Article: 20050706
The Circus is Coming to Town
Dateline: Wednesday, July 6th, 2005.
The TV is showing people tearful, and dancing for joy. Is there a cure for AIDS? No. Have the G8 leaders made further committments to the alleviation of world poverty? No. London just got "awarded" the responsibility for hosting the Olympic Games in the summer of 2012.
It'll certainly pay dividends for the same multinational corporations which benefit wherever it's held in the world, but if Athens and Montreal are anything to go by, it is us - the residents of London - who will saddled with the dubious honour of footing the bill for an international media circus for years or decades to come. London will receive a grant of some 2.4 billion pounds, but the final cost of preparing and executing the tournament will be nearer 10 billion. Guess who has the privelege of making up the shortfall after the grant, and ticket revenues have been exhausted. Ordinary London residents - the vast majority of who will not derive even the slightest benefit - that's who. Every household within the London area can expect to have to pay a surcharge of 20 pounds per year
Not only that we will have the pleasure of enduring chaos and congestion in the ensuing seven years between now and the end of those games. And now we're being leaned on to throw our hands in the air and dance in celebration, and being regarded as unbalanced if we don't. Well excuse me if I don't feel like following the blinkered herd who can't see beyond the end of their rose-tinted champagne glasses.
