Call for Olympic spending checks

A new study by the BBC has shown that the cost estimates for the London 2012 Olympics continue to rise, with the latest estimate now nearing £9bn.

This is four times the £2.35bn figure set out in the city's bid for the Games, which itself rose 40% to £3.3bn back in November according to the culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

Now the BBC has found that construction alone will equal that figure. A further £2bn construction contingency fund will be set aside, with regeneration costs of £1.8bn and a £1bn VAT bill taking the total higher.

The big question is: where is this money going to come from? The answer seems likely to be an ever greater reliance on contributions from the National Lottery.

But as Shadow culture secretary Hugo Swire said on the BBC's Today programme, "Now the lottery is already having to contribute one and a half billion pounds which is going to mean a lot of the other good causes are going to suffer as a result."

But there is an alternative. By the time the Games come around in 2012, the government will also have paid the EU a net total of £36bn - if the current EU budget deal gets approved by MPs.

That's several times more than the total cost of the Games, even at the level of current upper estimates.

Just an idea, but instead of depriving good causes of lottery money, why not put a stop to those payments to the EU until that organisation can at least get its accounts approved by auditors. Whatever accrues from this source can be put towards plugging the Olympics funding gap.

We'd find there would be lots left over for other useful purposes too, like paying off NHS deficits and preventing further cuts to health services.

There's certainly no justification for continuing to send billions to the EU while auditors can't tell us how the "majority" is being spent. Especially when public money is urgently needed elsewhere.

So who's getting the chop Tessa? Lottery-funded good causes, or the EU?