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Identity Theft: The Michelle Brown Story

Identity Theft: The Michelle Brown Story

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Online Personal Loans ? How Gordon Brown Helped Online Personal Loans Grow

Undoubtedly, loans in UK have gained immense popularity. Not even a single day passes without loads of loans floated in the market by various loan providers spanning all across UK. As a result, people in large numbers are opting for various types of loans.

As Online personal loans are easily available, people prefer this type of loan more as compared to other loans. Personal loans are meant for ones personal use. This is what makes this loan more popular and significant as well.

How Brown Helped Loans Grow

In January 2009, the government under the stewardship of Gordon Brown rolled out a small loans guarantee scheme. Although, the support package was offered particularly to combat the onslaughts of recession, the scheme burdened the UK Government almost by £1bn. The Government also promised to relax the rules pertaining to the loan seeking process.

The decision taken by the government resulted in giving the people of UK much respite. Since people were reeling under enormous debts, the decision supported them.

The Government also offered other schemes from time to time. The thrust of these schemes remained that people should get timely help. None other than loans seemed better as compared to other options. Moreover, people also resorted to loans in large numbers as they knew that loans only can empower them during financial crisis.

Let us see the following key points initiated by Brown that helped personal loans get popular in UK:

He made the policies of personal loans more flexible. As a result, negotiations were made easier making people go for the personal loans in large numbers.

In 2005, the Government legalized Online loans.

Lower rate of interest also resulted in enhanced popularity of personal loans.

As Online loan seeking competition increased, it resulted in bringing down the rate of interest considerably.

Loan Culture

When recession came all over the world, governments realized the importance of loans. They started giving loans to the people. Government in UK also did the same. This lead to ‘loan culture’ all across UK. As a result, people also realized the importance of loans.

Moreover, technology played a positive role in enhancing the popularity of loans all across UK. With the advent of Internet, loan providers started providing loans Online. This lead to massive popularity of Online Personal Loans. One of the other factors that played a major in popularizing them is the easy availability on the Internet. As scores of loan providers advertised their loan business Online, it became easy for the people to subscribe to various types of loans in an instant.

Why Online Personal Loans Are So Popular?

Personal loans are immensely popular throughout UKamong for various reasons. One of the most important reasons is that it can be used for any purpose. One can use a personal loan for home improvement, spending holiday vacations, debt consolidation, or paying for a wedding ceremony. The other feature that makes personal loans popular is that they can be availed by tenants as well. This is what makes it more popular all across UK.

What’s more, online personal loans are largely popular as people can access personal loans anywhere, anytime.

Related Online Personal Loan Articles

Tags: Brown, Gordon, Grow, Helped, Loans, Online, Personal

Brown Guarantees

Fresh efforts to stave off recession were unveiled yesterday when the cabinet agreed to release £20bn to ease Britain’s frozen credit lines. At the same time, Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve chairman, used a speech in London to warn that not enough was being done to ease global problems.

The two moves underline the extent to which policy makers on either side of the Atlantic recognise that banks have been saved from collapse but have not been restored to proper functioning.

Bernanke, in London for talks with Gordon Brown, said American banks may need a further injection of capital. The fiscal package planned by incoming president Barack Obama would provide a “significant boost” to the US economy but the government had to do more to stabilize the financial system. “Fiscal actions are unlikely to promote a lasting recovery unless they are accompanied by strong measures to further stabilize and strengthen the financial system.”

The remarks come as Brown heads to Paris for talks today with the President Nicolas Sarkozy, before moving on to Germany on Thursday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel. In an important moment for Brown on the world stage, the German cabinet has backed a £50bn fiscal expansion package, weeks after the British prime minister urged a united effort across major economies. The German move deprives Conservative leader David Cameron of a potential ally in his argument that the solution to the crisis lies in monetary rather than fiscal solutions.

Cameron is preparing to denounce Labour’s latest move, the credit guarantee scheme due to be announced by Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, this morning, as a pale and over-complex imitation of the £50bn scheme he has championed since November. The Cameron scheme has been the riposte to labor claims that the opposition offers a do-nothing response to the recession.

As the Guardian outlined yesterday, Mandelson is proposing £10bn of government guarantees for viable small and medium-sized enterprises, and has reached an agreement with the banks that the £10bn – mainly to provide working capital – will unlock another £10bn of bank credit for larger and riskier businesses. The government credit will be available to firms with up to £500m in annual turnover.

