CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Authors
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword by Rt Hon. Tony Blair, Prime Minister
Foreword by Lord Coe
Prologue – One Sweet Word
1. False Starts
2. Taking Off
3. A Day at the Opera
4. Exit Cassani
5. Ready . . . Steady . . . Coe
6. To Athens – Make or Break
7. Vision on the Mount
8. More Polish than the French
9. Hitting the Home Straight
10. Beckham and Blair
11. ‘We’ve Won!’
12. From Triumph to Tragedy
13. Toward 2012
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Dedication
To my family, Heather, Alex and Euan
– their support got me to the finishing line.
The final announcement of who was to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was one of those moments when the whole country holds its collective breath.
I’ll have to admit that I was so nervous that I went outside into the grounds of the Gleneagles hotel rather than wait to hear live the results of the final ballot.
So I actually learnt that London had won a few seconds after the rest of the world.
It didn’t, however, stop me joining in the national celebrations. I am only glad there was no photographer around to record my jig of joy.
London’s success was an extraordinary moment, made even sweeter because I knew both how incredibly hard Lord Coe and the whole team had worked and how fierce the competition had been.
London won, I believe, because we put together a superb, ambitious but practical bid that echoed strongly the ideals of the Olympic movement.
The focus on the power of sport to reach out and enthuse young people in Britain and across the world left a deep impression on the International Olympic Committee.
So, too, did the emphasis we put on ensuring the Games would leave a legacy of superb sporting facilities and transformed communities.
But the outcome was never a foregone conclusion. That made the final announcement even more memorable.
From the very beginning to that last nerve-tingling final ballot, London was never the favourite. In fact, if we had listened to some voices back home, we wouldn’t have bothered putting in a bid at all.
The full story of how London came from behind to win this race is fascinating and instructive. It shows just what our country can achieve if we have confidence in ourselves.
Mike Lee was in the perfect place to tell the story with all its twists and turns. As Seb’s communications chief and adviser, he was there every step of the way in the two-year campaign to bring the Games back to the UK.
In researching the book, Mike and his co-writers have spoken to all the key figures including Seb, London 2012 chief executive Sir Keith Mills, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, Sports Minister Richard Caborn, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Britain’s IOC member Sir Craig Reedie and many more people from the well-known to those unfamiliar outside the bid team itself. It was a real, fantastic collective effort.
He’s spoken as well to Cherie and myself about our memories of meeting IOC delegates in Athens and Singapore in the tense days before the final ballots.
Winning the honour of hosting the Games is, of course, only the first stage. Now we have to deliver on our vision and ambition. I am confident we will.
I believe the 2012 Games in London will be both magical and memorable and will more than do justice to the great Olympic ideals.
It will be a national sporting festival, with teams from around the world preparing in towns and cities up and down the country and spectators visiting other Olympic-related events outside of London.
The Games will provide as well a fantastic opportunity to showcase modern Britain in all its diversity and dynamism and prove a catalyst for investment to improve life and health not just in East London but across the UK.
All this – the wonderful sporting memories and the tremendous legacy – are now within our grasp. This book reveals how we won the chance to host the greatest show on earth and what it will mean for this country. Enjoy.
The abiding memory I have of the bid is of a hugely dedicated and highly committed team. Right from the very beginning when I walked into the bid’s offices on the top floor of Canary Wharf tower I was struck by the energy and passion of a small knot of people perched on a cluster of chairs in the middle of a huge empty space. Barbara and the team literally started with nothing.
700 or so days later on the eve of our departure to Singapore Keith Mills and I gathered together the team, substantially larger by this time, to prepare them for the final push and to remind everyone these finals days in London and Singapore were the culmination of over two years of extraordinary work together. We were going into the final stage of our campaign in the best shape we could hope to be in thanks to the people around me. As I looked around at the faces in the room I could see the pride in every set of eyes that looked back at me. They all knew what it had taken to get to that day. They all knew that their part was an important part of a collective goal. They all knew they were part of an astonishing team and they all knew they could rely on each other to do their bit to get us across the line.
As a team our metal was probably best tested when the IOC Evaluation Team came to London. The level of detail and hours of rehearsal that went into every single aspect of that visit was outstanding. The late nights and very early mornings, the ‘lost’ weekends and cancelled holidays were the norm as individuals delivered the best they had to make the team effort that much stronger.
