We will be the losers if we bid for the Olympics

An odd numbered year always fills me with relief. No football World Cup and no Olympic Games to gum up the television schedules. Admittedly, I have an interest – or rather a lack of interest – to declare in sport. Having to live down the comment in one school report on physical education that "I cannot give this boy a grade in this subject as I do no believe he exists since he has never attended my lessons", means that my qualifications for commenting on the sporting aspects of the Olympics are limited. But this year, at least in the next few weeks, there will be as much discussion by government and Parliament about the Olympics as by sporting fanatics.

I suspect that my attitude to sport was shared by a number of MPs who debated on Tuesday whether the UK should submit a bid to host the games in east London in 2012. Yesterday, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee continued its own sessions on the matter by taking evidence from the Greater London Authority, the various sporting authorities and Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

But the biggest decision on the matter will have to be taken by the Cabinet at the end of this month when it decides whether to support the bidding process. The first question to ask is why any of this should be a matter for our elected representatives, let alone the government, in the first place? If the British Olympic Association wishes to submit a bid to the International Olympic Committee, that, surely, is their affair.

Unfortunately, however, it is also a matter for Parliament and for the Government, thanks to the small matter of billions of pounds of public money that the venture would entail. Current government estimates, according to Ms Jowell, are that the total cost would be "around £4bn" and that the "cost from the public purse would be around £2bn".

Oh dear. It is those two mentions of the word "around" that should send shivers down the spines of every taxpayer – and certainly every government bean counter at the Treasury. These figures are, of course, at today's prices – and we are nine years away from the event. But already there are discrepancies. Gerald Kaufman, the chairman of the select committee, has said "people are talking about up to £5.6bn. And you can bet that if we did it, the cost would end up as much more". Too right.

Already I am beginning to catch the whiff of another series of debacles on the lines of the Dome, Wembley and Pickett's Lock. It is to be hoped that when Tony Blair sums up the forthcoming cabinet discussion, the Prime Minister will take to heart his own comments – in his 2001 Labour Party conference address – about the need for the Government to be more cautious before undertaking vast infrastructure projects.

But sport alone is not the only consideration. Indeed, Ms Jowell has admitted that "sport is only 20 per cent of the decision to bid for the Games", and she and her colleagues must decide the extent to which such a financial commitment will rob education of finance that might have gone to promote sport in schools. In the Commons debate she admitted that the estimate for next year's Olympic Games in Athens have already doubled. The questions she posed were: Can we afford it and do we know what the costs are?; Do we have the infrastructure to deliver a successful Olympics?; Are the facilities that would be left after the games a valuable asset worth investing in for the communities in the area around Stratford?

Even assuming that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, can be persuaded to write a blank cheque, Ms Jowell is right to focus attention on the dubious benefits that an array of additional stadiums would bring to one of the most grisly parts of London. I hardly dare to predict what state the Tube will be in by 2012 – PFI (the private finance initiative) and Ken Livingstone notwithstanding (and he, like most of today's politicians, will have long departed the stage), it is a fair bet that a state of nirvana will not have been achieved. Imagine the pressure of arrivals at Heathrow and the need to transport thousands of athletes and spectators from west to east across London. At the very least, it would be necessary to have the Crossrail project completed, and this shows no sign of even being started.

The aftermath will leave, Dome like, underused (more likely unused) structures that will doubtless be thrust upon an unsuspecting Greater London Authority complete with long-term debts and requirements by council-tax payers to pay additional levies (Montreal is still repaying debt on the 1976 Olympic Games).

Those who support such a proposal will no doubt argue that Britain should, for once, renew national pride in the style of the Victorians and their Great Exhibition. Tourism will, it is alleged, be given a significant boost. But any benefits here will surely be temporary. I can think of better ways of encouraging tourists without making the lives of Londoners even more of a misery than they are at present. This is a decision that should be rejected by the Cabinet. If the British Olympic Committee wants to go ahead, it should be without a penny piece of taxpayers' money – after all, inverting Ms Jowell's comment, 80 per cent of this would have nothing to do with sport.

mrbrown@pimlico.freeserve.co.uk