Officials said the banks have given undertakings that they will be able to expand credit as a result of the government’s intervention. Banks will decide which companies to lend to, but under criteria set by the government.

Officials claimed the scheme could be self-financing and participating companies will have to pay for access to credit. It also says the level of defaults will be relatively small since the capital will be short term and directed at viable companies.

Typically defaults can run at 5-10%, so the scheme could cost government up to £1bn.

The scheme has been under negotiation for weeks with Lady Vadera, the business minister, leading talks with the banks. The main extra element of the scheme will focus on providing working capital, but there will also be an expansion of the loan guarantee scheme, export credit guarantees and announcements on credit insurance.

A further announcement, possibly next week, will be made by the Treasury on expanding the mortgage markets and providing loans to large businesses.

Mandelson said yesterday the plans would be “really effective” and target “genuine business needs”. The prime minister’s spokesman said there would be “no irresponsible blanket guarantees” and any measures would be “targeted, thought through and funded”.

The Conservatives want a “bigger, bolder, simpler” £50bn scheme to get credit flowing to all businesses. They insist their scheme would be self-financing, and claim ministers have exaggerated the cost of it for political reasons.

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, said: “The dithering in government has cost the jobs of many people.”

The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, said: “The banks have been on strike, and the strike has to be broken. The government should stop messing around with stunts and wheezes, and ensure that the banks owned or part-owned by taxpayers operate as state banks maintaining lending for the economy.”

Bernanke, speaking at the London School of Economics, painted a gloomy picture for 2009, admitting that even with concerted action from the White House and the Fed, there would be little improvement in the economy until later this year. Asked when he expected to see an end to the spate of job losses in the US, with more than 500,000 workers laid off in December, he said he hoped that by “late in 2009″ it would be possible to put “a stop to the bleeding”.

Hank Paulson, the outgoing US treasury secretary, has already injected around $250bn into America’s financial institutions, but the Fed chairman said with asset prices still falling and billions of dollars of toxic securities stuck on banks’ balance sheets, “more capital injections and guarantees may become necessary”.

Options included the US treasury buying toxic assets, or separating them off into a “bad bank”.

Bernanke may be seeking to influence Obama’s economic advisers about how to deploy the next $350bn of the rescue fund approved in October. Democrats have advocated aid to homeowners, but the Fed chief’s comments suggest he is more concerned about the supply of credit to companies and households.

He said the Fed still had plenty of ammunition available and would act “aggressively” to promote a recovery.

Bernanke’s call for more support for the banks came as the World Economic Forum singled out the impact of bail-outs on governments’ deteriorating finances as the biggest risk to the world economy in 2009.

In a report, Global Risks 2009, the WEF warned: “Massive government spending to support financial institutions is threatening the already precarious fiscal positions in countries such as the US, UK, France, Italy Spain and Australia.” Other threats included a hard landing in the Chinese economy, and a fresh collapse in asset prices around the world.

Tags: , Brown, Enough, Firms, Guarantees, It's, Rescue, Says

Brown and Jowell Dampen Olympic Hopes

Two heavyweight cabinet ministers today joined forces to cast doubt on government approval of a London bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012.

The chancellor, Gordon Brown, today warned that the health service and education must take priority over a bid to bring the games to the capital.

Mr Brown’s views were echoed by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, who said the “potentially huge investment” a bid would require must not take cash away from “other areas that as a government we were elected to deliver on”.

The ministers’ comments came ahead of a two-day Commons inquiry on whether an east London bid should go ahead.

Ms Jowell, alongside the British Olympic Association (BOA) and UK members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), are today being questioned by the culture, media and sport select committee as part of the inquiry.

The government will also take evidence from consultants, local councils and lottery funding bodies ahead of its decision on whether to support a bid by the end of this month.

Speaking on GMTV, Mr Brown said he would “love” to see the games in Britain.

But he repeated warnings over the bid made by the prime minister, Tony Blair, yesterday, saying: “We must get it right in terms of costs. I do not think people would want the health service to lose money or education to lose money.”

