Olympinonsense

[handsomefortune]

In less than 15 minutes I believe he used the phrase 'when the rubber hits the road' five times.

a quick purchase pre radio show may be, possibly from halfords? or perhaps he's seen an episode of the tv prog '2012' before us all, and borrowed the phrase from the 'deliverance' marketing team? (i wonder what swimmers, and the equestrian luvvies think of it.. (not to mention fragile gran)!

perhaps there'll be hesitations, weird deviations leading to top level repetitive gibberish in olympicommentaries, as presenters self censor? it may risk nicholas parsons' r4 career!

[Anna]

We said earlier about Twenty-Twelve and difficulty in separating fact from fiction ....... two Olympic coaches carrying athletes got lost today and circled around London and in The Telegraph report on it they have embedded a clip from Twenty-Twelve where ........... the coach gets lost going to the Olympic Village!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9403023/London-2012-Olympics-American-and-Australian-team-buses-get-lost-from-Heathrow-to-Olympic-Park.html

[ahinton]

The only benefits from privatisation accrue to shareholders, directors and senior employees of private companies. How can it deliver (to use that awful buzzword) better or indeed more cost-effectively when the prime purpose of the business is profit and dividend? A catastrophe looms in the NHS that will make the expensive disaster of rail privatisation look almost benign (and it has been a disaster, specifically in terms of cost: look at the cost of having to take the track back into public ownership, the subsidies that have been handed out to train operators).

But isn't there a more fundamental and far-reaching problem here?

For one thing, the ongoing police and armed services cuts will inevitably mean either (a) falls in security standards or expectations or both or (b) that more private secutiry police and secutiry firms will take over parts of the police and armed services remit; indeed, had those cuts already taken place, the government would surely find it a considerably more onerous task to earmark state-funded armed service pesonnel to drop into this responsibility at very short notice, would it not?

Another issue is that the armed service, police, NHS and the rest of the panopoly of what remains of the state funded business sector all have to make a profit for their shareholders' benefit just as do private ones for theirs, the only main difference being that their shareholders (the taxpayers) are not voluntary investors. Why so? Well, simply because the public as a whole does not - and, I suspect, cannot reasonably be expected to - view the business procedures and oprations of those publicly run and funded businesses much differently to the way in which they view those of privately run and funded ones, at least in the sense that they all have to make a profit otherwise they will not grow - and how will anyone manage with an NHS, for example, that does not grow? NHS is actually a fine and typical illustration of this problem to the extent that its successes over many years have considerably enhanced the healthcare expectations of all of us and those greater expectations simply cannot be met without ever more investment, which means that NHS has to generate more profit to enable it to make those investments because the taxpayer is not and cannot be a bottomless pit of money, ever at the ready to invest more and more money in it, as the taxpayer cannot afford to go on and on indefinitely paying more and more tax. As someone once ruefully remarked, "I don't understand all the fuss about the NHS possibly being privatised - it already IS privatised; it just happens to be funded in the main by the public and run by the state" (the implication being that, in this context, "the public" is a bunch of shareholders and "the state" is just another company that runs the business). That may not be a popular view, but there can be no doubt that both the state and private enterprise organisations each have businesses to run which need to be run well otherwise they will not achieve best possible successes and might risk having to scale back or even go bust; now of course I'm not for one moment suggesting that NHS is on the way to going into administration, but let no one pretend that it's not struggling from a business point of view.

With the Army now establishing itself in London I wonder if this will mark a permanent shift in so-called public order policy?

It's a good question and an understandable one in the circumstances, but somehow I doubt it; there would not have been the need for this in gthe first place had it not been for the G4S débâcle and the apparent ongoing government incompetence and laxity in not seeing it coming (LIBOR again, anyone?) and, in any case, it's not likely that this presence will remain, even in a climate of police cutbacks, if for no better reason than that, in the light of their own impending cutbacks, there just won't be enough of them to allocated to permanent city street security duties.

