An Olympic Boost is the East End's Right
Evening Standard
I am one of what seems to be a dwindling band of people prepared to stand up for the 2012 Olympics. And I do so for unashamedly partisan reasons. I believe that, as well as being a spectacular sporting event, the 2012 Olympics represent an opportunity to regenerate the East End of London that will not come again.
Unlike my fellow MPs on the Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport, I am not surprised that the costs of the Olympics have already begun to spiral. It is in the nature of this type of project. When we do eventually have a realistic estimate of the costs, and some effective project management, the question is simply where the extra money is going to come from. Some people in government appear to think they can raid the Lottery. But that would just be robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Lottery currently pours millions into just the parts of London that the 2012 Olympics are supposed to benefit. My constituency in Hackney has received more than £30 million in grant money (in more than 600 grants) since the Lottery began in 1995. Half of that money goes on sport. It would be ludicrous to cut funding for grassroots sport in order to fund the Olympics.
Nor should the London council tax payer have to pay. Just as the Sydney Olympics reverberated to the glory of Australia as a whole, the 2012 Olympics will benefit Britain as a whole in innumerable tangible and intangible ways. So Britain as a whole should contribute the extra money that will undoubtedly be needed to fund the Olympics and the regeneration project. After all, over the past 10 years London is estimated to have contributed up to £89 billion more in tax to the British economy than we received in public spending. It is time to get some of our money back. And while the Olympics may be expensive, the cost of the poverty and deprivation we see around us is even higher.
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