Brown has gone back on his word to protect the UK from Olympic costs, says richard brooks |
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Today's announcement that £6bn of taxpayers' cash will be committed to the Olympics doesn't do much for Gordon Brown's reputation as the Iron Chancellor.
When the Olympic enthusiasts were trying to muster government support for a 2012 bid early in 2003, no Cabinet minister was more sceptical than the Chancellor. As Culture and Sport Secretary Tessa Jowell told the official historian of the bid (and its PR boss) Mike Lee, "Gordon was absolutely clear. He knew what the forecasts for the economy were and knew we would not be in a position to put huge amounts of government money into it".
According to Lee, in his book The Race for the 2012 Olympics - the Inside Story, "the Chancellor was clear that there would be no Treasury money to pay for either the bid, which alone would cost £30m, or the project itself if London won the vote".
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| Gordon Brown’s multi-billion pound U-turn shows how Ken Livingstone put one over on him back in 2003 |
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Only when a deal was agreed that put the costs entirely on Londoners and the National Lottery did Brown eventually sign up.
Yesterday's multi-billion pound U-turn by the Chancellor, announced in the Commons by Tessa Jowell, not only exposes the limits of his prudence when controversy looms, it also shows how arch-enemy Ken Livingstone put one over on him back in 2003.
London's Mayor saw an opportunity in the Games, which most international observers thought was a dead cert for Paris. He would later tell Lee: "For me at that stage I didn't think we had a cat in hell's chance of winning. But I was thinking this was a good chance to get some more money out of the Government for Londoners. So I bid on that basis."
Four years on, Livingstone has duly dropped his multi-billion pound bill on Gordon's doormat. Which is some sort of revenge for the disastrous London Underground privatisation deal that Brown foisted on a furious Ken just before the Olympic bid came up in 2002. 
FIRST POSTED MARCH 15, 2007
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