London Olympics 2012

We hear in the news that yet more of our money may be required for the 2012 London Olympics.

This is a ridiculous waste of public money.

Jobs are being lost in the public sector, services are being reduced, taxation is increasing.  Why are we not capping the spend on the Olympics?  We cannot afford to spend any more and it looks like a number of the promised benefits may well not be realised.

During the Olympics it appears that travel in London will become much more difficult as the public transport system struggles to cope and the roads become more congested, especially in areas where there are the special lanes for competitors and VIPs.

This will have the most impact upon those who live and work in London and is likely to be rather disruptive.

So what benefits will we get:

Increased tourism? Possibly not as many have announced they will not visit due to the expected congestion so we will find the visitors to the games will merely replace those who are no longer comings as tourists.

New facilities? Maybe but the Velodrome is rather specialised, the Aquatic Centre is similar and the main stadium is probably going to be sold or given to a football team and used for little else.  Remember the Millennium Dome, now the O2 Arena, which cost the taxpayer a fortune before being more or less given away.

Improved transport? Better links to an area where many will not wish to go - great!

The London Olympics is just a case of trying to show off to the rest of the world.  We should never have looked to host the Olympics and given that we have no way to back out, we must keep a lid on the costs before it cripples the country.