Olympic Watch



Slum living

One toilet between 25, one shower between 75, overcrowding and leaking roofs – these are the conditions facing the cleaners employed at the Olympic site. Most are migrant workers who have come to Britain specifically to work at the Games.

In stark contrast to the luxury of the Olympic village, they sleep in overcrowded metal cabins on a site that’s been flooded so badly they have to use pallets as stepping stones. One told the Daily Mail that the site is “like a slum inside”. When they arrived they were told there was no work for two weeks but that they still had to pay £18 a day ‘rent’.

Many who came from poor countries with no prospect of decent work turned straight around and went home when they saw the facilities.


Custard spill ’emergency’

Olympic organisers and the police worked hard in the press to convince us that they aren’t quite crazy enough to stop someone going into the Olympics based on what t-shirt they’re wearing. They’d never overreact like that!

Or would they? Six people were arrested on 20 July for suspicion of criminal damage by…spilling green custard. The six were doing a protest-performance in Trafalgar Square against the corporate sponsorship of the Games. One of the sponsors is Dow Chemical, owner of Union Carbide Corporation – the company responsible for the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed 25,000 people.

25 police officers swooped on the performance when the custard was spilled to highlight the lies being told about ‘sustainability’ by Olympic sponsors including Dow, BP and Rio Tinto.


G4S-by-numbers

  • £284m government Olympic contract
  • 7 years since they won the contract
  • £57m management fee
  • 5,000 military personnel drafted in to plug the gap
  • 8 police forces drafted in
  • £830,000 salary of Nick Buckles, head of G4S
  • £21m Buckles’ golden goodbye if he’s forced to leave