Government bought 8,600 Games tickets

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21095725

The government has revealed that it bought more than 8,600 tickets for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
About 4,000 tickets, costing £916,000, were paid for by central government, with the rest - worth about £300,000 - bought by staff or London councils.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it wanted to maximise the economic boost from the Games.
But MP John Mann said it was an attempt to "bury bad news" during the Algerian hostage crisis.
Ministers used 60 tickets, the most expensive a £725 seat at the athletics.

Why am I not surprised?

So what's your take on this?

[denphone]

Politicians continues to have their noses in the pigs trough feathering their own nest when the rest of us struggle to make ends meet and whats that old saying We are in this together.

I think it was the biggest international event that will occur in the UK in any of our lifetimes and the Government had a duty to be represented at it and to try to use it to benefit the country. If that meant buying tickets and attending events, so be it.

Note that they found some random Labour backbencher to moan about it rather than getting some official outraged statement from the party politburo.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21095725



Why am I not surprised?

So what's your take on this?

I will be watching the news closely today to see what they are diverting attention away from

[nomadking]

How can it be burying bad news when very little info is coming out of Algeria? It is certainly nowhere comparable with 9/11.

More than 25% of the tickets in the figures were bought by staff. Then there are the ones bought by London councils. How many of those were Labour councils?

Why is there something wrong with the timing. Initial forecasts of the figures were released last November and the updated figures were allowed to be released at the beginning of the week.

Of the remaining tickets 2,381 were bought by staff who had worked long-term on the games or Ambassadors.

In November 2011 the department revealed it had bought just over 8,800 tickets at a cost of nearly £750,000.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said that ministers had agreed to publish the information earlier this week.
...
"It took a while to collate the required information and as with all written ministerial statements we notified Parliament earlier this week of our intention to publish.”

[Russ]

I'd probably be more interested in how many of these purchased seats turned out to be unused.

Was there an economic boost from the games? I got the impression that the economic gains weren't that terrific..

I attended a seminar last week with someone from Visit Britain - the official view is it is too early to say what the immediate economic impact was, but in any case the real prize is long-term, with a higher profile for the UK as a tourist destination. So in that aspect of the legacy it will be a couple of years at least before we know.

Originally Posted by Chris

I attended a seminar last week with someone from Visit Britain - the official view is it is too early to say what the immediate economic impact was, but in any case the real prize is long-term, with a higher profile for the UK as a tourist destination. So in that aspect of the legacy it will be a couple of years at least before we know.

And yet the legacy everyone wanted of keeping the aims of sportsmanship going until Brazil have been kicked into the long grass with a fair few athletes having funding removed or certain sports being quietly dropped.

Originally Posted by Maggy J

And yet the legacy everyone wanted of keeping the aims of sportsmanship going until Brazil have been kicked into the long grass with a fair few athletes having funding removed or certain sports being quietly dropped.

Spending was always going to be higher for a home Games, to allow maximum British involvement, but it was never sustainable at that level. Sports that did badly in 2012 have had their funding cut. It's tough, but as a way of dividing up a finite pot of money it's as good as any other and probably fairer than most.

don't see it as problem myself ,if your trying to sell something to a client you don't take him to dinner and make him pay do you .All of the that investment in the games wasn't just so a few sportsmen/women can big themselves up it was also to show Britain off and improve our standing on the world stage ,right bunch of stingy gits we would look if we made the visiting vips pay for the tickets