I have a free gift for the prime minister in his hour of torment. It will
smack his battered administration with a sense of command. It will send his
popularity soaring and save £50 billion of public money. He would also be
doing the right thing.
Gordon Brown should announce forthwith that he is putting his three wildest
white elephants out to grass: identity cards, the National Health Service
computer and the plan to locate the 2012 Olympics in Stratford. All have
budgets out of control. Such is this centralist squandermongering that Brown
could take 2p off income tax for a decade or give every school, hospital and
library in Britain a Christmas bonus of £1m.
The first two projects could vanish with no shock to the system but the
impoverishment of a few consultants. The ID computer is seriously sick. A
review last year led to a supposed scaling back from some £10 billion to
£5.4 billion. The £10 billion was reckoned by outsiders to be a gross
underestimate and the new figure has been rising by 5% each six months. A
figure of £20 billion remains plausible.
As for the theory that the, as yet unworkable, ID computer will “help catch
criminals”, most computer commentators say: tell that to the marines.
Criminals will revel in it. Every month we have evidence that such giant
systems are porous both to hacking and to human error. British people will
not accept being interrogated by the state so that their personal details
can be available to every agency in Europe and every hacker in the world.
The NHS computer is, if anything, sicker. Nobody can now recall a reason for
it. Lord Warner recently admitted that its cost had risen to £20 billion.
Choose-and-book, already in place, is simply not required by general
practice. The government is weakening in its demand that patients must opt
out of, rather than opt into, making their medical records open to the
world. But if they must opt in, who will bother? In the latest survey, 85%
of doctors want “an inquiry” into whether the project should proceed.
The Olympics is a different can of worms. Brown is reputed to have hated the
project from the start but lacked the guts to stop the bid or protest at
Tessa Jowell’s clearly fraudulent bid price. It would be within Britain’s
rights to accept the 2012 Olympics, but on its original terms, not those of
an extravagance-obsessed International Olympic Committee (IOC). The terms
should be those of the original, much vaunted “low-cost Games”, an already
lofty £2.4 billion.
Anyone who cannot stage a two-week sporting festival in a well-equipped
capital city for that amount of money should not go near a whelk stall. He
should certainly not sit, like the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), atop
700 staff and £400m in “delivery expenses” and be allowed to go junketing to
Ascot, Twickenham and Claridge’s, as consultancies vie for “cost-plus”
contracts.
Because the ODA is in the pocket of the obscure and unaccountable IOC, the two
are in effect conspiring to rob British taxpayers of colossal sums of money.
Little or none of the current £9 billion budget reflects sporting necessity.
As for legacy, this is no longer described by the ODA as an investment but
as a cost. More than £1 billion is going into regenerating a tiny corner of
east London that would surely regenerate itself with a decontamination
grant.
From the moment Britain won the Games in 2005 the money began to go wrong. It
was revealed that the bid budget did not include inflation, security, Vat or
something called a “delivery fee”. When the Treasury insisted last year on a
£2.7 billion contingency, the ODA howled that this was ridiculously high.
Two weeks ago Jonathan Stephens, the sports department’s permanent
secretary, admitted that it would probably be spent.
London sold itself to the IOC as offering a low-cost “people’s Games”. It now
seems likely to cost more than any sporting event since Nero. Only a
dictatorship, China, has managed to extract more from its citizens (roughly
£15 billion) and it is getting big infrastructure for its money.
Sir Stuart Lipton, the developer, when asked last summer to chair the ODA,
took one look at its budget and walked away, saying that it could not be
delivered for less than £15-£16 billion.
The Olympic stadium will probably be full only for the opening and closing
ceremonies, yet it has doubled in cost to £500m and received howls of
“dumbing down” from the architectural press. On its proclaimed
sustainability, Building Design commented pithily: “There is nothing
sustainable about building an 80,000-seat stadium for less than two months’
use.” The 55,000 of these seats to be demolished after two weeks must be the
most expensive folding chairs in the world.
Nor is there any obvious after-use for a stadium that is shaped exclusively
for athletics and too big for other team sports. The athletics stadium at
Crystal Palace is never bursting at the seams. Besides, London has just
built a brand new stadium at Wembley, designed by Lord Foster to be
converted to track and field if need be.
