And the gold medal for evasion goes to . . .

Anyone hear Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell on radio this morning explaining why the bill for London 2012 has gone up by the odd £7 billion or so - and rising. My estimate is still that we will end up with a bill of £20 billion plus.

It was a gold medal winning performance of evasion. Getting a straight answer out of her was like trying to nail a blancmange to a puddle. At at the end of her list of excuses and explanations cemented together by meaningless waffle I think we were supposed to be grateful that the Government had done such a brilliant deal and what fantastic value for money we were getting. You could almost believe it would be worth it at more than twice the price - which undoubtedly it will be when all the receipts are collected up from under the mantlepiece clock in Tessa's front room.

Next stage no doubt will be knocking billion pound size chunks off the bill because they are not really to do with the Olympic bid and were things we were going to do in any case, or had to be done whether we had the Olympics or not, or are just being hidden in the hope no one will notice.