Despite all the evidence of doom and gloom, the English Culture Secretary, the man some people call Jeremy Hunt, has announced that London's Olympics will not be austerity Olympics. Apart from MPs, top businessmen, the royals, lords and anyone from the city, the rest of us are living austerity lives, and will be, all the way through next year, but the Olympics will be lavish.
Yes, fut coat and no knickers Hunt promises us a show to remember. After all, it will be a time for people like him and Cameron and Prince Sebastian and all their business rich mates, to enjoy the best of everything at our expense, even down to having special lanes on roads reserved just for them.
There was a choice, according to that great expert of all things economic and sporting. We could say that because these are austere times we should pare everything back, or we could say that because there are times of austerity we must harness the Olympics. "People", he said,"would not forgive us" if we didn't make the most of the opportunity to spend spend spend. He said that it was going to be an incredible expression of British culture, British history and British creativity.
What is the fool on about?
It's the bloody Olympics; they belong to a city, in this case London. Most of the rest of us will see what we see on tv, just as if they had been staged in Paris, Ulan Bator, or the Moon! The only difference is we have all had to go without to pay for our betters to prance around self importantly on the telly.
Most of the promises that came with the Olympics have already been broken. I seem to remember in the dim and distant past, that there were to cost around £3 billion; now that figure is nearly £10 billion, and rising.
There was supposed to be an increase in sporting activity throughout the four countries that are paying for it; in fact sporting activity has actually dropped off.
There were promises about the stadia being taken over by private companies; now it appears that nothing can be agreed and extra costs are to fall on the government, ie us, for them.
The accommodation of the athletes' village cost a billion to build and was supposed to earn a profit when it was sold; however, it only raised around half of that.
The Treasury is currently analysing the economic impact of the Games, but Mr Hunt, the genius that he is, has pre-empted them to tell us that it will be significant. Well, that's all right then. Thank God they have him; whatever would they do without him?
