Let the spins begin!

Battle of the rhubarb

'Why are they destroying our 100-year-old allotments to make way for the 'Green Olympics'?'

Hype. Spin. Ambition. Greed. Targets. Cowardice. Obfuscation. Lack of oversight. No accountability. Media with eyes only on tomorrow's headline (All for the competition to the point it's won, then all down on it once the consequences they should have reported upon sink in... or make new stories)... er, etc

And sod all to do with the environment.

A billion £ con, and so far how many posts?

Maybe we're wrong, then.

BBC - London Olympics could cost £9bn
Telegraph - 'Brown to blame for 2012 Olympics costs'
Telegraph - The real cost of the Olympics

And who, if ever, will get called to account in tangible terms if this is, as seems likely, borne out?

Where there is no accountability there is no responsibility.

And where there is no responsibility there is no reason to serve any measure but self-interest.

Telegraph - Olympics budget set at £5bn in bid to end row - Nice to see it has been 'set' .. at last
Guardian - The show must go on
Telegraph - Olympic budget trebles to £9.3bn - look back two lines. And how many days?
Indy - Jowell: cost of Olympics has tripled to £9bn - not just the right wing stirring, then
Indy - The cost of victory
Indy - Tessa's going for the gold in Olympic chicanery
Newsnight - Thursday, 15 March, 2007

Pick a number.

Sport is usually pretty clear on numbers, at least between 1 & 3.

So the gold for today's 'Ok it's not enviro, but it's how joined up government isn't working in other areas as well, and explains a lot that doesn't happen to save the planet' award is: Olympics funding 'not worked out yet'

What was the pitch we won then? When I did them for ad work they gave us a budget and we said 'for this, you will get this idea, with this great media deal'. Bingo. One second late or a penny over on dleivery and we were toast.

What was to stop us going in with 'every country's athlete will be personally carried in a diamond-studded litter by Ken, Seb, Tessa and Tony, and showered with champagne as they run about - we'll figure out how we'll do it and pay for it later.'

Glad I'm not a London ratepayer. Or play the lottery. Thing is, Junkk.com may be a good cause it's supposed to help.

Nil points.

Let the (blame) games begin!

I don't play much sport. I watch even less. Especially now that the whole thing has become a business on one side and I can appreciate the abilities of most sportsperson no more than the money spent on training and success at finding new, legal 'aids'.

However, I am now a (poor, in every sense) student of cause funding, and I do not like what I read here: Good causes miss out as Olympics soaks up half a billion in Lotto funds

As I bang on about specious ROIs being used, even trumpeted in the environmental world, I should not be surprised that the small matter of setting a budget and sticking to it seems to have been neglected.

A lot of Pols these days (have to) start of their interviews with 'I'm not in the business of blaming anyone'. Well, I'm afraid I think we need to get back to this a lot more. Every inefficient, egotistical and especially corrupt individual who is engaged in a project and cocks up, especially because of self-interest, should be named, shamed, fired and not compensated.