It is hard to describe the pride I felt during that visit. The exceptional quality of the presentations, the sheer scale, organisation and planning of the whole event, the presence of smiling team members and supporters as I escorted the IOC commission members around our venues, the branding of the city – night and day – and the careful management of the media. Watching the team over those few days probably held more emotion for me than the announcement in Singapore – and that is a pretty hard moment to beat! There is something incredibly powerful about watching a committed, focussed and exceptionally talented team working well together.
I learnt a lot about people in that time and I will carry with me the hard work, skill, expertise and humour that I was proud to be a part of.
Many of the great moments we shared as a team are recounted in Mike’s book. It is his story of a journey that we took together as a team. Every setback was overcome by a collective approach to finding a solution, every victory along the way was won by a series of individual endeavours pulled together in a massive co-ordinated effort.
Much of what we are proudest of in life is achieved through teamwork.
I am often asked for my proudest achievement – winning Olympic Gold Medals or winning the 2012 Games? I am sure I have answered that question in many different ways but actually the one thing they both have in common is that they are both defined by the fact I was part of extraordinary teams. Neither endeavour would ever have been as successful without the team that supported it.
The Olympic Games changed my life. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will change the lives of many more people. It will act as an enormous catalyst for change and regeneration in the East End of London and will inspire young people in the UK and around the world to take up sport and embrace the Olympic ideals. This will be an enduring legacy and one that each member of the bid can feel proud of.
I cannot thank the London 2012 bid team and all our supporters enough and I hope they each find some memories in Mike’s story that will remind them of the extraordinary journey we took together, memories that I hope will bind us all together for always.
Lord Coe, July 2006
ON 6 JULY 2005 at 7.46 p.m. Singapore time, Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee took an agonising twenty seconds to tear open the envelope containing the name of the city which had won the vote to host the 2012 Games. I would never have believed that in this age of mobile phones, email and the BlackBerry, the opening of a good old-fashioned envelope could still be such a dramatic, life-changing event. My nervous apprehension had reached fever pitch as I, and of course, millions of people around the world, watched and listened.
London and Paris had reached a showdown in the last round of voting, and now, in those two great cities (huge crowds had assembled at Trafalgar Square and at the Hôtel de Ville) countless thousands were gathered around television sets, or following events on the radio or internet.
Most of the British public watched the television pictures from Singapore’s Raffles Hôtel more in hope than with any real expectation of success. Many feared the frantic lobbying in the final 72 hours before the IOC vote would not be enough, despite the fact that Prime Minister Tony Blair, bid chairman, Sebastian Coe, and the London 2012 team had done everything they could to secure victory.
Paris had been the favourite for the two years of campaigning and the bookmakers were expecting a French victory. Paris appeared to have it all – an Olympic stadium already built, excellent contacts within the IOC and enthusiastic public support for the campaign.
The French crowd that gathered outside the magnificent Hôtel de Ville in Paris watching the TV pictures on a large screen was noisily confident. They believed that, after two previous failed bids for the 1992 and 2008 Games, the International Olympic Committee members would not turn their backs on Paris for a third time.
Clearly, the media in the Raffles Hôtel expected a Parisian triumph – all the photographers were lined up opposite the French delegation, ready to shoot pictures of celebration. As the IOC President took the piece of card from the envelope, one French TV commentator told the nation: ‘This is perhaps an historic hour for Paris.’ He paused as Rogge, the 63-year-old former Olympic yachtsman, began reading the card in front of him. From Singapore to Trafalgar Square everyone held their breath.
The agonising wait was finally over in the time it took to say 23 words: ‘The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing that the Games of the thirtieth Olympiad are awarded to the city of . . . London.’
This was a historic moment. In years to come Britons will still remember where they were when they heard the news. Across London and Britain, a nation famous for its modesty and reserve, clapped and cheered, while those watching at home whooped in front of their TV sets, as veteran BBC commentator Barry Davies shouted: ‘We’ve done it! London has won it! Absolutely brilliant!’
I am happy to say that I was in the thick of the wild celebrations in the Raffles ballroom in Singapore, hugging and kissing the colleagues with whom I had worked many long days, as London 2012’s communications director and Seb Coe’s special adviser.
But I did not have long to savour the moment. Now that we had won the bid, I had to tear myself away to start arranging the interviews for Seb with reporters from national and international television, radio and newspapers.
