Government hide report damning Olympic bid - then bid anyway

[Doggy Styles]

Olympics good for having a party but not much else, secret report warned ministers
They received this report well before the bid, but chose to bury and ignore it.

Ministers ignored evidence from their own experts who found scant social or economic justification for bidding for the 2012 Olympics.

A 250-page strategy document, signed off in December 2002 by Tony Blair as Prime Minister but selectively distributed, found little support for the claim that the Games would produce significant economic returns or more people playing sport.

Leading economists and civil servants commissioned by the Prime Minister’s strategy unit and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that the main motivation for staging the 16-day event should be a morale-boosting national party.

Yet just a few months later, the Cabinet backed a bid on the ground that it would increase sports participation and regenerate East London, and Lord Coe sold the message to the International Olympic Committee in 2005.

This has echoes of the Iraq war - sod the evidence we'll do it to try and make Tony Blair look good.

I'm annoyed because I pay hard-earned money in taxes for these clowns to hose money away like this.

[AtW]

Olympics is a good thing for dictatorships to raise their profile in the world - Nazi Germany, USSR, China etc. For all other countries it just causes major financial loss.

[Moscow Mule]

I'm quite glad the Olympics will be on our doorstep.

This is because I never need to use a hospital, or anything else which is centrally funded.

[Bagpuss]

Downturns are largely fuelled by expectations. Most people expect next year and 2010 to be bad. The 2012 Olympics are just what we need to generate a feel good factor and pull us out of recession. I predict 2012 will be a boom year.

[_V_]

Downturns are largely fuelled by expectations. Most people expect next year and 2010 to be bad. The 2012 Olympics are just what we need to generate a feel good factor and pull us out of recession. I predict 2012 will be a boom year.

Yes, all the trillions £££££ of debt will be gone in a couple of years.

[Mich the Tester]

Downturns are largely fuelled by expectations. Most people expect next year and 2010 to be bad. The 2012 Olympics are just what we need to generate a feel good factor and pull us out of recession.

…and sell lots of expensive track bicycles!