Yet more Olympic security questions

With the first Olympic teams arriving in the UK in preparation for the games we are already seeing big questions over the measures put in place by Group 4 Security (G4S) and the role they are playing in creating a situation where the Government is forced to supplement the private security force with police and military assets. Several Olympic football teams are flying into the North East of England to training and acclimatisation camps and G4S were supposed to have 58 trained staff members to provide security. It appears that as of this morning they managed to get 10 staff members on site. Of course, the Northumbrian police have stepped into the breach and made up the numbers but this raises serious questions of several levels. Firstly there is the simply inefficiency of G4S. This company is being paid by taxpayers to provide security for the games. In failing to achieve this the police, who are paid for by the UK taxpayer, are having to step into the breach. Doesn't this mean that the taxpayer is paying twice for the same security? Then there is the question of why this is happening. It appears that G4S, apparently in a bid to keep costs to a minimum have decided that rather than paying people who already hold SIA security certification and are already trained to operate X-ray scanners and metal detectors they will train and employ people who are not qualified or certified.

This saves considerably on contract costs for security personnel but means that many of the security staff employed are simply not up to the job, and have no proven reliable security work history. In setting up and awarding the contract to provide the security for these games did the Government not stipulate that all staff must be security vetted and properly trained? Was there no requirement for the use of a proportion of experienced staff? If not, why not? It seems to stretch the bounds of credibility that such a high profile event would not have such requirements written into the contract. It suggests strongly that it was always the intent of the government to introduce police and military assets in a frontline role, but why might this be the case. It seems credible to suggest that there are valid threats to security of athletes and support workers, particularly given previous security problems around Olympic events, particularly the Munich incident, so the use of police and military personnel was always likely, so why employ G4S at all? Why not make it a police and military operation from the outset?

The official story is that G4S represents better value for money, but this is proving to be at least an incorrect and inept decision, and at worst a deliberate ploy to make it appear that private sector options were explored in full. The more likely reason is that it was always the Governments intention to utilise the military either as a direct precursor to the implementation of a police state as a consequence of an incident at the games, or as an exercise in preparation for such at state at an undefined point in the future. The best advice for the time being is to treat any official stories surrounding the security of this global event with a very large pinch of salt. What is beyond doubt is that nothing that is reaching the mainstream media has credibility and it is now a waiting game to see exactly what has been planned for this media circus. It almost makes you wonder why the film director Danny Boyle, famous for his complex special effects rich movies is the driving force behind the opening ceremony. This is going to be interesting folks.