After a few precious minutes of unbridled exuberance, I had to face once again the logistical challenges of dealing with the media. Even now it is hard to describe how I felt as the enormity of London’s victory began to sink in.
I walked away from the celebrations wondering at the events that had led to this glorious moment.
This was a bid that was on its knees in the spring and summer of 2004, when anybody suggesting London would beat Paris would have been laughed out of court.
London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games had been controversial from the moment of its conception, in the offices of the British Olympic Association in the late 1990s, to the final days of campaigning in Singapore. Before the bid could even be put before the International Olympic Committee it had taken every ounce of persuasion to rally support for the idea from a sceptical Cabinet, a critical general public and a cynical press.
London’s victory in Singapore was simply one of the most remarkable results in the history of Olympic bidding. So how did a bid, so unpromising less than a year before the vote, end up beating the favourite Paris in this dramatic Singapore finale? How did London produce one of the most astonishing comebacks in Olympic history?
Seb Coe and I exchanged a wry smile as we left the Raffles ballroom to face the waiting media. We knew the secrets of London’s success.
Mike Lee, July 2006
THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE exploded in a dizzying burst of colour as fireworks lit up the sky above the famous Opera House. It was a postcard scene which had been witnessed many times by millions of people around the world. But never before had it been seen like this. As the giant golden Olympic rings, which had sat proudly on the side of the bridge for the two-week duration of the 2000 Olympics, were switched off, Sydneysiders said farewell to the first Games of the new millennium in style. They had plenty to celebrate. Their Olympics had been an enormous triumph. After battling for so many years against a feeling that theirs was a forgotten continent, the Games they staged for the rest of the world that year gave all Australians an immense sense of pride. So, when International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch declared Sydney’s Games the best ever, for once you sensed he really meant it.
In Britain the impact was enormous. After the disappointing performances of the British team at the 1996 Atlanta Games where they won only one gold medal, the success in Sydney was a massive shot in the arm for British sport. In total Team GB won eleven golds and produced their best performance at a Games for eighty years. The fairytale rowing performance of Sir Steve Redgrave in the coxless four was the highlight. It confirmed the giant oarsman as the greatest British Olympian with five gold medals in consecutive Games. Back home the country had Olympic fever as millions tuned in despite the time difference to soak up the events unfolding down under. It was at this point that the dream of bringing the Olympics back to Britain really caught the public’s imagination.
In fact Sydney played a more direct role in the country’s eventual decision to bid for the 2012 Games than many people realise. For it was amid the ruins of Manchester’s desperate failure to bring the 2000 Games to Britain that the realisation dawned on British Olympic chiefs they would only ever stand a chance of staging the Games if they bid with London. Manchester’s second failure running had come as no surprise at the vote in 1993 in Monte Carlo. Sydney were shock winners but Manchester and Britain were never in the race. In the end Manchester polled just eleven votes. Simon Clegg, chief executive of the British Olympic Association (BOA), recalls: ‘The very clear message was that only when we came back with London would the IOC believe we were serious about wanting to host the Olympic Games.’
But it was not until 1997 that the first serious steps were taken towards mounting a London bid. Clegg and the BOA appointed David Luckes, the goalkeeper from the Great Britain men’s hockey team in Atlanta in 1996, to research a possible bid. Luckes, who was to subsequently play an important behind-the-scenes role in the London bid, undertook a feasibility study into the possibility of staging the Olympics in the capital. With no back-up staff and not even an office to call his own at the BOA’s headquarters in Wandsworth, South London, Luckes began investigating whether a bid could work and whether it should be focused on the East End or West End of the city. ‘I actually sat in the corridor for three or four months after I started,’ Luckes said. ‘But at least it allowed me to get to know most of the people in the building. I spent a long time looking at the bidding process and possible venues and whether London’s transport infrastructure could cope with staging the Games. I looked at East London and West London alternatives and tried to put a proposal together which we could take out to the London boroughs and the government.’
By the time the Sydney Games had weaved its magical spell on the nation, Luckes had produced a 395-page report on the London Games. Although it offered a West London alternative, focused mainly on a redeveloped Wembley Stadium, the opportunity to regenerate the run-down East End of the capital was clearly more favourable. There were already plans to redevelop a vast corridor of wasteland from the Isle of Dogs in London’s Docklands up through the East London area of Stratford and north into the Lower Lee Valley of North London and Hertfordshire. Adding the Olympic bid to that scheme made perfect sense. At last Britain had the basis of a potentially successful bid.
