Boris hits backs in political London Stadium blame game

A source close to former London Mayor Boris Johnson, now Foreign Secretary, said that blame for the London Stadium should be directed at the original planning for the 2012 Games by previous Mayor Ken Livingstone and former Prime Minister Tony Blair and not him.

“No other city has an Olympic legacy like London’s – all seven venues on the park are in private hands, with millions of visitors a year, and a positive economic legacy for east London,” said the former Mayor’s ally. “The stadium has a secure future with athletics and football.

“The mistakes belonged to Khan’s Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone and the Blair government. Signing off on a stadium fit only for athletics was a massive error. The only option for Boris was conversion to a multi-use venue. If Sadiq Khan wants to try and blame someone he should blame his New Labour pals and the old Labour Mayor for their catastrophic planning failures.”

Earlier today Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan accused Boris Johnson of landing the taxpayer with a £20m-a-year bill over his handling of the deal with West Ham United for the former Olympic Stadium saying the findings were “simply staggering” and revealed “a bungled decision-making process that has the previous Mayor’s fingerprints all over it”.

He claimed Mr Johnson “panicked” in 2011 when faced with legal challenges over a joint bid by West Ham and Newham to take ownership of the stadium and “decided to re-run the bid process with the taxpayer taking all the risks and footing almost the whole bill”.