

Carakeel,

Not to quibble, but so many points in your post seem to stem from misunderstanding.

400 million for a report! I hardly think so... the �400 million was paid to a delivery partner as the culture sec puts it... this is a big difference to a report. Itts arguable whether that is value for money, but to suggest that 400 million was paid out merely for a report is simply incorrect.

NICE stops us having drugs the europeans use? which ones? Its about time you lot of moaners and whingers recognise the fact that we cannot have every single new and expensive drug therapy the pharma companies decide to promote in order to bolster their bank balance and share price. A cost vs benefit analysis should be carried out on every treatment and every drug... this is taxpayers money, and we should be testing whether or not that money is well spent. Nor should we pander to every single solitary health pressure group that comes along.

[nicksmum]

I live in one of the outer London boroughs and work in Tower Hamlets.I say nay as the London council tax payers are going to bear the brunt of much of the cost.Why London only? surely the rest of the country will benefit from it all so why should Londoners have to stump up the money? Also another thing that concerns me is who is going to pay for the upkeep of the buildings once the Olympics are over?Are Newham,Tower Hamlets and Hackney really going to have the money? I think not!

[Cantonasboot]

Sorry, I'm coming in late to this (typical british athlete then huh?). The thing that strikes me is the window dressing in the form of the 'legacy' from the games.

OK, London's transport system will benefit (but surely this would have had to have happened sooner or probably later anyway? The system's a mess and everyone in the capital knows it - including the politicians. I guess it's a handy way of improving infrastructure with lottery funds though eh?). Furthermore, the Olympic village will be converted to provide 'affordable housing' after the event, all very well, god knows London needs some of that. It's just a shame that with the scientific consensus finally agreeing that sea-levels should rise in metres rather than inches over the next few decades, it will probably all be under water before any prospective buyers actually get to pay-off their mortgages.

As for the prospects of a satisfactory on-time, on-budget completion - well, we just don't have good form do we?