But establishing that London had the potential to bid was just the beginning of an even more tortuous journey. First the British Olympic Association had to wait to see which city would win the 2008 Games at the IOC Session in Moscow in July 2001. The Games are rarely held in the same area of the world two times running, historically moving between Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. Although Beijing was the clear favourite, despite concerns over China’s human rights record, Paris was strongly fancied as an outsider. Victory for the French would end any hopes London had of the Games coming to Europe in 2012. It would be 2016 at the earliest before London would get another chance. The land that had been earmarked by planners for a new Olympic Park in the East End would be sold and redeveloped for other uses by then and the opportunity would be lost, possibly forever. So it was a huge relief for those in support of the bid when Beijing stormed home comfortably.
London’s backers were on a high and the campaign began to build some early momentum. Then, in the autumn, a potentially calamitous problem reared its head. In October 2001 Britain was forced to withdraw London’s offer to stage the 2005 World Athletics Championships at a new purpose-built stadium in the heart of the Lee Valley, at Picketts Lock, in Hertfordshire.
Tessa Jowell, the incoming secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, anxious that lessons be learnt from the government’s recent experiences of the Wembley Stadium project and the Millennium Dome, was concerned that the Picketts Lock proposal was unsound. She demanded a full report on the feasibility of the plan.
The subsequent report by Patrick Carter, a successful businessman and one of a number of leading entrepreneurs relied on by the New Labour government to advise ministers on major projects and policy decisions, confirmed serious questions about the viability of the Picketts Lock proposal. Carter’s report stated that the transport infrastructure was inadequate and there were serious question marks over costs. Carter, who was later to become chairman of the sports lottery distributor Sport England, told Jowell that the plug had to be pulled. Jowell and her Sports Minister, the Sheffield MP Richard Caborn, duly obliged.
The decision sent shockwaves through world sport. Already under pressure because of the controversy over the £757 million Wembley redevelopment project and the much-publicised problems of the Dome, Britain’s sporting reputation, on the international stage could not have been any worse. It was not helped when the government tried to persuade the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), Lamine Diack, that Sheffield could provide a viable alternative venue for the championships. Diack, also a member of the IOC, was not impressed and the event was moved to Helsinki.
Even if London could get a bid out of the starting blocks for 2012, critics believed the ill feeling created by the Picketts Lock débâcle would strangle London’s hopes at birth. Despite the massive setback, however, the BOA refused to give up. Clegg and Luckes had already won the support of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, provided the bid fulfilled his vision for transforming the desperately deprived East End and increased investment in the capital. Livingstone’s support was a critical development and despite the Picketts Lock fiasco, Jowell and Caborn were convinced that the time was right to bid. To this day the government remains convinced that, had the World Athletics Championships come to London in 2005, they would have been a disaster. In the long run, ministers argue, Britain’s reputation was better protected by the decision not to proceed particularly given the aversion to risk which had developed in the Cabinet following Wembley and the Dome.
To move forwards, consultancy specialists Arup were commissioned by the government to carry out a study on the London Olympics. Yet even as they crunched the numbers and explored where each of the Olympic sports could be staged in the capital, another potential dark cloud loomed large on the horizon – the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Another sporting flop would mean the end for the London bid and confirmation of Britain’s image as a nation incapable of hosting major sporting events. And for many months, with costs at the new City of Manchester Stadium soaring, it looked like this might happen. The government again sent for Patrick Carter. He moved quickly, ordering Manchester City Council to find the money to make the event work, and in August 2002 the Games were opened in spectacular style by the England football captain David Beckham. It had cost more than expected but the ‘friendly Games’, as they became known, were a huge triumph.
The IOC President, Jacques Rogge, and IAAF President Lamine Diack, both came to Manchester to witness the event first hand. Afterwards they spoke of their admiration for the show Britain had put on. The Picketts Lock, Wembley and Dome episodes could not be entirely forgotten but the British had shown they could throw a party for the world.
Suddenly it was all systems go for London. By the late autumn of 2002 Arup reported their findings back to the government. A small group of Cabinet ministers formed a special Olympic sub-committee, chaired by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, to examine the details more closely, but it was clear that the government was a long way from being convinced. After five years of planning and lobbying, London’s Olympic dream entered its most critical phase.
