Letter: Games joins roll of public shame

WHEN Glasgow "won" the 2014 Commonwealth Games, our First Minister pledged that the budget of £298 million was "written in blood" and, as is depressingly usual, insisted this event would stand in favourable contrast to the English-organised Olympics (Insight, 3 July).

Today, the budget has soared to well over 500 million, money is still being thrown at it and, with three years to go, the final bill could be truly staggering. All the credentials are there for it to be right up with the utter disgrace of the Scottish Parliament, the Edinburgh trams slapstick comedy act and the damp squib of The Gathering as a monumental financial fiasco.

Sadly, it is now glaringly obvious that Scotland's public bodies, especially councils, are totally incapable of delivering major projects and the fact that the Holyrood Government will soon be borrowing on the markets to finance more of these grand ideas chills the blood. Shakedown artists and snake oil salesmen everywhere must be rubbing their hands.

Never forget it was Mr Salmond who smugly predicted that an independent Scotland would join in an "arc of prosperity" with Ireland and Iceland, just before they both sank with a bigger splash than the Titanic.

MC Harrigan, Glasgow