London: Mayor & More

Regeneration Games?

From the Times:

"London 2016: thousands of young East Enders return to their dream homes every day after work on the zippiest public transport links in the UK. Throwing open their balcony doors to view Europe's largest urban park, lined with oak, willow and birch trees, they may opt for an evening stroll along the green banks of the rejuvenated River Lea - unrecognisable from the waterway polluted from a century of heavy industry and neglect - before stopping at a wine bar for a glass of zesty riesling.

Or they could decide to take their children for a dip at the Olympic aquatics centre, Zaha Hadid's £303million architectural showpiece, with its wavy roof, that inspired a new generation of British swimmers. It would have been the youngsters' second brush of the day with a legacy of 2012, after a lunchtime athletics coaching session in the Olympic stadium organised by their school in Hackney."

Ah, the prince of boroughs. But, in terms of legacy:

"David Mackay, the architect and a key figure in the success of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, widely touted as the 'model Games', believes that London has already left it too late. With better planning, he told The Times, they could have built a water park in East London, just as Barcelona built a seaside to transform the rundown Catalan capital into a European super-city.

London could yet steal many of the regeneration concepts advanced by the 1992 Olympics planners. The comparisons are irresistible. Like Barcelona, where the east was traditionally home to the poorer sections of society, London's wealth is weighted heavily to the west. Staging the Olympics offers the chance to spread it more evenly. The trick will be to avoid that equating to a house price rise that causes the locals to ship out, as happened during the gentrification of Barcelona.

It must surely be the aim to encourage those people to stay and live in a better place where there are jobs, prospects and the best sports facilities in the country - if that does not sound too fantastical."

The whole piece is here.

2012 Olympics: The Government Will Bail Out The Village

Paul Kelso at the Guardian:

"The government will be forced to step in to bail out the London 2012 Olympic athletes' village as the impact of the credit crunch and the sliding domestic housing market threaten to stretch the £9.3bn budget for the games to its limit. The chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority conceded for the first time yesterday that the village would definitely require additional public funding to cover a shortfall that could run to tens of millions of pounds."

The rest is here. By the way, the full implications of Mayor Johnson's "Memorandum" gaffe only sank in yesterday evening thanks to top work from Boris Watch. Some days I think the Boris mayoralty model might have its virtues. Other days I just feel insulted by it. This is one of them.

Boris & Olympics 2012: Memorandum Of Misunderstanding

From the Mayor's Office, a press release:

"The Mayor has reiterated his commitment to London Council tax payers that they will not pay a single penny more towards funding the 2012 Games."

Yes, that's what I heard on the radio this morning.

"He was correcting allegations made this morning on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that a secret agreement existed between the former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and the government outlining how any cost overruns would be allocated if the 2012 Games budget were exceeded."

Pardon? Could you repeat that?

"He was correcting allegations made this morning on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that a secret agreement existed between the former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and the government outlining how any cost overruns would be allocated if the 2012 Games budget were exceeded."

No he wasn't. He was talking about a Memorandum of Understanding published a year ago, placed in the Commons library and posted on the Department of Culture, Media and Sport website. He said, "I rather doubt that it exists." And nobody alleged that it was a "secret agreement." The press release continues:

"The agreement referred to is in fact the Memorandum of Understanding between the Mayor and the Government published in full on the 27 June 2007. It was placed in the House of Commons library and can be accessed on the Department of Culture Media and Sport website."

Isn't that what I just said? And is this the Memorandum in question? Thought so.

Ken & Boris On Today Programme

Listen again. I think Boris comes a cropper. The Guardian thinks so too:

"Boris Johnson committed his first significant gaffe as mayor of London today when he said he did not know about a key document relating to the funding of the Olympics. In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he was asked about a memorandum of understanding agreed between the government and his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, about the cost of the Olympics. At first Johnson said he had not seen the memo. But, when he was pressed about it, he said: 'I rather doubt that it exists.'"

Oh dear. Now read on.