The beleaguered Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt (on whom bookmakers suspended any further bets in April on him to be next Cabinet minister to leave office), is cock-a-hoop with himself over the announcement today that the Olympics is coming in at almost £500M under "budget" at approximately £9.3BN:
"With only 44 days to go before the Olympics, it is fantastic news that there is still £476m of contingency funds left. Britain has proved that not only can we put on a great show for the world to watch like, we did with the Jubilee, but that we can also deliver big construction projects on time and on budget."This is remarkable arrogance from a man whose own colleagues, from the Liberal side of the coalition, abstained in today's vote on whether he should face an independent investigation into claims that he breached the ministerial code wrt the BSkyB takeover.
Hunt would do well to remember two things about the Olympics "budget":
1 The original "budget" was in fact £2.4BN, and
2 The £9.3BN figure that the government would have us believe the Games are costing, excludes £2.2BN running costs; the Olympics will in fact cost at least £12BN.
What was that you were saying about being "on budget" Mr Hunt?
It is rather surprising that Hunt isn't very good at budgets/financial matters, given that he seems to be pretty skilled at arranging his tax affairs (wrt Hotcourses) in a "tax efficient" manner.
Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics
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