Extra troops for olympics

[andy at handiwork]

Oh for fucks sake, get a grip.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Is it a sporting celebration or a fucking war? No doubt we will all benefit from it's legacy........yeah right.

[David Johnson]

Get a grip indeed.

Having to rehire the border staff that you made redundant a year ago is ludicrous. Apparently, it is still chaos at Heathrow border control even though there is two weeks to go before the start of the Olympics.

As is using a fifth of the armed forces in the Olympics and announcing only 2 weeks before the opening ceremony that you need an extra 3,500 troops. I'm surprised that May is still in her job. It seems like one cockup after another. It looks like the security firm has left it to the very last minute before announcing they can't get enough qualified guards. Must still be sleeping under an assortment of London Bridges!

I remember going to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002. Okay not as big an event as the Olympics but still a massive sporting event over many sites and with huge numbers of people visiting. Even though it was after the Twin Towers, can't remember any of this paranoia with huge troop deployments and anti-aircract missiles on tower blocks etc etc. It was a fantastic experience to visit. I get the impression that being body searched by a bunch of squaddies as an introduction to getting into the London Olympics is not going to create quite the same impression.

Sad!

[RoddersUK]

A lot of squaddies will take advantage of the situation and will be shaggging themselves silly with the some of the athletes and spectators. A natural phenomenon and I know something of this.
But, god help anyone who pisses off a disgruntled squaddie who has had his post Afghan leave cancelled and is placed at a checkpoint to search disgruntled spectators. I think that St Johns Ambulance staff should be increased at various locations because someone will get a smack.
Not the organisers finest hour is it?

[jimslip]

I reckon this is all as a result of orders from our puppet-masters, the Americans! Why don't they cut out the middle man and just let the US Army occupy London for the whole period?

[william]

There is a lot of talk about this on the go - Rumour is that they got word of a significant threat for the opening ceremony...... Now they are really bricking it as that would be a huge publicity shot for the terrorists. Look at the M6 fiasco - they know something and they are not telling - Id be very wary of going anywhere near London over the Olympic period..... Very wary indeed.
You dont send 3500 troops in if you didnt pick up on something would you now?

[Robches]

What you have got to remember is that TV shows like "The Thick of It" and "2012" are in fact documentaries, not comedies.

[spider]

I'm a big fan of Twenty Twelve (the TV Programme).

I don't think they can call it "2012" though because the International Olympic Committee own the phrase
"2012".

You'll notice they never show the Olympic rings on the TV Programme
because the IOC own that as well.

The TV Programme is beginning to look like a documentary though. I
remember they said as a joke on the TV Programme "I'm proud to
announce today that our principal torch bearer will be Peter Andre".

Who do they have in real life, Cliff Richard, Gary Lineker, Jedward,
Heston Blumenthal, Will I Am (it's William mate - get a dictionary),
and Keith Lemon.

Keith Lemon, that's funnier than Peter Andre!

I hear they had a storyline ready which had the premise that the Army
wanted to put Surface to Air missiles on top of a block of flats as
part of Olympic security preparations, but they abandoned it as too
far-fetched!

Here's an extract from the Daily Telegraph review.

As with all the finest satire, this series, written and directed by
John Morton, creates a preposterous fiction that is horribly
believable. Indeed, looking back, I find myself getting confused as to
which bizarre goings-on took place in the fictional world of Twenty
Twelve and which actually happened. Did the organisers of the Olympics
really consider wrapping a giant condom advertisement around the Orbit
tower? Will there truly be a pub on the site that serves only soft
drinks manufactured by one of the event sponsors?

[David Johnson]

I suspect that this has got absolutely nothing to do with a "significant threat for the opening ceremony!.

Basically the London Organising Committee for the Olympics admitted over a year ago that they had greatly underestimated the number of security guards required as a result of doing some test run thrus at various stadia.

As a result a greatly enhanced contract was placed with private security firm G4S to supply the extra security staff. G4S, like many companies has a just in time recruitment philosophy which has turned out to be a just too late recruitment philosophy. So it is only in the last few days that G4S has come clean and announced that they are struggling to recruit staff.

This has resulted in the last minute request from Teresa May to her oppo at Defence, Philip Hammond to fill the gap with soldiers.

So in other words, less a case of newly detected terrorist threat more a case of not doing what you were contracted to do a long time ago.

[Peter]

spider wrote:


> You'll notice they never show the Olympic rings on the TV
> Programme
> because the IOC own that as well.
>

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