Meanwhile, speaking on BBC Breakfast, Ms Jowell acknowledged that the legacy of the Millennium Dome, the problems over the construction of Wembley Stadium and the fiasco over the cancelled Picketts Lock World Athletic Games bid were guiding the government.

“We are absolutely clear in government that we don’t go into this … without a very clear understanding that the government would be wholly committed,” she said.

The culture secretary, who yesterday said the Olympic bid could cost the country up to £2.5bn in grants, explained that four questions must be answered before a bid is made.

“Can we afford it and do we know what the costs are? Do we have the capacity to deliver it? Will the legacy of the games, ie stadiums and facilities, be relevant and useful? Can we win?”

Supporters of the London campaign were boosted today by comments from the IOC president, who said the city had a “strong” chance of winning the bid as long as the UK gave its “total whole-hearted support”.

Jacques Rogge, who took over the IOC presidency in 2001, told BBC Radio Five Live, said that the UK started with “great assets” but that the “trick is to pull everything together”.

He added: “London has a reputation as a great cosmopolitan city, you have the reputation of the United Kingdom as one of the strongest economic powers, [with a] stable political system.

“You have the love of sport of the English people, you have the reputation of English sport, you have the heritage of what sport has meant in your country.

The 60-year-old Belgian said that last year’s Commonwealth Games in Manchester had “done a lot of good” in convincing the world of Britain’s ability to host a major event.

But Mr Rogge warned that a good transportation system, a good security system, sports venues and accommodation were vital ingredients.

“You will be judged not only on your love of or expertise at sport, you will be judged on the logistics,” he said.

“At the same time if you can put together a very strong bid on these issues, I think that London will have a strong bid and if you win, then you will have a very good legacy for the city.

“But basically this is a responsibility for the people of your country. You have to decide whether you want to bid – and if you want to bid, then you have to put everything together that is needed.

“And that is a total whole-hearted support of all actors, being the government, sports movement, economic world and society at large.”

The Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman, Nick Harvey, said: “One of the government’s caveats is the ‘winnability’ of the Olympic bid. They don’t want to waste time and energy on a process which could fall at the first post.

“Fortune favours the brave, and if the government continues with their current apprehension, then of course the bid is doomed.”

He added: “The £2bn price tag for taxpayers rightly concerns the minister, but this sum would be spread over nine years, and the resulting increases in prestige and tourism would pay welcome dividends.”

Tags: Brown, Dampen, Hopes, Jowell, Olympic

Run-Of-The-Mill Guff-spouter; and Gordon Brown

OH FABIO …

There’s a lot to be said for retaining an air of seductive mystique. The Fiver has long been of the belief, for example, that a humorous tea-time email should always wear gloves to dance a quadrille, never appear in the drawing room before dinner and refrain from performing [censored by Fiver's new in-house ProstateKnackLawyers4U.com consultant] on a first date unless under the influence of at least a liter-and-a-half of dry sherry. By the same process, Fabio Capello’s stock as a managerial clever-clogs has continued to rise through a couple of distinctly iffy showings. The moodiness. The mute, furious look. What was happening in his head? Ooh-ooh, we wished we knew. We wished we knew. But you could bet it was something snazzy.

And so it came to pass that he only went and blew the whole shooting-match by giving his first press conference in English – and publicly outing himself as a disappointingly run-of-the-mill guff-spouter. “I told him he’ll be the captain and he was very, very happy. It’s very important to be a leader and [England's Brave] John Terry is a leader,” Don Fabio hummed this afternoon, announcing that EBJT will be EBSJT against the yee-hawing soccer jocks of USA! USA! USA! tomorrow night. “EBSJT is the nuts,” he added, swallowing another mouthful of the complete seven-volume A-Z of gaffer speak. “He’d run through a brick wall for the shirt – even if it meant actually leaving the field of play to find a brick wall he could run through. He’d do it because he’s a man who eats, sleeps and drinks the armband 24 hours-a-day, which isn’t easy because it’s just an armband and can only produce, at best, a thin kind of gruel when boiled.”

