Olympic terror.

According to the Sunday Telegraph plans by the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic group,to build a London "super mosque" in connection with the Olympic Games, will be vetoed by the government. Understandable.

As the Telegraph report says, the French security services suspect Tablighi Jammat is a terrorist group. The FBI and MI5 also have an interest in them. Quite rightly: as the Guardian has summarised, they have connections to the 7 July London bombers, the transatlantic aeroplane plot and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. The clear implication of these connections is that Tablighi Jamaat has close, even systemic, links with the Taliban - al Qaeda axis in western Pakistan.

Still they are allowed to operate in the United Kingdom.

Tags: Islam, Olympics, Tablighi Jamaat, War on Terror

NAO Report on Olympic budget.

The National Audit Office, the UK government's spending watchdog has published a report on risk assessment and management for the Olympic Games preparations: Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – Risk assessment and management. The full report can be downloaded from here. Amongst the usual bureaucratic jargon, the gist of the report is that the government's failure to agree a final budget for the games is a recipe for disaster.

The cost of the games will be shared between London council tax payers, the National Lottery and general taxation. As the BBC points out, the NAO report says that the first two in that list are already at the limit of what they reasonably afford. In fact, London's contribution has been capped at an average of 38p per week and the Daily Telegraph highlights the danger if the £1.5 billion Lottery contribution has to be increased: it will be at the expense of other projects, including school sport.

The NAO's main gripe is that the government is refusing the set its final contribution to the overall budget. It is not hard to see the Treasury as the main problem. The escalating costs and the inevitable tax rises to pay for them is a problem that Chancellor - and Prime Minister in waiting - Gordon Brown would prefer to leave to his successor.

Tags: National Audit Office, Olympic Games

Olympic Games: going for plutonium?

The London Evening Standard says it has obtained documents showing that part of the proposed Olympic site is possibly contaminated by "high risk" material, including radioactive waste and other materials left over from the days when area was the used for oil storage,tar manufacture and various other chemical industries.

Once the remediation finally begins, it will be the biggest such job in Europe, involving two million tonnes of soil on a site that measures 3.24 million square feet.

The greenest techniques were promised, including soilwashing on site, introducing micro-organisms that "eat" contaminants and "cooking" contaminated soil at high temperatures to sterilise it.

However, natural or semi-natural methods are relatively slow and there is growing concern that the agency will be forced to adopt the costliest, most environmentally damaging procedure, known as "dig and dump". Dr Carey [of Greenwhich University] said: "Because they are getting so short of time, they might end up doing it the quickest way, which is just to dig up the contaminated soil and take it away but it would be a tragedy if they did that."

Soil removal will be expensive. The Standard reports a possible cost of over £80m.

Tags: Olympic Games.

Olympic fantasy.

This is just getting silly.

The Daily Telegraph plucks a figure of £10bn out of thin air.

Even dafter, Ken Livingstone says the 2012 Olympic Games in London will make a profit.

Tags: London, Olympic Games

Tessa Jowell's maths.

Tessa Jowell has been telling the House of Commons that the Olympics will now cost £3.3bn instead of the original forecast of £2.37bn; the extra money is to pay for bonuses when it is ready on time. (Ananova) There is an obvious discrepancy between £3.3bn and the £5bn expected by most observers or the £8bn suggested by the Observer last weekend. How to explain the maths?

As the Guardian reminds us, clever, Mrs Jowell is not counting:

1. at least £1bn in regeneration funds;
2. extra security costs;
3. a contingency fund;
4. an huge tax (VAT) bill.

In fact, it is becoming evident that nobody has the slightest of idea of what it is all going to cost in the end. The BBC has more on costs and on Jowell

Tags: Olmypic Games

More Olympian overspending

Yesterday's figure for the Olympic budget was £5bn (not £5b over budget as I originally wrote, for which apologies). According to the Observer, a report by the London Assembly's budget committee says the 2012 London Olympics are likely to cost £8bn. Any advance?

The £8bn figure is considerably higher than the £5bn revised budget for the event produced just last week. It is based on evidence given by official bodies and key figures involved in funding and delivering the event, such as the Olympic Development Authority. There have also been recent revelations about how the cost of providing security and regenerating London's East End for 2012 is soaring.

Tags: Olympic Games

Olympian overspend.

Continuing the occasional series celebrating the Herculean over-spending, over-taxing, over-budget extravaganza that is the 2012 London Olympics.

At a total cost of £5bn, the project is already about £1.6bn over the original budget of about £3.4bn (not £5bn over-budget, as I mistakenly wrote yesterday, for which apologies), a shortfall ministers have met by raiding National Lottery funds intended for charities, the arts, heritage projects and sports. As the Daily Telegraph reports, the Mayor of London is refusing to raise Council Tax to pay for the overspend and the Treasury is definitely not going to bail out the project. So, ministers are going to raid the Lottery again.

Last night well-placed Treasury sources ruled out any bailout from general taxation.

"Put it this way – we are not putting up taxes," one source said.

A final budget is not now expected until crisis talks between the Treasury, Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Olympic Delivery Authority are concluded in the New Year.

I think that is "final" as in the sense of the last until the next crisis.

Tags: Olympic Games

The Olympics: pity the poor taxpayer.

One of the great Olympic traditions is the host government going over budget. It looks as if the British government is going to set new standards of profligacy. Without so much as a spade in the ground, after an initial estimate of £2.375bn, the expected cost has now risen to in excess of £5bn.

The American engineer in charge of the project, Jack Lumley, has already already quit because of political interference. Tessa Jowell, the hapless minister responsible, forgot to take tax into account in her department's budget calculations, so that could be another £1bn or so on the bill. None of this has stopped Jowell vetoing a proposal to reduce costs by turning the post-games Olympic Stadium into a soccer ground.

The Daily Telegraph's Mihir Bose, who has previously detailed the Dome and Wembley fiascos, is following the story in detail. He has a report and podcast here.

Tags: Olympic Games, United Kingdom