Look, I am no great fan of the Olympics or indeed the organisation behind London 2012 BUT I can appreciate that coming in under budget by half a ££billion is probably not a bad result. So I was surprised to discover how narky the BBC have been about this all morning. They were bitching about it on Today and Susanna Reid was also being hostile about it on the BBC New programme. What’s the problem with this? Is it that the BBC cannot tolerate any success from this Government, no matter how minor? If only Labour were back in power and breaking through budget with every announcement..the good old days, eh?
WHEN BEING UNDER BUDGET IS A SIN
Bookmark the permalink.
The original budget for the Olympics was around 2bn. The actual expenditure far exceeds that, so the idea that they are coming in under budget is a complete myth. Having said that, I’m certainly no fan of the BBC, and the way go about their reporting.
Quite.
Here’s how the fraud works.
1. Bid low
2. Win the games (or any other contract such as HS2)
3. Now start spending.
4. Run out of cash. Now threaten the government with embarassment. e.g. Are you going to be the one to pull the plug and say 2 bn was spent for nothing?
5. Carry on profiteering.
Far from being a government success, its a massive failure.
6. Forget to add VAT to the costing
Bruce
Yes, agree but I suspect if Labour were still in power and this announcement was made, it would be smiles all around. Plus, the 2bn budget figure was continually broken by Labour!
Yep, this is how warped the BBC’s agenda is. Now they can’t even do bias properly. The Government’s position, that they’re under-budget because they didn’t spend all of the Contingency Fund, is absurd. It would be more correct to say they’re over-budget, but not as much as feared.
That would be a real point, but it would also require someone at the BBC to take time out to understand what the Government is actually saying, rather than jumping into pointless, reflexive whining.
“It would be more correct to say”
Comes to something when the nationally-treasured informer and educator is defined thus in how is interprets events, at best.
I was just about to make a similar post about how Susanna was laying into that minister this morning. I don’t remember BBC Breakfast getting all nasty when the budgets got busted way back when Labour were in power, or when the forgetting of VAT in the budget was discovered (Labour again).
Then, on the local news (South) slot we got yet another in their regular “find a story, any story and use it to bash the coalition” series. Some chap unfortunate;ly has lost sight in one eye, and there’s a danger his other eye might fail. Only a £500 a go injection could save it. The local health department will not fund it (coalition cuts blah blah blah). In the past the injection was funded privately the report mentions – so it looks like the local health department have never funded it but that isn’t made clear. A completely non-news story being passed off as an attack against Government cuts.
Drip drip drip the Labour bias just continues.
The interview of the Olympics Minister on BBC Breakfast, if you can call it that. was nothing short of disgraceful. But I didn’t expect anything better from a corporation that wastes £3.5 billion public money every year and pays its presenters eye-watering amounts of money with absolutely no accountability to the public.
I heard Ken Livingstone say ‘If we had told them the true cost they would never have signed it off’. It was a fraud from the very beginning. Coe ‘£2.9B fully costed’, they lied from the very beginning.
They praised UK Construction on R4, yet wasn’t the Olympic stadium built by an Australian company? Or was that Wembley?
Built by a load of eastern European imports. With huge unemployment close by, very few were hired. When asked about uk jobs on the site, Jowell (never believe a thing she says) is always careful how she answers, with words like, they live locally. Well if you had a 4 year working contract you, even an eastern European would live locally.
Someone who worked on the Olympic site told me that the Border Agency was instructed to go nowhere near it, as it relied heavily on illegal immigrant labour.
As I understand it the London Olympic Organisation have kept back £1 billion so they can cement over the facilities no one will use once the fiasco has finished.
I will only watch the opening cermony just to see how terrible it is (from behind the sofa).
I think that the Olympics are generally a good thing for the UK and I’m not going to knock them. However my guess is that the BBC’s coverage will be viewed as an example of them supporting the establishment and therefore being ‘right wing’. This because they aren’t highlighting the initial budget revision, at least on their web pages. Just look at the best rated comments.
Big infrastructure budgets like this are always set low to get government and public buy in. Then the budget magically increases. It’s a fact of life.
However the project should still be applauded because it has been brought in under the revised figure. Also since there has been no negative reporting I assume that the facilities are complete and OK. So the overall project has been a success. My guess is that the games are good the UK. But in truth it’s not a Coalition success the project management team we’re in place long before 2010.
Yes it’s like all the moaning about the ticket sales last year. They go on sale and sell out within minutes so what does the BBC do? Trumpet the fact that they sold out immediately? No. they interview people who are unhappy that they didn’t get a ticket!
Then, when people stop applying (because they don’t think there’s much point as they’ll not get a ticket – the BBC having told them all year that they can’t get tickets) the BBC moan that the tickets aren’t selling.
But I bet the Beeboids won’t turn down freebies when the games start!