The Fiver may have imagined some of this, having become lost in contemplation as to what it is about Fab that brings to mind Oscar the Grouch. He definitely said it was “too early” to decide whether EBSJT would still be captain against Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday. Presumably in case EBSJT stops being such a wonderful leader at some point in the next three days. But then he also claimed to have “known John Lampard for a long time”. Gah. It’s a bit like finally getting a word out of Mr Darcy and finding out he speaks in a screeching falsetto and lives with his mother. The frown, Don Fabio. Just go back to the frown.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We are indebted to Gemma and Marcus. We desperately want to rescue Coco and give her an adoptive chimpanzee family. We hope they can help us do that” – Alison Cronin, the co-founder of Monkey World in Dorset, thanks Wigan forward Marcus Bent and his girlfriend Gemma Atkinson for their adoption of five-year-old Bryan and their ongoing support in the fight to rescue fellow chimp Coco from Cancun.

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WHAT IS THIS, AMATEUR HOUR?

‘Author’ Tim Lovejoy, ‘football pundit’ Jamie Redknapp, ‘prime minister’ Gordon Brown: there are some amateurs out there who have been given fancy job titles just to shut them up. The Fiver should know; it’s been moved sideways so many times its current job title is Deputy Senior Junior Sub-Assistant Vice-Convener Of Good Spelling And Correct Use Of ,Commas And Syntax. Or, at least that is the case, the Fiver likes to think.

So it’s good to see that Avram Grant took a stand after being let go/sacked/stabbed in the back/made a victim of football’s increasingly myopic short-termism. He was offered his old job of director of football, but revealed today he threw it back in melancholy clown-alike Roman Abramovich’s face. “I understand the offer and why it was made but I thought that from my point of view it was not the correct move,” Grant uhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnned in the slightly graver than usual monotone he uses when making a Big Point. “What I discussed [privately] will stay private but let’s say that I saw that it was not a good move for me at this stage.”

There was better news for Henk ten Cate, who reckons his job as Coach In Charge Of Arguing With EBSJT is safe. At least until Abramovich sacks him for getting a bad score on Guitar Hero III (Legends of Rock). “[Slippery Pete Kenyon] told me … that the sacking of Grant would have no consequences for me,” he said, desperately trying to beat Michael Essien’s score on Knights of Cydonia. “I would rather believe him than the newspapers’ reports.”

If there is an upside for Grant and, let’s face it, the poor blighter needs an upside, rumour has it that he’s already being scouted out by a Premier League club. Unfortunately for Avram, that club is Human Rights FC, owned by Thaksin Shinawatra, a man who’s been known to sack people before they finish their sente

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THE RUMOUR MILL

Nasty Leeds are skint and in League One. QPR have got loads amoney and are in the Championship. It’s a discrepancy that’s not going unnoticed by Jermaine Beckford.

Dean Winda$$ may soon be giving Liam Fontaine the runaround in the Premier League if, as it says here, the Bristol City centre-back joins Liverpool for £1m.

Ex-Chelsea midfielder Maniche and his chubby cheeks are leaving Atlético Madrid on a choo-choo bound for Middlesbrough.

And if Ailsa from Home and Away continues to put Andre Ooijer on the Blackeye Rovers bench then the Dutch defender is going to do one.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Kwaku Ampim-Darko, the secretary of the Ghanaian U-17 women’s team, has spoken of his anger after an away game at DR Congo in which the ‘Black Maidens’ were … denied food, travel and accommodation, forced to train on a gravel pitch, endured a harrowing bus attack and, during a 3-0 victory, had their goalkeeper karate-chopped in the neck. “This has gone on for far too long both at the club level and at the national level,” he fumed.

BBC pundit Gavin Peacock will become a priest in Canada after Euro 2008.

Man Utd have cashed in their Gerard Piqué chips in exchange for £4m of Barcelona’s summer transfer kitty.

Brazilian side Palmeiras have been fined and given a home ban after they were found guilty of filling the opposition’s dressing room with a mysterious gas. “The general consensus was that it was impossible to find the guilty party and, therefore, Palmeiras were punished as the host team,” parped a Brazilian football federation suit.

Japanese striker Kazuki Ganaha, who took intravenous garlic infusions after coming down with flu, has had his six-game ban overturned on appeal.

Struggling Argentinian side Racing Club have shifted their training base 50km out of Buenos Aires after angry fans invaded a session in the city last week.

No. Seriously. Gavin Peacock really will become a priest in Canada after Euro 2008.

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STILL WANT MORE?

In the first of our Euro 2008 team previews, Paul Doyle takes a gander at Switzerland’s slim chances, while Rob Smyth casts his eye over the Czech Republic.