Arup’s report predicted that the cost of the Games would be £1.8 billion, with the government having to stump up £484 million of that total bill. Arup also estimated that the London Olympics would generate £610 million in revenues and could end up making an operating surplus of £79 million. The report was a massive boost for the bid’s backers who pointed out how favourably the Arup costings compared with the final bills for past Games.
The magnificent Sydney Games of 2000 had cost £1.9 billion while Atlanta four years earlier cost £1.8 billion.
However, the low price tag only served to make sceptical ministers even more cynical, believing the figures were not sustainable. While Prime Minister Tony Blair was thought to be broadly in favour of a bid provided it was winnable, there remained massive scepticism within his cabinet. Political heavyweights such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Jack Straw all needed to be convinced. They cited the problems of the Dome and pointed to the difficulties created by the new Wembley and Picketts Lock. They were concerned that another grand project could cost billions of pounds and possibly end up haunting them for the next decade. In fact, at this time Jowell and the Prime Minister were the only members of the Cabinet who truly believed the risk was worth the potential benefits of bringing the Olympics to London. And back in August, at the same time as the Commonwealth Games in Manchester were proving such a hit, Jowell had been advised to reject the idea of a London bid by her own officials.
A departmental report prepared by senior civil servants in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport warned her that it was not winnable and would cost too much money. But, enthused by the vision for the East End and the potential legacy for sport and for London, Jowell ignored the advice. Instead she spent the autumn re-analysing the costs and trying to persuade her Cabinet colleagues in a series of critical private meetings.
There was support from the Prime Minister, that was clear. In fact his wife Cherie was one of the project’s early cheerleaders. She undoubtedly played a key role in persuading her husband to get behind London. She explains: ‘I thought it was fantastic. I was an athletics fan because my mum had been an athletics fan. We went to watch the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986.
‘Then of course I got really excited because we went to the Manchester Games, having missed the Sydney Olympics because my son Leo had just been born. But the Olympics were already a big part of my life.’ At one stage Cherie Blair was even touted as a possible bid leader. But she says: ‘The idea of me leading the bid was never a realistic prospect because it wouldn’t have been appropriate but I could see the potential where I could help because of all the travel abroad and here.’
Despite the support from the Blairs, Jowell still faced a huge struggle to win the backing of the rest of the key players in government. ‘I knew I had a massive job to persuade the Cabinet,’ she explains, ‘but after the Commonwealth Games and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, there was a much greater sense of confidence that we could organise things.
‘Tony and Cherie Blair had both been at the Commonwealth Games and were very enthusiastic. Despite that I spent the autumn meeting other ministers and there was a tremendous amount of scepticism while at the same time the Iraq crisis was beginning to rumble and become a serious preoccupation for the government.’
Jowell was convinced that with time her colleagues could be won over, she says ‘One of the things John Prescott said to me early on in the process was that if all the Cabinet were given sufficient time then they would come around to the idea. That was one of the big problems with the Dome – no one felt they had been given enough time to really look at the project properly.’
Gordon Brown, concerned about the prospect of a downturn in public spending, was the toughest person to convince but Alistair Darling was also worried the bid would distort his spending plans on transport. All were worried about the Dome effect and felt they had enough to deal with without taking on another risky scheme. Jowell recalls one story where one minister ended a meeting by telling her: ‘I hope the Olympic Games are a huge success – in Paris!’
In an effort to ensure that the government was given all the facts, Jowell, ordered a review of the Arup report. Robert Raine, a senior civil servant who had worked for many years in the Cabinet Office, was asked to take a look at the costings. He had previously worked with Patrick Carter on the Wembley, Picketts Lock and Manchester Commonwealth Games reviews. On each occasion he found costs had been massively underestimated and his latest foray into the world of sport was to be no different.
What he found left many fearing the worst: Arup had underestimated the costs by a staggering £800 million. Raine found they had failed to factor in the costs of purchasing land, upgrading transport facilities, security, project risks and inflation. Of greatest concern, however, was the fact Arup had only allowed for £450 million of contingency costs to cover parts of the project when they went wrong. Raine believed that at least 10 per cent of the total budget needed to be factored in for this, 4 times more than Arup’s estimate. Raine predicted the cost of staging the Games in London would be £2.4 billion. And that didn’t even include the costs of improving London’s creaking transport network. Arup protested that Raine had gone too far, citing the £100 million cost Raine had factored in for transport management. Arup’s estimates were far more reliable, direct from the Metropolitan Police, which said the real total was nearer £20 million.
