to think that for being a country in the middle of a reccession, we can't be doing that bad -

[tittytittyhanghang]

if we can afford all these celebrations for the jubilee, (the thames procession must have cost a pretty penny for a start), and don't even get me started on the olympics. I thought we, as a country, were poor, broke, no money left and having to cut essentials like support for the vulnerable etc.

The pageant wasn't paid for by the public.

oops thats me told then

I see where you're coming from, and yes, it bugs me too... but as kellamity has pointed out, the budget doesn't always come out of the same one that has had to make cuts. The savings from cutting valuable services (a massive gripe of mine as the services are worth far more than their monetary value) aren't used to fund the Olympics... although I would applaud a leader who said "I am sorry we cannot afford to fund this at this time, so don't expect a £4million show off firework display".

We've a whole weekend of celebrations, we're broke, but we can make cakes butties and afford some bunting from Poundland. Its amazing how decadent our celebrations appear, but actually per head its very cheap... on a community level, we've adopted a 'war spirit' and are having a lot of fun. In the entire weekend I've spent about a fiver (apart from drinks, we've cracked open the homebrew).

It has also btought in a hell of a lot of tourism.

The amount of fundraising for charities, the revenue for local businesses, and the revenue from tourism is good for beating the recession. Many people are bloody thankfull that we do have so many reasons for people to spend their money in the UK at the moment.