Meanwhile, no builder would take on Zaha Hadid’s wildly visionary aquatic
centre at the budget price. The price was doubled to £150m and the capacity
reduced from 20,000 seats to 2,500. Both stadium and pool have attracted
only one contractor, leaving the ODA vulnerable to further inflation.
There is no conceivable value-for-money in a £130m “media centre” of a
gigantic 1.29m sq ft, the size of the tallest Canary Wharf tower lain on its
side. The £2 billion Olympic village is so designed that it will have to be
expensively converted for saleable housing. In Barcelona I was told that it
would have been cheaper to demolish it and start again. Two large student
halls of residence on the site were last month smashed to the ground in a
wild gesture of extravagance.
While the public must visit Stratford by train, the ODA is planning
Soviet-style Zil lanes up the Mile End Road for limousines of the IOC’s
“Olympic family”. It is as if London was giving itself over to the mafia for
a fortnight.
This project, however worthy in intention, is beyond the realm of crazy. It
promises nothing but a litany of hell for ministers from now until 2012. The
government is already seeking statutory powers to double the lottery’s
contribution by another £1 billion. The House of Lords may well vote against
any such raid on other good causes.
The arts lobby is turning against the Games as its capital project funding is
cut, from £80m last year to £20m next. Sport England has lost some £400m to
go to the Olympics. London alone has been deprived of nine swimming pools
and other sports centres.
To save money James Purnell, the sports secretary, blandly declares that
walking, bicycling, dancing and gymnastics are no longer sports. He has
cunningly shifted responsibility for meeting the Olympic target of “2m more
Britons in active sport by 2012” to the health department. Last week Derek
Mapp, chairman of Sport England, was sacked for protesting at this decision.
Purnell has somehow to find an extra £600m for Olympics training, or sports
economists have bizarrely predicted that Britain will not make the target of
fourth place on the medals table.
It is no wonder that Edward Leigh, the Commons public accounts committee
chairman, two weeks ago told the ODA that he had “no confidence in your
ability to plan ahead”. He was “staggered” by its accounting. Don Touhig,
the Labour MP, called it “the most catastrophic piece of financial
mismanagement in the history of the world” – a title for which competition
is fierce.
This is the last realistic moment when Brown can gain popularity, money and
glory by intervening in this nonsense. He can tell the ODA to sack its
grotesque apparat of consultants, officials and deliverers and forget
“legacy”, which no Olympic Games has ever delivered. The proposed
“concentration camp” at Stratford should be abandoned and events dispersed
across the southeast.
There is still time. There are many ways of staging exciting Olympics in
London in 2012. If they do not suit the fat cats of the IOC, too bad. They
were sold a £2.4 billion Games and that is what they should get. Not a penny
more.
This project is becoming a grotesque monument to the incompetence of modern
British government. Brown has a golden chance to stamp his mark on his
regime and plan an Olympics fit for the 21st century.
simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk
I agree with every word of this article. The Bern/Moscow commentator makes an interesting point. Let's all get in our cars, (in my case I'll have to buy or hire one) block the Mile End Road and refuse to let the Zil honchos cut in. Or better still, the suggestion to auction the games. I'm sure Dubai would love to host them.
Denna , Dalston, London,
Isn't there something to be said for spending public money badly? It leaks out haphazardly, creating demand for ephemeral goods our consumer society craves, generating non jobs that employ the almost unemployable, and leaving future space to fill with more hairbrained schemes. It's scary to think what the country would be like if we were super efficent. As interesting as Norway or Switzerland- what was that comment about cuckcoo clocks?
Ged Parker, Washington, Tyne & Wear, England
it all started with the Dome and it goes on. And don't forget the £8bn lost in fraud by the Home office in tax credits etc. Any chief exec would have been forced out by any one of the catatastophes we endure weekly..but PM's go on and on. We could however do payment by results and every labour mp would have to hand his salary and expenses back.
bob holmes, axbridge , england somerset
I live in two former Olympic cities and can unhappily confirm that the supposed benefits to the community after the event itself are an illusion.
My home is Grenoble which held the (cheaper) Winter Olympics in 1968 and I work in Moscow.
Grenoble is still paying for the 68 Winter Games; in fact I am and so is everyone else who pays property taxes via a special olympic subsidy - 39 years after the event. And for good measure the accomodation for the athletes that was supposed to become housing for the poor has had to be totally renovated twice within its own lifetime.