The BOA feared Brown and other senior ministers would order the London Games to be strangled by the Raine review. They were convinced that was the end of it. And as the 30 January date for a government decision drew nearer the debate continued as to whether it was right that such a vast sum of money should be used to pay for a month of sport. And if the Olympics went over budget who would pick up the tab?
Craig Reedie, the BOA chairman and British IOC member, watched the turn of events with growing trepidation. Reedie was the driving force behind the proposed London bid and believed the delay was threatening to wreck London’s chances. Even if the government did decide to back the Games then it might still be too late to get everything in place in time to mount a serious challenge to Paris.
‘We heard the rumours,’ he says. ‘It was a genuine fear that the Raine review was only implemented because the government wanted to kill the bid.
‘Arup could have come up with the same figures as Robert Raine but they were told to factor in costs at 2002 levels. All Raine did was factor in inflation up to 2012. It was designed to make it more expensive and all we asked for from government was consistency.
‘We were very fearful but in a sense there was nothing I could do about it. I could not get any further up the tree than the Secretary of State for Culture, Tessa Jowell. She was on side and to that extent we were in her hands.’
The most critical week of the fledgling campaign began on Monday, 13 January 2003 and Jowell was at the centre of it. It started with a difficult meeting with the Chancellor. Citing fears over the costs, Brown told Jowell that he could not support the bid at this stage but remained open to persuasion as long as there was a much greater clarity on the finances.
The next day Jowell faced a grilling from a select committee of MPs chaired by the outspoken Manchester MP Gerald Kaufman, one of the government’s arch critics on major sporting projects. Then later that same day she had to lead a debate on the London bid in the House of Commons. It was a delicate moment and with behind-the-scenes private meetings continuing, Jowell did not want to get ahead of the Cabinet. She felt unable to send the enthusiastic signal desired by the bid’s supporters. ‘At that stage I didn’t want to describe the level of ambivalence that existed within the Cabinet towards the bid,’ Jowell explains. A week before the bid was due to be approved by Cabinet, the project looked to have hit a dead end.
Then on Wednesday, 15 January, came the first of two major breakthroughs. Jowell met Brown again and this time found him to be in a much more conciliatory mood. Her consensus-building was taking effect but the Chancellor was clear that there would be no Treasury money to pay for either the bid, which alone would cost £30 million, or the project itself if London won the vote.
‘Gordon was absolutely clear,’ says Jowell. ‘He knew what the forecasts for the economy were and knew we would not be in a position to put huge amounts of government money into it.’
A day later Jowell called a meeting with the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone at her Cockspur Street office, overlooking Trafalgar Square. Jowell and Livingstone had known each other for over 25 years since their days together in London local government and there was mutual respect. As she waited for the Mayor to arrive, Jowell glanced at a picture on the wall of her office. It was a desolate scene depicting an isolated crossroads in the middle of the countryside, entitled This is Nowhere. She felt it was an appropriate image, for she too wondered where the Olympic vision was heading.
After months of delicate negotiations everything suddenly hinged on Livingstone, the maverick left winger. Relations between Tony Blair and Livingstone, better known in his earlier days as ‘Red Ken’, had broken down after a row over Livingstone’s de-selection as a candidate in the London mayoral elections. Jowell knew that she couldn’t allow him to steal the glory from the government should the Olympics get the green light. But she was also well aware that, without the financial backing of Livingstone, it was all over. ‘You have to remember the level of suspicion about Ken within the government,’ she recalls. ‘But I had none of that. I had worked with him and known him for many years.
‘He was not even in the Labour party at that point and there was suspicion of Ken. People questioned whether he could be trusted as a partner.’ But Jowell banked on Livingstone’s shared passion for the bid. And as they sat on white sofas, drinking tea and discussing Brown’s ultimatum, it quickly became clear that the mayor was prepared to do whatever was needed to get the bid off the ground. Between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on the afternoon of Thursday, 16 January 2003, Livingstone and Jowell carved out a financial deal, which would cover the £2.4 billion public price tag of the Olympics if the bid was won.
The deal was a straightforward mix of cash from the national lottery and Londoners’ money. One and a half billion pounds would come from the lottery – in particular a new Olympic scratch-card game – with the remaining £900 million from Livingstone through both the London Development Agency, his London regeneration body, and an increase in Londoners’ council tax – the main local authority tax in the capital. Livingstone committed Londoners to a £20 a year increase in council tax for a maximum of 10 years. This deal might not have been welcomed by all Londoners faced with the prospect of higher taxes, but it went down very well in the Treasury, where Brown finally gave his outright blessing.
