Oops, There Goes Another Five Billion

Eons ago - back in November 2006 - I wrote:

Perhaps London wasn't such a great idea for the 2012 Olympic Games. Tessa has told MPs today that the cost of the Olympic Park alone has gone up from nearly £2.4bn to £3.3bn... a rise of £900m, or about 40%. If you take the % rise in infrastructure cost and extrapolate that % increase to June 2012, you get the figure of £10.2bn. I can assure everyone in Hackney that this is a malicious slur on our government and no such ridiculous inflation will occur while Labour remains in power.

According to a scurrilous story being put about by Mihir Bose at the BBC this morning, Tessa is now discussing a price of £9bn, with construction costs rising to £3.3bn, £2bn contingency, regeneration costs of £1.8bn, a £1bn VAT bill and security costs of at least £900m.

Nobody should be fooled by this nonsense. The BBC, once a Trotskyite organisation from roof to basement, has now been infiltrated by Tories determined to attack us at every opportunity. Sports Editor Mihir Bose is a classic example, coming to the BBC after 12 years writing for The Torygraph. Enough said! We obviously can't expect any unbiased reporting from her.

If the figures being put about by Bose were true, then a full projection of costs to 2012 would put the final bill at £62,334,508,760 - twice the national defence budget, three times the housing and environment budget and very nearly as much as we spend on education, education, education.

I can only repeat what I said before - that this is a malicious slur on our government and no such ridiculous inflation will occur while Labour remains in power.