I think the target is to not spend the money on anything right now.


And it's not that we hate ourselve, we just realise what a load of expensive arse a two week long sports day is.

Complete waste of money (we don't have) IMO and the "losers" must be delighted to have missed out.

I dread to think what the REAL security implications/costs involved with this will be.

Not in the slightest, but I do enjoy the opening / closing ceremonies. I'm not a fan of athletics at all so most of it I'm happy to ignore, looking at the list of events on Wiki I can see <5 that I'm genuinely interested in, none of which I'd be upset about missing / not knowing the result.

I do think it's nice to see it in the UK though, it puts our little old island in the spotlight and unless they make a catastrophically bad job of it, which they don't look like they're going to do, it can only be a good thing IMO, especially as - living at the pointy end of the country - I'm not going to have hours added on to my commute every day (yes, I reserve the right to be a total NIMBY when it comes to it )

Plus it's an excuse to hoover out the pockets of tourists from start to finish, which is no bad thing. Think of all the surplus will and kate plates the market traders can finally rid themselves of, driving the economic recovery one piece of tat at a time, that is.

Agree with some of the other comments but getting tired of the continual crowing by the BBC. It's another year to go and you would think it was starting tomorrow.
On a slightly different topic. Why oh why, do they broadcast swimming races on the radio? God it's tiresome

Do you mean like looking after elderly people which apparently is just one of many important things we cannot afford to do properly due to spending cuts - I am sure that would be "recognised worldwide" as better use of limited funds.

As a country we are doing the equivalent of pulling up somewhere is a new flash car we cannot afford to buy or run but are doing it to impress anyway. Which is exactly what we and other countries also in the shid did to get ourselves into this mess in the first place - spending more than we can afford.

Agreed. Like a RRS on finance. Athens 2004 was the beginning of the end for Greece.

If we get £12,000,000,001 back over time then I've no problem with the cost but I have little confidence in the people responsible (particularly Coe).

London is too small, too crowded, with infrastructure that can't cope with the school summer holiday season, let alone millions more roaming around over a two week period.

Sadly but predictably I fear a significant "incident" is also highly likely. The rossers can't police themselves, let alone the rest of the extended population.

Try looking at what the Olympics did to Greece before you talk bks.
Taking £600 per household by force in the middle of a very bad recession to spend on 2 weeks of people running around a track to massage their egos is hardly something to enjoy.

And if you can't think of something better to spend £12bn on I suggest you get a life.

cheer up. Newsflash: some people are actually looking forward to it.

I am looking forward to it. When London was awarded the Games in 2005 the economy wasn't in such a bad shape - no one was predicting then that we would be quite so skint as we are now. Even so, the cost of £9bn is imho worth it. Around £6bn of that money is coming from the public purse - so that's just under £1bn spent every year since winning the bid which, for example, is about 1/20th of the annual housing benefit bill, 1/10th of the amount dished out every year on child benefit, or 1/18th of the money given to Northern Rock during 2008/09.

Life shouldn't just about boring stuff, it should be about fun stuff too.

Indeed, = 2m households. £6000 each please. You can have if back when (if) they make it back.