Unfortunately for the PM, this is a gamble and an untruth. The untruth first: The Jubilee may well be a lot of fun and all that, but with an extra bank holiday it will economically do more harm than good. I don't think there should be an extra bank holiday for it. Last year the excuse given for a dismal second quarter was the extra bank holiday, so the same PM making a statement now saying that doing the same thing (day off to watch a very lovely lady in a very nice hat) this year will help the economy when it hindered it last year is amnesic at best.
The gamble is of course the Olympics. Quite possibly, we'll get a massive economic boost from it like Barcelona and Atlanta did. More probable I fear is that we will end up like Athens in 2004. We are, like they were, a country with fewer resources to throw at the event and a worse infrastructure to cope with it than many others. We have already had most of the benefit to the economy from the spend on construction and it didn't manage to stop the utter collapse of the construction industry in this country over the last few years. The regeneration of poorer areas on London didn't manage to stop the riots so I don't suppose we can call that a complete success either. All we can hope for now is a load of tourism off the back of the games. The hope is that millions of people will watch a congested, smoggy city fail to cope with the strain and thus decide that it would be a nice place to come on holiday. I hope I'm proven incorrect - look at Greece now.
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