The government has announced that 30,000 jobs will be created by Olympics projects.
Isn’t it high time to bail out and pass the honour of hosting the Olympics to someone else (Say Beijing again)? If we don’t, in this economic environment, there are only two scenarios:
Either we make a joke of ourselves during the games, as we will not have had the money to build things properly. Or we will build them properly and put London and the entire UK in a much bigger financial mess than it already is.
It took Montreal nearly 30 years to pay their Olympics debt, lead Greece to a near bankruptcy. That was when times were good. These days it will have much more dire consequences.
It’s not too late to bail out. But soon it will be.
technomist
The plan to regenerate the East End has turned out to be all talk. The jobs are not going to locals at all.
There is a site for companies who are inertested in competing for work on the olympics called "Compete For". The levels of bureaucray involved before you can even register an interest (which has to be dome before any information is provided by the Olympic Committee to firms outside of their current little magic circle of multinationals) and then find out about what opportunities are available, is horrendous.
So far, less than 2% of contracts have been awarded to firms from the East End of London.
Statistics are required, for instance, on the religious beliefs of companies' employees, with percentages needed on the number of employees who are members of 'multifaith organsiations'. The whole thing is designed to make the initial entry costs to the bidding process too high for local firms.