The case for an "austerity Olympics"

EA

All politicians - and especially Boris - should read S. Jenkins's article, and demand a pared down Olympics. First in the cuts should be the consultants. Why do we need consultants if there is already a highly paid Organising Committee plus Tessa Jowell's Olympic team. If they can't do their job they should be fired and replacements found who can. I once asked a member of the Organising committee if as a Londoner I would get priority booking (as Londoners are paying the biggest contributions with our council taxes) and was given an emphatic No - it would not be in the spirit of the Olympics, where everyone is equal. Oh, yes? What about MPs and the usual suspects among the great and good and the remaining fat cats who no doubt will be able to get as many tickets as they want.

Hysteria

reading the article - and what is this I see...

"The lowest-paid member of its management team is on £243,000, and the highest, David Higgins, £624,000."

WTF?? FFS......

William Norton

"There's something deeply irresponsible about "pour[ing] crazy sums of money - £9.3bn - into two weeks of sport".

Not at all. It's a cunning scheme - one of Gordon's better long-term plans. Get all the athletes together, then slap an export embargo on the winners' medals. At the present rate of things, by 2012 we'll need hard bullion, and £9.3 billion will probably stretch to paying for the podium.

Liz Brown

What. precisely the economic benefits that will be gained? Every country that has held hem has sustained a masive loss - Montreal finaly paid off its debt last year - and no, I don't know when they were held but for sure it was over 12 years ago. Either the games should be cancelled or they should indeed be "austerity" games

Henry Rogers

Liz,

The Montreal Games were held in 1976, 32 years ago for Heaven's sake. We really don't need that sort of thing here.

Dirty Euro

Sell the olympics to china.

strapworld

Likewise the shooting should go to Bisley!!

The swimming to manchester.

IF the UK taxpayer is now footing the bill it HAS to be a UK event NOT only London.

Liz Brown

Thanks Henry
blimey 32 years ago! and their budget was nowhere near to £9+ billion. Scary or what

JimBob

Not just the olympics, but the whole of sports funding needs to be looked at.

For the rich countries, its like an arms race for gold medals. Like a social psychology experiment where irrational bidders keep bidding the price up far in excess of the items value.

The spending is directed too much at the select few elite athletes. Probably because politicians like Broon crave the attention from each gold that 'Team GB' wins, even if its at the expense of investment in facilities and equipment that ordinary people can actually access and use.

Cogito Ergosum

Can't the TV companies just broadcast replays of old events? Surely nobody - not the usual pub audience, anyway - know the difference.

Henry Rogers

It seems to me the only point of a huge stadium is so that the showbizz enthusiasts can stage a pop concert equivalent at the beginning and another one at the end of the festival. I can't really see what that has to do with sport. Running, jumping and throwing need a top quality track and green space in the middle, but even if every seat could be sold, which it probably couldn't, a small stadium with decent TV facilities really ought to suffice. After all, of the millions or even billions of people watching the events, only a tiny proportion could be in the stadium in any case.

Wrecking Greenwich Park would be an officially approved act of barbarism on a level with the football riots of the past.

Simon Jenkins's article is a superb piece of journalism which goes straight to the heart to the problem. If he is ignored, we'll be crazy.

For what it's worth I think the Olympic movement and its bureaucratic hangers on have grown beyond the point at which they serve their stated purpose and need to be pruned. After all, it isn't the athletes, training their hearts out for years and years, who get to stay in the posh hotels and ride down exclusive traffic lanes to the venues.

Now is the time to act!

MartinW

From the first, every sensible person knew that 'winning' the Olympics would not be a victory, but a recipe for wasting huge amounts of money we could ill afford. Scandalously, during the bidding process the BBC did not allow any dissenting voice to be heard, so they, the government and the sports 'mafia' could claim the nation wanted it. For myself, I have yet to meet anyone who actually welcomes the Olympics.
Even in good times, the original £2.5 bn budget (a government lie) spent on weeks of sport was pretty outrageous, and £9.3 bn, utterly scandalous. In the present circumstances (and if we cannot avoid this burdensome sports-fest altogether), then it must be a severely austerity event. As well as the suggestions above, I would cut the opening and closing 'ceremonies' altogether, and substitute an extremely simple parade lasting half-an-hour Let us take this golden opportunity to establish a precedent and rid ourselves of these ludicrously overblown, tasteless and naff opening and closing 'ceremonies', which are and more suited the Central Square in Pyongyang.

Ken

Just cancel them outright. Use what can be salvaged to pay down debt.

aristeides

'In today's Guardian, Simon Jenkins persuasively argues for another austerity Olympics in 2012 - the times call for it, he says. And it's hard to disagree.'

You say this as though there will be a choice. People will look back at that statement in 2012 with a wry smile.

Henry Rogers

aristeides,

People will look back at that statement in 2044 and say to themeselves: 'At last that's paid off, pity our parents and grandparents didn't learn from Montreal'.

Janie Hampton

My book 'The Austerity Olympics -when the Games came to London in 1948' outlines how London did it on a budget of £760,000, and made a profit of £29,000. The 4,000 competitors were provided with a free bus pass and their bedding, and brought their own food and towels.

Paul Lettan

In the years 1974-76, I taught English not far from the '76 Olympic site. Most were business men and women on block release. One of my students worked on the Stadium, Village and swimming venue. Many years later, at a meeting, I met a highly successful government lawyer who reminded me of those days. He had clocked on at the Olympic site at 8, came to classes between 9 to 4, and clocked off site at 6. All year. He had also finished his university master's thesis while doing 'overtime' in the evenings! The games were corrupt from bottom to top. My daughter's generation, in Montreal, are still paying off the surcharge tax imposed 32 years ago!