Today the new budget of £9.3bn was announced, up from about £2.4bn in a year http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6453575.stm

What a disaster - the IOC is like a huge cuckoo laying its egg in the next of the host City that comes back to see its huge progeny that has muscled aside all the other good things that could have been done with the money.

Don't give me any regeneration codswallop - playing fields will be concreted over on the Hackney Marshes in exchange for a whole load of white elephant sports facilities that will sit slowly decaying like in Barcelona and Athens. This always was a vanity project for Blair and Livingstone - a three-week festival of drug-aided sport is not worth such a vast sum. If the regeneration was worth doing, why were we not prepared to do it anyway.

Makes me want to cry :(2

This is so predictable I can't see how people can get worked up about it.

The Olympics always costs money - simple as that. The fact that it's going to cost more than originally thought doesn't surprise or bother me in the least.

Can't wait for 2012 - the greatest show on earth in the greatest city on earth - it's going to be fantastic.

Its a sacrifice to host the greatest sporting event in the world. They'll recuperate most of the money. I'm just :pray: I can get tickets.

Hmmmm, I agree with Barrystar this is a vanity thing.

The greatest show on earth, sacrifices must be made? You try telling that to a wage earner who just scrapes by in London who can't afford the rise in council tax that will ultimately pay for massive rise in budget for the Olympics when the stadium and facilities go to waste after the event....

anyone who thought it was going to cost 2.4bn was kidding themselves!

i knew it was destined to spiral out of control, but im just looking forward to the event.

Well I never thought it was going to cost £2.4bn - but to me the more interesting question is why the likes of Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone and whichever Government monkey was in charge then told us that it was. I assume that they meant to be taken seriously by somebody - are they incompetent, strangers to the truth, or an unholy mixture of the two?

It is the greatest show on earth, and I always love it when it comes around - but I'd rather it was f***ing up Paris or some other gullible city than London. I also find the attitude of those that are running it nauseous.

What do tax payers do that don't agree with the Olympics being hosted here?

What we always do, pay through gritted teeth (and the nose).

That's not a real issue, there will always be government expenditure that individual tax payers don't approve of but have to fund as part of the contract between state and individual in a free society. Our chance to change things is by voting, whingeing, or taking a more active role in the democratic process.

the original prices are never accurate, but it makes me laugh that the contracted firms get away with it.....

*spots MP backhanders*