91Èȱ¬

I look forward to the 2012 story being told on the 91Èȱ¬, but now I have to critise the programme "The day the Olympics come to town", it was more negative than positive. Good negative points were raised, but i'm feeling it's quite typical of 91Èȱ¬ London to focus on negatives.
I think as a society we're very negative, the Olympics is a great time to try and change this, get the people excited.
By all means, tell the negatives of the Olympics, but don't forget that London is getting alot from these games - the redevelopment of stratford as a prime example.

Roger, you make an excellent point - just make sure the negative doesn't get in the way of a rounded approach: all too often one of your colleagues from 91Èȱ¬ London seems to just pump 'doom-and-gloom' stories as if there is no tomorrow.

On a side note: why has the link to your blog been removed from the front page of the 91Èȱ¬ Sport site? Can you get it restored?

Oh, I agree 91Èȱ¬ London should be doing that, but it's not all doom and gloom. And I wouldn't want one sided journalism - just it needs to be remembered, there are positives.

Independence yes, but always a danger in a bid to prove the point the 91Èȱ¬ goes too far and paints an unfair picture of what is really going on.

In my view I think amongst the general public the games are viewed much more positively than some quarters of the press would like us to believe.

There didn't seem to be any coverage last week of the Olympic Stadium reaching full height, a momentous moment in any build.

@Brekkie probably when there's a topping out ceremony (completion of the build but not the fitting out), then there'll be some coverage, I'm guessing.

The most serious problem Britain always has is lying politicians and excitable journalists, I'm afraid.

For some reason, politicians think that the British will flinch from the truth, so lie their way into a position where they can say: 'well we lied, but it's too late to do anything about it now'.

And journalists would rather wait for them to be in that position so they can sensationalise post facto rather than brutally hold them to account ex ante through proper due diligence prior to correct decision-making.

It's why we're in danger of going bust as a nation and most of the rest of the world quietly holds us in contempt about this, although they clearly don't say it quite as bluntly as that, do they?? No, they promote 'free markets' in the UK, closed markets at home and let us push, for example, EPL clubs toward bankruptcy through wage inflation spirals whilst slowly but surely taking control of ownership to subsequently turn it into a closed shop of foreign oligarch owners ruling the football world. Pretty silly, isn't it??

I simply cannot credit the fact that there is a £450m budget to be found from thin air to make the Olympic Park 'fit for purpose' after the games. For a bid which only won due to its legacy promises, as if legacy 'just happens' without proper funding and planning. Let's be clear here: Paris would be hosting 2012 on basic sporting proposals. It had the infrastructure broadly in place and had a few generations of proper commitment to communal sporting facilities across the board. It simply isn't good enough to say '£9.3bn is non-negotiable' but fail to mention 'oh, but that means the park is unusable afterwards'.

One can only conclude that other interests wanted that to be so all along and the only question is: 'Why?'

Well, the words 'West Ham Utd' and 'English Premier League' come to mind, but I'm not saying that's the reason.........I don't know the reason, but it's either gross incompetence or planned mendacity and neither is acceptable in any way, shape or form. I suggest that Lord Coe hoping to succeed Jacque Rogge at the IOC might be a long shot if satisfactory explanations do not emerge fairly quickly.......

I, as a member of the public, would want truly brutal questioning of Ministers, LOCOG etc etc on this, formally minuting all the lies told all the way down the line, publishing them online and ensuring front page press headlines from the more razor-sharp elements of the Press and I expect some reputations for fiscal probity, political honesty and general competence to hold senior positions in UK life to be somewhere near the plateau experienced by Ben Johnson after his second mind-blowingly stupid drugs escapade at the end of it all.........unless some pretty clear answers come through pretty quickly from those drawing £200k+ a year for their role in all of this...........

Now if the answer is: 'the price of XXXXX went up so much that the legacy budget was eaten up as a result', the question is: 'WHY did it go up so much?' 'Were contractors being greedy and simply pushing up prices to stop delays, or is there another reason??'

At the end of the day, £10bn (assuming we add on £450m to £9.3bn and allow £250m for complete incompetence in project planning leading to a 55% budgetary stretching) through 7 years isn't a huge cost for the Olympics project. £1.45bn a year is less than Crossrail, much of that budget is actually decontaminating land, doing transportation infrastructure, building affordable accommodation and there will be construction assets left at the end as well. The true cost is probably £3 - 5bn. I don't know the exact figure, but no doubt Tessa Jowell and Lord Coe can supply one, can't they??

It's the ridiculous posturing all the time saying how perfect it all is, a refusal to do the sums properly up front and a refusal to get tough with greedy operators, if greed there is, to control costs.

I think it's just political incompetence myself.

Selling this as a 25 year project to regenerate a part of the East End with the first 7 years as the upfront phase leading to a one-off sports fiesta isn't exactly hard, if you are a politician of third rate rank.

It isn't hard to say that the total bill is £10bn, including £5bn of realisable/communally usable assets at the end of if all, but the target is for £3-5bn commercial partnership income.

It isn't hard to line up sponsors behind closed doors prior to winning who only commit to anything after the bid is won. If you are serious in planning for not only the beauty contest to be won, but for the project to be smooth also.

It isn't hard to explain to the public that economic cycles may affect the ability of the commercial partners to come on board, since millons of them know that, in recessions, staff get laid off. It's not news, it's grown up reality. FDR somehow managed it 75 years ago, so it's not some Einsteinian political insight you know.........

Finally, it's not hard to state that what this project is about is a fight for this nation's post-imperial soul. To wean this country off imperial grandeur and restore a sense of national pride within the reality of being a mid-sized 65m nation, not a global behemoth with a population of greater than 1 billion. A way to show that big projects in the world's eye positions Britain well to compete successfully for other big projects in future, in Britain or elsewhere. A way to increase UK skills sets in big project management. A unique opportunity to engage a generation of youngsters in winning on the sporting stage, the biggest one of all. A unique opportunity to rethink how sport fits into our national daily life, how it can be used to rethink education strategies, social inclusion strategies and lots, lots more besides.

Not to put too fine a point on it, £10bn as a means to free us from US serfdom, EU serfdom and schizophrenic self-destruct mode S+M politics.

Perhaps that's the last thing that UK politics, sport, media and financial communities want, eh??

Do we know if LOCOG are planning to make an event of the Olympic Trials in 2012, using the trials of a few flagship sports like athletics and swimming as a test event and ideally packaging them together so they become a broadcast event in themselves. Of course too from a Team GB point it gives our athletes an advantage of a guaranteed chance to compete in the venues before the games themselves.

Well if they are separate I hope 91Èȱ¬ TV covers them - too much in recent years is being palmed off to online and (often non-existent!) news reports, when really in the run up to 2012 you'd be expect Olympic sports to be much more dominant in the schedules. Great we've got the World Track Cycling again this year - but beyond that, a couple of athletics meetings and a bit of swimming and rowing here and there, it seems F1 has swallowed up the budget.