[Lateralthinking1]

We said earlier about Twenty-Twelve and difficulty in separating fact from fiction ....... two Olympic coaches carrying athletes got lost today and circled around London and in The Telegraph report on it they have embedded a clip from Twenty-Twelve where ........... the coach gets lost going to the Olympic Village!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...mpic-Park.html

[handsomefortune]

'way to go' it even looks like them on the coach, featured in the torygraph pic..... i hope boris is blushing.

i do love the deliverance team character (who's always eating but is skinny) who is in charge of 'olympifastrack' traffic, routes/communications etc, though 'he' obviously forgot to programme the sat navs correctly also, the tubby and sarcastic northern bloke. whereas, on this forum, a few seem to think their leader is the man ! in fact, they all contribute to one hell of a botch up, in their own little ways. so 'it's all good'.

[MrGongGong]

The rather wonderful Catherine Rose says

http://ladyeffingham.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/an-olympiate-proposal/

[Northender]

I tried to book a cheap advance seat on the 2012 service to London on Thursday and was told it would cost me an extra £14.50 'Olympic travel authorization facilitation fee' (even though it's hardly ever on time, and should strictly speaking be advertised as the '2012ish'). Apparently I can pay a reduced OTAFF of £9.50 if I offer to pay for the services of the sniper on the roof of my carriage.

[scottycelt]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-cleaners.html (The Daily Mail, no less).




You'd probably lose your bet. As ever I'm not an expert, but my understanding from acquaintances who have sought employment in the security industry is that there's very little distance between top and bottom, except the lower depths are even more unutterably awful (remember the Jubilee security story, which someone here described as sensationalist? Can't remember who that was). G4S is a large American company [edit: originally American company], who were given chunks of business by New Labour while privatising (in line with contemporary orthodoxy).

Well, it's very possible (rather than probable) I could certainly lose that wager but I'd still put some money on it, after many years in the retail trade and dealing with security staff at first-hand employed by my own and other companies. I hasten to add never once was I being questioned.

While I also would never describe myself as an 'expert' on anything, It is true, as you say, that there will be very little between the 'top' and 'bottom' companies in staff pay-rates, as is the case with cleaning staff. All retail staff, for example, are comparatively very poorly paid (except some senior managers, of course) but you do get your John Lewis's and the 'others'. It is sometimes tempting to go to one of the 'others' when he/she offers the goods ('unknowingly' to the likes of JL!) slightly cheaper but, as we all know, that course can be fraught with comparative dangers ...

However, you are right, I have no particular evidence that the government went for the 'cheaper' option in this case, but I might just prefer to call it a 'cynically-educated hunch' .

[JohnSkelton]

However, you are right, I have no particular evidence that the government went for the 'cheaper' option in this case, but I might just prefer to call it a 'cynically-educated hunch' .

G4S would appear to have cornered the markets:

The hostile headlines, made worse by Prime Minister David Cameron calling for G4S to face the consequences, have been a harsh wake-up call for a company that has been an active part of most people's lives for much longer than they realise.

In its core British market, the firm with the slogan "securing your world" has a hand in everything from airport security and immigration, to running prisons, police forces and cleaning and catering in schools and hospitals.

The group also trains British troops before deployment, handles the administration of penalty train fares, installs residential smart energy meters, runs children's homes and manages cash transportation for banks and retailers.

Government contracts amount to over half of the company's British revenue and the market makes up over 20 percent of its bid pipeline, including contracts to run seven prisons that will be awarded later this year.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/security-giant-g4s-trips-over-olympics-151156008--sector.html

Competitive tendering is perhaps something of an irrelevance in that context.

[Lateralthinking1]

G4S would appear to have cornered the markets:

The hostile headlines, made worse by Prime Minister David Cameron calling for G4S to face the consequences, have been a harsh wake-up call for a company that has been an active part of most people's lives for much longer than they realise.

In its core British market, the firm with the slogan "securing your world" has a hand in everything from airport security and immigration, to running prisons, police forces and cleaning and catering in schools and hospitals.

The group also trains British troops before deployment, handles the administration of penalty train fares, installs residential smart energy meters, runs children's homes and manages cash transportation for banks and retailers.