T4′s Chris Coleman and a whingeing José Antonio Reyes star in The Sids 2008, La Liga’s end-of-season awards extravaganza.

The blind optimism of a Liberal Democrat MP will come in handy when Lembit Opik supports Romania in Euro 2008.

Even though Jose Mourinho’s return to Chelsea would make perfect sense, the ego daren’t writes Kevin McCarra.

And in tomorrow’s £0.80 Big Paper: more build-up to England’s eagerly-awaited USA! USA! USA! friendly; proper journalist David Conn sheds light on the pitfalls of promotion to the Premier League; and the Society section does what it does best …

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FIVER LETTERS

“I trust Nasty Leeds are to appeal to the Football League over the disgraceful decision to award Doncaster one more goal than them on Sunday” – Andy Stiff.

“I’m not sure which is more alarming – that the Fiver had to crib its definition of a cheque (Friday’s rumor mill) from Wikipedia, or that my life was bleak and empty enough on a Friday night for me to look on Wikipedia and confirm my suspicions” – Pete Green.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk.

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MOUNT OLYMPUS LOOKS TERRIFYING

Tags: Brown, Gordon, Guffspouter, RunOfTheMill

Brown Can’t Talk Like He Does and Ignore This Debauchery

All this week, these pages are exploring the explosion of wealth – wild, unexpected and unabated. Who would have thought a Labour government would preside over this Babylonian excess, greater than the late 1980s “greed is good” era? Until now Labour, seemingly caught off balance, has simply refused to speak about it. But the deputy leadership debate broke that omerta and virtually all candidates talked for the first time of “inequality”, not just poverty. Harriet Harman’s protest at handbags costing £10,000 hit the headlines because it resonated with public distaste. The question now is whether Gordon Brown can seize this moment to find the language and policies to reflect growing disgust. Or will fear of City flight get the better of him?

Brown’s acceptance speech in Manchester went straight to the core of his values, with a good, sonorous Old Testament ring that seemed to resound from somewhere deep in Labour’s moral roots: “Conviction … a fair chance in life … when the strong help the weak it makes all of us stronger … the driving power of social conscience … the better angels of our nature … we must have a soul.” Frankly, a man can’t talk like that for long and ignore the debauchery of riches at the top.

Almost daily, reports expose the way societies are being wrenched apart as a stratospheric elite stymies social mobility. The OECD, hardly a leftist outfit, notes that wage inequality is rising steeply in 18 of 20 developed nations it monitors. The very idea of “per capita GDP” has become meaningless when rewards are so dispersed. The UK is one of the most unequal, though in the past decade Labour has done better compared with most countries, so our gap widened by only a fraction. That’s been done by the biggest yet redistribution to low-income families, though the richest 0.1% are vanishing off the graph. (At a recent seminar, a lecturer said that to represent top wealth faithfully, a bar chart would stretch out of the building.)

But does this wealth matter? No, Labour has said until now, echoing a traditional body of economic opinion. The poor are not have-nots obsessing about the have-yachts: they need basic things. London is booming with jobs created by billionaires’ wants. Chase away the zero-tax payers with tax demands and no one gains. What if London looks like the last days of Rome, complete with imported slaves? The nation thrives, and there’s more money collected in taxes for social projects (though unbiased quantifications of all this are hard to come by).

So here are reasons why it does matter. For a start, house prices have gone mad, partly because too much money is chasing too little property, not just in Mayfair but in places like Doncaster, where City tycoons are buying up whole buy-to-let streets.

It matters because improbable rewards at the top are fracturing pay scales. Senior managers are pulling away from middle managers who have increased their gap with the shop floor. The public sector has to pay more for top talent, so chief executives of small cities are paid more than the prime minister. Other public posts pay eye-watering sums to the profound discontent of those they manage. Yet down at the bottom the chancellor is trying to hold the line on a below-inflation 2% pay deal; unsurprisingly, he is threatened with a massive public sector strike as he moves next door. Meanwhile boardroom pay still rises by 20% to 30%, according to the annual Guardian survey.

Yesterday the Sutton Trust reported again on social immobility: most extra university places have gone to the middle classes. An unintended consequence of expanding universities has been a deepening social divide. When there were very few graduates there were plenty of other rungs up the ladder: now without a degree the chances of the late-developing teaboy making it to manager are negligible. Brown promises to widen vocational education, which may help – but the graduate/non-graduate divide could remain the great barrier.

