To think that the money that was spent of fireworks

[MamaMaiasaura]

Could have been put to better use?

It is plain wrong, IMO, that they are spending some 40-50 million on the Olympics but have withdrawn the funding for the school sports partnerships that have done such great work.

General opinion is that the Olympics seldom bring economic benefit for the host country.

To avoid confusion, the £41m is extra for the opening ceremony. The actual Public sector funding package currently stands at £9.3 BILLION.

£313K is nothing in Govt. terms but is money well spent if it generates publicity. Sydney spends $4 million (AUS) because the display will be seen all over the world and will generate tourism for Australia so it's really classed as the ad.budget

It was 2 million plus, the other figure is from a previous year