Government contracts amount to over half of the company's British revenue and the market makes up over 20 percent of its bid pipeline, including contracts to run seven prisons that will be awarded later this year.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/security-giant-g4s-trips-over-olympics-151156008--sector.html

Competitive tendering is perhaps something of an irrelevance in that context.

Yes, Nick Buckles runs our prisons although it is probably Bobby Shackleton or another unbelievable hologram who has the day-to-day responsibilities for the prison service. I will be watching the Select Committee performance of Buckles closely tomorrow to see just how successful the creators of Max Headroom have been in developing their technology.

Irrespective of the failings of what was Group 4 - and what a great reputation they had!!!??? - my main concern is about the seemingly unaccountable Capita. There are umpteen articles about their attitudes towards staff plus their so-called efficiency and money practices on the internet, few of them heartening. Arguably they also appear to be the new Soviet Union:

Capita works across eight markets - local government, central government, education, transport, health, life and pensions, insurance, and other private sector organisations (including financial services). Examples include a television licence fee contract for the BBC, won from the Post Office; management of call centres for many government initiatives such as the London congestion charge (although this is now with IBM); the provision of IT services, including web hosting and helpdesk support, to many county and city councils, many LEAs, the Driving Standards Agency and the National Rail (NCCA); the management of the Census and the Criminal Records Bureau for the Home Office; healthcare recruitment since May 2011 through acquisition of Team24; property, engineering & infrastructure services under the Capita Symonds brand; significant inputs in the legal services market at least in the recent past; the Schools Information Management Software, the Individual Learning Account; the Connexions Card and the Education Maintenance Allowance; and the Civil Service Pension Fund.

Paul Pindar has been Capita's Chief Executive for 13 years - probably longer than any head of a country in Western Europe.

[handsomefortune]

#130 shudder.

[scottycelt]

A view from the previously-mentioned 'poor bloody infantry' ...

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/362848/20120713/olympic-security-soldiers-angry-g4s-staff-frustration.htm

I sense that the 'anonymous' soldier has probably got it just about right and the government, however inadvertently, has almost gleefully ended up with the 'cheapest of all options'.

These soldiers have my utmost sympathy ... they have enough on their plates without having to be called upon to do work like this, especially as they are the cruel victims of government cuts like so many others.

Talk about adding insult to injury ...

[handsomefortune]

Talk about adding insult to injury ...

this issue was discussed on 'any questions' on saturday. (very briefly mind you). The group also trains British troops before deployment, significant in the context of security roles, post redundancy and release from army contracts. it beggars belief tbh.

clearly, it's time that lady effingham was pm.

[MrGongGong]

this issue was discussed on 'any questions' on saturday. (very briefly mind you).

clearly, it's time that lady effingham was pm.

I'll let her know
(you can always trust a hornplayer she has a rather nice Alex )

[Lateralthinking1]

A view from the previously-mentioned 'poor bloody infantry' ...

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/362848/20120713/olympic-security-soldiers-angry-g4s-staff-frustration.htm

I sense that the 'anonymous' soldier has probably got it just about right and the government, however inadvertently, has almost gleefully ended up with the 'cheapest of all options'.

These soldiers have my utmost sympathy ... they have enough on their plates without having to be called upon to do work like this, especially as they are the cruel victims of government cuts like so many others.

Talk about adding insult to injury ...

We could get a lot of golds this year in burnout.

Wiggins and the other TDF cyclists will be in the Champs-Élysées on Saturday and are required to be at the Olympic Village on Sunday. Fortunately, they will have five days to recover, that is, from the most gruelling sports event ever devised.

Idowu has now pulled out of three major competitions, has not competed since 2 June and will not compete again until the Olympic qualifying session on 7 August. Perhaps for some peculiar reason he can't decide whether to feel positively or negatively about some of the tests he is about to face. To prevent widespread disappointment and all round awkwardness, I would give the opportunity to someone else.

I can think of well over 600 people who could each do a bit personally for security at the Olympics. They are also conveniently based in the Central London area. Have they all got automatic entry to the stadium too, at least for the glamourous events? I'm not sure that we have been told.