Social programs such as Sure Start, extended schools and one-to-one tutoring help catch children before they fail. All parties want more upward social mobility (though none mentions that some might need to come down the ladder to make room). Yesterday on the Today program David Cameron deplored social immobility, though Conservatives always say a society where “anyone can make it” justifies inequality. But no profoundly unequal society has high social fluidity: if the gap is too wide, few can jump it.

What could be done, if there was the political will? No one wants to kill the golden goose, and interfering directly with pay regimes is tricky. But there is no evidence internationally that a fairer tax regime harms prosperity. So:

· Set a tax band starting at £100,000 – and maybe another for the supersonic. Earmark the revenue for new opportunities for left-behind children.

· Bring in a wealth tax for more expensive properties: in America owners of expensive property pay 0.88% every year. Allocate it to helping others own property.

· Make all tax returns public documents like wills, as some countries do, to help catch tax loopholes. To stop inheritance tax avoidance, make all gifts taxable.

· Do all that and it would raise a goodly sum to help those at the bottom and to build and buy property for those with none. In truth, none of this would much dent mega-wealth – it would just be a bit fairer.

· For those with nothing, Brown promises affordable housing. So help everyone who wants to become an owner, middle-class first-time buyers and social tenants alike: a home is a bank for credit, help for children. Ownership bestows respect and independence. End buy-to-let mortgage tax breaks to burst the bubble.

· The minimum wage must rise faster than inflation, with an end to the undervaluing of women’s jobs.

None of this is difficult or economically risky if there is the public will. Does Brown dare and can he take the people with him? As Madeleine Bunting wrote on these pages yesterday, there is change in the air now the middle classes are feeling the mortgage pinch, worried for their children, repelled by excess.

It can’t be done fast. It needs a social justice commission to prepare the way by opening the debate and exposing the dangerous social trajectory ahead. Brown would need to suggest some of it in his next election manifesto: at least on Newsnight he explicitly refused to rule out raising top income tax rates. The politics of inequality are high risk – but the tide is turning.

Tags: Brown, Can't, Debauchery, Ignore, Like, Talk, This

Sort Out Olympics Funding, Tories Tell Brown

The Conservatives today challenged Gordon Brown to “sort out the mess” of the Olympics’ funding as speculation intensified over the spiralling cost of the games.

Hugo Swire, the shadow sport secretary, called on the chancellor to answer questions about the funding as Mr Brown used a school sports visit to declare his pride at the way Britain was organising the 2012 event.

Uncertainty continues to hang over the revised Olympics bill, which has still not been published 20 months after London was first awarded the games.

The eventual figure is expected to confirm that the construction bill for the Olympic park has nearly doubled.

Mr Swire today put Mr Brown’s role in the spotlight as he called on the chancellor to explain why he signed off the original budget, which is likely to prove a woeful underestimate of the final bill.

Delays in publishing the new budget have sparked anger and frustration among the organisers of the games, including London 2012′s chairman, Lord Coe, and its chief executive, Paul Deighton.

They believe the political horsetrading in Whitehall has threatened to derail the project and made more difficult their task of raising sponsorship from blue-chip companies for their separate privately funded £2bn budget for actually running the games.

A panel of MPs earlier this week ridiculed the original budget of £2.37bn as “Alice in Wonderland” costings and condemned the delay in publishing updated figures.

Edward Leigh, the Conservative chairman of the public accounts committee, described the Olympic bid as a “pig in a poke as far as the taxpayer was concerned”.

Mr Swire said that the chancellor should also explain the failure to make inroads in raising £750m from the private sector to help infrastructure costs, and a further £100m to help elite athletes.

Mr Swire said: “The chancellor ought to be spending his time sorting out the mess he has made of the Olympics budget.

“We need answers to these questions as matter of urgency, as every day that goes by with further speculation about spiralling costs is undermining preparations for the games and the public’s confidence that they can be delivered successfully.

“Gordon Brown should get a grip on the Olympics budget he approved and sort this mess out now.”

A Labour spokesman said: “The Conservative party really need to take a leaf out of Seb Coe’s book and get behind the non-partisan effort to make the 2012 Olympics a success.

