WHAT'S the purpose of politicians? One is certainly to debunk people who think they are experts.

To cut through the jargon and the gobbledygook and the special pleading, and to point out when the emperor's conceit is not matched by his wardrobe.

In short, to apply a Common Sense Test to proposals, not least when they cost the public purse.

I was reminded of this when I saw the extraordinary logo that a company called Wolff Olins produced for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Now, if you think it's rather wonderful, please accept my apologies now because the rest of this article is based on the contention that it's rubbish.

Indeed that's hardly a unique view. But the commercial director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (which styles itself Locog) assures us that from the moment he saw it he "absolutely loved it".

He says "our sponsors love it. Our staff love it. And our stakeholders love it." He is also quoted as saying they've had "messages of encouragement" from "previous Ocogs".

Stakeholders? Ocogs? Anyone who talks this kind of garbage may need a serious real world check.

So where are the people who should have applied dollops of common sense to all this? Tessa Jowell? Sebastian Coe?

Like too many politicians they seem to have been mesmerised by the the public relations experts' they employed.

And yet they should have applied their first hard-nosed Common Sense Test at the moment when Mssrs Wolff Olins told them they would charge no less than £400,000 to produce this logo.

£400,000 for that thing? I accept that designing a good logo requires a bit of flair and imagination and a few computer skills, and it will cost more than a bob or two. But £400,000?

If this is typical of the way that Locog' is operating, it's no wonder the games are already well over budget.

The second application of the Common Sense Test should have been when someone presented them with the original sketch design - which charitably I assume someone did before they worked it up.

It's easy enough. You just bite your tongue and you say "No. Not what we want. Go away and do something else."

And if they won't you say "Right - you're sacked!"

As it is I despair at the power these experts seem to have, whatever rubbish they come up with.