Scots Don't Want the Olympics

A row has broken out between the British government and the Scottish Nationalists, in relation to the bid to host the 2012 Olympics in London.



The Scottish Nationalist Party's Alex Neil, convener of Holyrood's enterprise committee, said:



"We've already had the Dome. Scotland's share of that was £100m and this is Dome Mark Two....It is us subsidising London, which has got three times the population of Scotland and is far, far wealthier than Scotland. Why should we subsidise London?".



Nationalist Alex Neil dubbed the games Dome Mark Two:



"The danger for Scotland is we could be robbed of something like £70m worth of Lottery and other funding....The fact of life is we're going to get nowhere near £70m, but we are going to see our local sports clubs and other good causes going down the tube because there's not going to be the Lottery money there to sustain them."



Independent MSP Margo MacDonald added:



"My concern is that in getting the games so much money will have to be spent that the money that should be going into development of sport in Scotland will have to be cut by £10m..".



However, Sports Minister Patricia Ferguson is claiming that the games would earn millions of pounds for Scotland from tourism.



I find that hard to believe, given the fact that London is 400 miles away from Scotland.