Moscow is even worse - and I can confirm through bitter experience every day that the Zil lanes do more to exacerbate congestion than to solve it. And a question - if a Londoner was to refuse to allow an Olympic Apparatchik out of his Zil lane into the ordinary traffic, would he be arrested, as happens here? Are we going to make criminals out of ordinary people protesting peacefully against the greed and corruption?
Geoffrey SAUNDERS, grenoble/Moscow, France/Russia
And what about the temporary horse park in Greenwich? You can push a buggy across the park in five minutes, some bright spark has decided it is somehow big enough for a 6km cross-country course. The price will be limiting the number of spectators to less than 10% of what would go to Badminton. There's then an unecessary loss of revenue streams through lost opportunity for ticket sales, and the mass wave disappointment that will be felt by horse enthusiasts when they realise they cannot attend one of the few sports UK is likely to win a medal in.
Clare Fawdry, Reigate, Surrey
Bit of a late Road to Damascus experience for you, Simon, isn't it?
Wern't you one of the main enthusiasts for the Dome?
RAB, Bristol, England
As a Welshman I fully recognise that London is the real money making centre of the UK.
Fortunately I don't have to live there.
It seems that Londoners deserve and should get shedloads of money to upgrade the deprived East end / Stratford area.
Pity they couldn't just spend the money wisely as needed instead of dumping this ultra expensive white elephant on the poor sods
Dave Moorcraft, Penarth S Wales ,
You forgot to mention the £16 Million for the shooting ranges that will be demolished after the games. The NRA ranges at Bisley in Surrey could be used for far less. In fact the U.K. has no right to host the Games as it has banned one Olympic Sport (Pistol Shooting).
R. Edminson, Edinburgh,
I think that the Olympics are now solely a vehicle for promoting fizzy drinks, cornflakes, pizza, soap powder, baby wipes etc. And publicity for inept politicians and councillors . Last year I sincerely hoped that Paris would get this bottomless pit of debt.
I will not be watching the next one on TV nor the 2012 games (if I am still alive). The 2012 Olympic logo is ugly, illiterate and unloved.
As a pensioner how can I avoid money being taken out of my pocket to fund this farce?
Mark, Welshpool, Wales
A real eye-opener it is about all three white elephants for which the whole nation and particularly London should thank Simon Jenkins. Spending billions of tax-payers' money on ID computer is sheer waste of money. Existing Home-office and Police computer system is more than sufficient to catch criminals if the persons engaged to doing their job are encouraged to do better by a bonus system. I am a regular visitor to 4/5 hospitals besides my GP for various health reasons. I have seen not just GPs but more than them, their receptionists struggling with computers to give appointments which now take 3 times more time than they used to about 30 odd years ago. Things were so simple then. Nothing has basically changed in any sphere of life. Why then, should any member of public pay ten times more in telephone bill and be subjected to a huge amount of wasted time by pressing a number of keys after listening to irrelevant rubbish in a hosp or GP surgery? Olympics? Ban it& sack the IOC and ODA
Ashok Chatterjee, London W5 1HN, UK
This is what happens when you put folk in charge of other peoples money. Coe's caught the Viv Nicholson ethos, it makes the irritating little man seem important. If the country were boundlessly wealthy and its old folk didn't die because they cannot afford to heat their homes then then so be it. Let some other country do it and I'll watch it on the telly.
Ken Wyatt, Todmorden, uk
London Olympics? Who said be careful what you wish for - you might just get it?
Ken Leyland, Liverpool, U.K.
I have not met a single person in London who thinks this is a good idea. A handful of people will make a lot of money, compared to the millions of Londoners who will have to pay for it. If we must keep it, hold in Wembley & other existing stadiums. Let's face it, most people will watch it on TV, it could be held anywhere.
Ken Whysall, Hemel Hempstead,
does anyone really care about most of the 'sports' in the olympics today? thanks to our british cousins for getting the bid from new york, you have once again proved to be our best friend.
jim, netcong, new jersey
What is it in this country that makes us want to kill any major project with bad vibes? (That's what did for the Dome - I went and it was okay, but the next day at work I was drowned out by the people who'd never been but swore it was crap).