Livingstone’s motivation for signing off the deal with Jowell was very different to hers. In a revealing admission he says his main priority was to obtain more money for investment in London. He recalls: ‘For me at that stage I didn’t think we had a cat in hell’s chance of winning. But I was thinking this was a good chance to get some more money out of the government for Londoners. So I bid on that basis. It wasn’t really until the Athens Games in August 2004 that I thought we could do it.
‘Before the meeting with Tessa in January, there were stories in the papers saying that Gordon Brown said the bid would be dead unless the London council tax payers pay for it. I thought that had just been set up for me to say no and then I’d get blamed for killing the bid off. I did have my doubts that we could win it but I thought “let’s go for it”. When I went to the meeting with Tessa she was taken aback. She then sat down with my officials and we put together a credible deal. But we did come out of that meeting thinking, if we win the Games, it will have been a complete bloody accident.’
Regardless of Livingstone’s motives, the deal was done and on Friday, 17 January, Jowell flew to Lausanne for a meeting with IOC President Rogge. Tony Blair needed to know whether the race for 2012 would be fair. He couldn’t risk losing face to French President Jacques Chirac, especially at a time when Britain and France were in disagreement over the Iraq crisis and a range of European Union issues. Blair also wanted to avoid the embarrassing defeat suffered by England in the battle for the 2006 football World Cup – which went to Germany, while England’s bid was condemned.
Jowell had to find out if Paris was a certainty to win. Rogge told her what she needed to hear. ‘I told Jacques that I am driving the government towards this decision and need to know whether this is actually an open race or a competition that will lead to a Paris victory. He told me that 85 per cent of the bid is the candidate file and 15 per cent is geopolitical; whether the IOC members like you, whether they feel a sense of vision and passion for the Olympic movement. In a way I felt the technical side of it was easy and at that point I became convinced that we had to let the IOC know just how passionate we were.’
But she couldn’t do that without first getting the approval of the government. Six days after she returned from Lausanne full of hope Blair gave his ministers another fortnight as he grappled with the growing problem of Iraq. This did, however, give officials more time to ensure the deal with Livingstone was watertight.
Once again, though, with the Cabinet set to give the go-ahead on February 13, the decision was put off. The Iraq crisis was now at the tipping point and Blair decided he could not be seen to be considering throwing a sports party just as he was about to ask British troops to fight for their country. ‘The mood was moving in favour of bidding,’ Jowell says. ‘But our overriding preoccupation was Iraq, so he didn’t really have time to focus on it.’
The first cruise missiles were not dropped on the Iraq capital Baghdad until 20 March and although the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled after just three weeks of fighting, there were continuing issues in Iraq. It was not until May that the Olympics were put back on the government’s agenda. During that frustrating three-month delay, genuine fears began to surface among the bid’s backers that the appetite for bringing the Games to London would be lost. Reedie says: ‘The biggest downer at that time was not so much Tessa grappling with ministers, it was Iraq. It seemed that was such a diversion for the government. We understood the problem, but it was frustrating’.
According to Jowell the time delay allowed her Cabinet colleagues ‘to really examine the figures and make a decision based on a fuller understanding of all the facts.’
With Saddam captured, the Cabinet agenda opened up and talks on the Games were rescheduled. Reedie remembers hearing the news that, at long last, the government was preparing to give its blessing. ‘I was preparing to fly to Latvia for a meeting of the European Olympic Committee when I got a call from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to go and see Tessa. She told me she thought it would go through. I asked her what we would do if it didn’t, because if it hadn’t gone through the next day then it would have had to wait another few weeks because of the Whitsun recess. I said to Tessa that if it got put off again that would be it. We simply wouldn’t have time to do this and so we would pull the plug. It sounds pretty dramatic now but it really was that touch and go.’
When the 15 May meeting arrived Jowell was nervous. She even bought a new suit for her presentation. Ahead of the meeting, she met Blair to make sure she had his support and they agreed that if the government said no to the bid then they would have to answer the very difficult question as to why London, the capital of the country and the fourth largest economy in the world, was not even prepared to try. At the meeting the Cabinet was unanimous in its backing, Jowell recalls, ‘It was a fabulous feeling. After grappling with so many projects that had gone wrong I had always believed passionately that the Olympics could be and would be different. I had bought into the vision of how London could be transformed by the Games and I was determined not to let it go.’