“The whole government is working hard to finalise the Olympics budget. We will make announcements in the normal way in due course, and we will certainly not be deflected by these pathetic and unpatriotic attempts by the Tory party to undermine Britain’s Olympics for the sake of short-term partisan gain.”

The chancellor joined Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, and Richard Caborn, the sports minister, at an exhibition of school sports at the Grey Coat Hospital School in central London to announce the host cities for the UK School Games.

Mr Brown said: “The objective is that by 2012 we have a world class group of young people and potential for medals in the 2012 Olympic games.

“I believe that the impact will be wider than sport. It will encourage people to volunteer, bring the community together, produce skills and make people fiercely competitive about Britain and Britain in the future and about our patriotism in the country.

“I think this is the most exciting time ever for sport in our country.”

Tags: Brown, Funding, Olympics, Sort, Tell, Tories

Brown to Boost Olympic Funding in Budget

Gordon Brown’s growing taste for the PR benefits of sport was evident again yesterday when the chancellor hosted the 1966 World Cup finalists at a No11 drinks reception. Despite most Scots viewing England’s 4-2 defeat of Germany as a low-water mark in 20th-century history – Denis Law walked his dog rather than watch the game – Raith Rovers fan Brown was happy to pose for the cameras with Charlton, Beckenbauer and co.

Though No11 advisers were doubtless delighted with the pictures, many in Olympic circles fear Brown’s plans for funding medal hopefuls at the 2012 Games, expected to be announced in today’s budget, will be heavily reliant on private-sector support. Insiders fear that any demand for sponsors to help fund competitors’ training programmes will see the funding body UK Sport competing with the British Olympic Association and the London organising committee (Locog) for limited corporate sponsorship budgets.

The BOA has already announced a program of sports-business partner-ships for governing bodies, and Locog, which owns limited rights to the Olympic brand, is aiming to raise £750m in sponsorship to cover its operating costs. Insiders fear that a third Olympic begging bowl in a crowded market will diminish the value of any deals.

Livingstone tirade

Ken Livingstone has again dragged London’s Olympic project into the mire, attacking two Jewish businessmen involved in the consortium building the Olympic village. The mayor’s comparison of a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard overshadowed the International Olympic Committee’s crucial visit to London during the bidding process, and yesterday he advised that the Indian-born, Iraqi-raised Reuben brothers should “go back to Iran and see how they like it under the ayatollahs” when questioned about the Stratford City consortium, which will provide flats for more than half the competitors in 2012. The billionaire Reuben brothers are reported to be in dispute with consortium partners Westfield and Stanhope about how soon the development should be completed, and Livingstone has already said he would rather the brothers were not involved.

Sol sets over Neville

Panini’s 2006 World Cup sticker album will lack playground credibility after Gary Neville, below, was omitted to make room for the out-of-favour centre-half Sol Campbell. Only 12 players are included in the England squad, with the first XI featuring three centre-halves (Campbell, Rio Ferdinand and John Terry) and no specialist right-back. The rest of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s first-choice side are included – Paul Robinson, Ashley Cole, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, with Jermain Defoe 12th man. A Panini spokesman said: “There are plenty of difficult decisions to make before Sven announces his 23-man squad.”

Twenty20 vision

A day of frantic horse-trading at ICC headquarters in Dubai has left England closer to hosting the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in 2009, though the prospects for the joint England-Scotland 2015 one-day World Cup bid are less clear. Having missed the original deadline for 2011 one-day World Cup bids, the joint India-Pakistan-Sri Lanka-Bangladesh bid was given more time despite objections from Australia-New Zealand, the other candidates for the tournament. Should the Asian bid meet ICC requirements – unlikely given India’s inability to meet the commercial criteria – England will withdraw its 2015 bid and in exchange be granted the Twenty20 tournament and the 2019 World Cup as a fait accompli, leaving the Asian and Australasian bids to share 2011 and 2015.

Bungs on the web

The Premier League bungs inquiry revealed its secret weapon in the battle against corruption yesterday: a website. Anyone with knowledge of backhanders and dodgy dealings in transfer deals since January 2004 is invited to visit www.quest.co.uk/faplinquiry.php.

Tags: Boost, Brown, Budget, Funding, Olympic