Criticisms and questions

The right to stage the Olympics was won during an economic boom, but the games will take place during an era of austerity. Against this background there have been some criticisms of the cost of the Olympics.

The money for staging the games is raised privately, and has been put at £2bn, while the building of the venues and infrastructure is paid for with public money, including a council tax surcharge for all Londoners of £20 a year on a band D property from 2006 to 2018.

The original budget for the infrastructure, venues and regeneration was £2.375bn, but this was increased in 2007 to £9.345bn.

The coalition cut its budget by £27bn as part of its austerity drive, and Hugh Robertson, the Olympics minister, said last year he expected the games to come in under budget. However, a report by the Commons public accounts committee in March found that increased security costs had helped push the cost of the Olympics towards a likely £11bn.  The regeneration of east London and encouragement of sport across the country have been held up by Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, and the Labour and coalition governments as major reasons for all this spending. But would it have been better and cheaper to have simply invested directly in school sport across the UK, and new housing, transport links and sports facilities in Stratford? Or would these things never have been done if they had not been tied to such an enormous international event?

Will London's already overcrowded transport system struggle to cope during the Olympics, or will the fact that the games will take place during the summer holidays mitigate any problems? Are Olympic security guards being over-intrusive? Are restrictions to protect sponsors' brands much too stringent? Some lanes of some roads (details here) will be barred for all but athletes, officials and VIPs during the games, and have been mockingly called "Zil lanes" after a similar system in the Soviet Union - what are your views on this system?

Here are the policies of the mayoral candidates in brief.