As for Blair himself, he acknowledges the role Jowell played in persuading the Cabinet to back London. He says: ‘Tessa was a very important influence. She was absolutely certain that we had to go for it. And Cherie, too, played a big part. But they were pushing at an open door to a great extent. I thought, if we could pull it off. it would be a fantastic thing for this country.
‘I am not going to pretend that there wasn’t real debate in government. There was. But, in the end, we all decided that we should go for it and John Prescott was critical in swinging everyone behind the decision.’
Craig Reedie recalls: ‘Tessa did a magnificent job and deserves great credit for getting it through the Cabinet. But she learned that Olympic bids cannot be led by politicians and governments who by their very nature have to compromise and debate. If they had led the bid from that moment on, we would have found it difficult to build momentum.’
From his office in Nyon, on the outskirts of Geneva, Mike Lee watched these events unfolding with an increasingly keen interest. In late 2002, as the government began to wrestle with the decision of whether to bid or not, Lee was enjoying life as the director of communications and public affairs with European football’s ruling body UEFA. The cut and thrust of Westminster could not have been more removed from the tranquil surroundings of UEFA’s stylish glass and chrome headquarters on the banks of Lake Geneva.
Lee had spent much of his working life among the spin doctors and those involved in policy in the creation and development of New Labour. A former adviser to MP David Blunkett in the late 80s and early 90s during Blunkett’s days as shadow minister on local government and then health, Lee joined UEFA in 2000 after a successful six-year spell working for consultancy company Westminster Strategy, where his work included acting as press chief for English football’s Premier League. His UEFA brief was wide, and included heading up the organisation’s communications team.
For the next two years, he was constantly on the road: one day Madrid for a Champions League game, the next Kiev for a key meeting of UEFA executives.
It was a thrilling and important job and although it meant spending a long time apart from his wife Heather, his then 10-year-old son Alex and 20-year-old stepson Euan, it was an exciting time. Lee recalls: ‘Taking the UEFA job was a big decision but the right one. It was a great challenge but I could only see my family at weekends and on holidays. I was often away on the road with UEFA and that meant there wasn’t too much time to myself, but there were times when I missed them a lot.’
Eager not to be away from home for too long, Lee had always planned to review his time working in Switzerland after three years. So when news began to filter through to him that there was a serious possibility of a London bid, his antennae started to flicker. ‘I had tuned into it quite early on through government and sports contacts,’ Lee explains. ‘I found the prospect of a London bid fascinating. At the same time, I knew the political scene well enough back in London to know that there were difficulties. The war in Iraq also meant that it was not a top priority. My sense of it was that it was a potentially interesting project but that there were clearly some huge obstacles to overcome.
‘It was also clear that Tessa had worked very hard to get it through. She convinced the Prime Minister early on but she had to convince the rest of the Cabinet. I had already been sounded out by contacts from the bid that they might be looking for a communications director, so when it was eventually signed off in May I started to let it be known that I was very interested. I spoke at length to Richard Caborn, who was very helpful in backing my appointment.’
Lee felt that he had the right mix of political understanding and sporting knowledge to help keep London’s bid on track. He understood that Britain’s voracious media would make a two-year campaign even more difficult. There would be no patriotic tub thumping from Fleet Street. But he was convinced he had the credentials in the demanding worlds of communications and public affairs. ‘What I was bringing to the party, hopefully, was this combination of a good understanding of the British and international media, particularly the sports media, and interesting experience of front-line politics and political campaigning. I also knew the key political figures involved. Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn I knew very well and I had a way into Tony Blair and people inside Number 10 Downing Street. In a way, when I looked at what was needed to devise a communications strategy and deal with the complexities of the political world, I felt that I had something to offer London.’
Lee was born the son of a miner in the north-east mining village of Boldon Colliery in South Tyneside. His father Richard lost one of his legs in a mining accident and was forced to retire early. His mother had always helped support the family by working in the community as a home help. Times were tough but Lee studied hard and won a place at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. He went on to secure a place at St Peter’s College, Oxford where he read politics, philosophy and economics.
‘I come from pretty humble origins,’ Lee said. ‘It’s been a pretty interesting journey for me from a coal-mining town to an Oxford graduate.