Olympics Desk

Mayor Johnson has reassured Londoners that they will not pay more for the 2012 Games, in an interview with Jon Sopel of the BBC, which focused on the comments of the newly appointed Minister of State for culture and Olympics who said the Olympics budget was not "ring-fenced".

Hinting that the 2012 Olympics budget could be one of the "easy" targets of the new coalition government to cut spending, Jeremy Hunt said to BBC Newsnight that: "Olympic money is not protected. None of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's budgets are protected and we are looking at all of them and saying can we make savings without affecting our core services."

Mayor Johnson has said that he does not want the cuts to "prejudice the regeneration opportunities of east London" offered by the 2012 Olympic Games, and was quick to defend the comments of Jeremy Hunt by saying that the Olympic Delivery Authority was one year ahead of schedule, and "time was money".

Many commentators have identified that City Hall and the Treasury will have "robust" negotiations and talks over efficiencies that can be made, with Mayor Johnson no longer he most "powerful Conservative" in politics, outshone by Prime Minister David Cameron.

photo credit: London Daily News copyright