If they are going to use lottery money to pay for this circus in London they ought to have a special lottery, instead of raiding the existing one and taking money away from good causes all over the country.

The amount they are planning to take from the lottery amounts to one million pounds for every parliamentary constituency.   I can think of a hell of a lot of ways one million pounds could be better used in Harlow.

The last time there was an Olympics game in London was in 1948. The cost was £750,000 - which if you allow for inflation comes in at something around £24 million pounds. " 1948 Olympics: 'We had much more fun and a greater sense of achievement than modern athletes do'"

Mixing up the cost of the Olympic Games with projects for refurbishing a rundown part of London just seems silly to me. Making rundown places better to live in makes a lot of sense and it doesn't come cheap, and it's badly needed, and London isn't the only place that needs it. But I predict that a lot of the improvements tied up with the games won't actually end up as improvements at all, and looking at what has happened in other cities with prestige Olympic project demonstrates that to be the normal outcome.

I doubt very much if the travellers being evicted from the homes they have lived in for 30 years or more to make way for "the Olympic Village" will have their lives improved by the games. (They don't think so anyway, which is why they are trying to fight the eviction in the courts.)