As someone who barely understands their own finances, let alone the country’s, I will admit that budget day doesn’t always register with me. Perhaps if there were outre outfits or horse-drawn carriages involved, like there are at the state opening of parliament, I’d get into it, but the only accessory of note is a briefcase and it doesn’t even glow mysteriously when you open it. This week, however, the chancellor of the exchequer did manage to catch my attention.
Somewhere amid the household energy payments and defence spending, he slipped in a cheeky £7m to assess a possible Olympic bid for the north of England. That’s only a preliminary step and a fraction of the cost of any actual bid – Tokyo and Paris spent more than £50m on theirs. Still, it’s enough to put thoughts in people’s heads of beach volleyball in Morecambe Bay or a British eight rowing to victory along the Tyne.
The idea has gained traction since February, when a group of mayors from the northern cities first wrote to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, asking her to bring the Olympics to their neighbourhood. Three months later, Nandy had thrown her support behind the proposal – “It’s time the Olympics came north” – and announced an initial assessment. The new funds will support a more comprehensive one, with a view to hosting in the 2040s.
And it surely doesn’t hurt to have a recently installed, sport-loving prime minister, who was previously mayor of Greater Manchester. Andy Burnham is in the early, giving stages of his premiership and he can generate a lot of goodwill by spending a comparatively small sum exploring the option. The “detailed feasibility study” by UK Sport isn’t due until 2029, but you can still expect it to stoke a lot of excitement in the meantime.
There has already been positive reaction to the news, not least from the former boxer Luke Campbell, the 2012 Olympic bantamweight champion who became Reform UK’s mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire last year. Campbell has been a vocal supporter of the plan; he has also been on the ropes recently, with police investigating allegations – which he denies – that he showed naked pictures of himself to a female member of staff. Still, he came out of his corner to praise the funding.
London’s mayor, however, will be far less impressed. Sadiq Khan has been talking about bringing the Games back to the capital for the past five years. His office has been actively consulting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and working up a plan to reuse 2012 venues to create “the greenest Games ever”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