Now we're trying to kill off the Olympics with bad publicity. and the Glasgow Commonwealth Games while we're about it...STOP! It's poisoning the well!
Other countries get behind a project like this, and leave the whingeing and backbiting till later. Don't we remember the heartbreak whenever we bid for a major sporting event and lost? Now we've won one, but we're determined to scupper it even before it's started.
Can we just leave it now!?!
SR, Borehamwood, UK
You’ve not mentioned those involved with bringing this diabolical situation to our shores. According to the TV prog which investigated this, they are about to make fortunes, having set up consultative companies etc, which although receive tax payers funding in massive amounts feel their not answerable to the citizens of the UK. The gravy train goes on, refuse to buy a lottery ticket at least once a month that will send a clear message to this incompetent government. Do you really want to see Blair & co at the opening ceremony beating their chests and cocking another snoop at us, telling us instrumental he was in bringing the games to the UK.
michael, Sheffield,
Totally agree with article. Mr Bean could also save himself (that means us!!) another £2 billion by scrapping the ridiculous plan to close all the fire controls in the Country and replace them with 9 'super' controls which the Government's own department has said has a very high chance of 'total project failure'.
Nick, Gravesend, England
Is it too late to auction off the 2012 Olympics? Surely there are some sovereign states foolish enough to bid for them.
Dave, Wrexham,
Yes indeed the cost of the commercial sporting farce will brake London's back.
winemaster2, Atlanta, GA , USA
Gordon Bean has preached about his prudence. Who with any sense would take on the Olympics in the middle of a building boom. Did he not look out of his window and see all the cranes. No wonder the costs have risen. There was another 'dodgy' dossier on the costs !! To use a stock market expression, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. This bunch are insane at the taxpayers expense. It is easy to spend other people's money. And the public finances are strained just before a recession.
G Davies, Cardiff, Wales
As a Brit expat living in Athens, I warned the great and the good back home in the UK not to get caught up in the great Olympic Games "bahalo" ("mess" in Greek). Greece will be paying for the 2004 Olympics for the next 20 years and the stadia where the various events were held are now being vandalised by gypsies. Unfortunately, as both a British and Greek taxpayer it looks as if I'll be paying for the Olympics for the rest of my life! What people don't understand is that, firstly, the modern Olympics is a stitch-up between the IOC and the media; and secondly, that it's a kind of roadshow with officials moving from venue to venue and enjoying the high life of each: Sydney, Barcelona, Athens, Peking and then London. Unfortunately, it's the resident taxpayers who must foot the bill. Then there's the drug antics of the competitors themselves. No American athlete was caught in Athens because the drugs they were using were so far advanced as to be undetectable. Olympic spirit? Forget it!
Dr David Green, Athens, Greece
The Sydney Olympics, which happened while I lived there were put on for afar more modest cost. The city's legacy was a lot of infrastructure and the best ten day party I can remember. Perhaps London's organizers needs to talk to the Australians about how these sort of things are really done?
John Reid, Wellington, New Zealand
I agree with every word of the article, Unfortunately the chances of Brown changing are nil. If perchance, Brown should manage a second term, this will be the end of him. I hope we don't have to wait so long.
Ally, Motherwell, Lanarkshire
Couldn't agree more. The olympic games had become a meaningless event more concerned with political gains than delivered real meaningful sporting events. With the exception of a couple of sports, it is full of minority sports, where the spectators would not even fill the local sports centre, never mind an extravangent purpose built facility
To me the games belongs to past when most sports had no other major championship, now all these sports have world championships, european championships etc. To spend these sums of money is a joke, we have enough facilites nationwide, along with the new Wembly stadium.
It would seem logical in future that countries should bid for the games not individual cities, this way the facilities would be in place, and the ludicrous IOC could stop insisting that cities spend vast fortunes on facilties that will never be used to any great capacity. Yet another city chases the 'Olympic dream', history shows that it usually becomes an Olympic nightmare.
Mark Mortimer, Hangzhou, China
Surely we can do better than reducing the cost to £2.4 billion. How about selling the rights to Paris? Or would they be too smart to revive their interest? The games in their current form should be scrapped. They are a racket, the main purpose of which is to boost the egos of IOC members and staff.
Oliver Chettle, Bedford,
This is pure humbug coming from someone so closely connected with the millenium dome.
Bob, Chiang Mai,