London 2012 security: Not worthy of a gold medal?
The background
The military is to provide 3,500 troops to strengthen security at the London 2012 Olympics, after it emerged that private firm G4S was facing a staff shortfall.
G4S was awarded a £284 million contract by the London Olympics committee to supply 10,400 trained security personnel for the Games. But 16 days before the opening ceremony, Home Secretary Theresa May announced that the government would have to bring in the extra troops, after G4S experienced recruitment problems.
Why were security issues spotted so late?
“The decision to bring in the military is as inescapable as it is depressing. But to take such a decision with only two weeks to go reflects badly on the Home Office and, given the importance of the Games, on the home secretary personally,” said a Guardian editorial. And why did G4S executives fail to tell the government about the potential problems earlier? “Given the importance of security in these Games, G4S should never have allowed this situation to develop, least of all so late in the day.”
Private firms shouldn’t handle Games security
Mary Dejevsky questioned the decision to use a private company for Olympic security in The Independent, and suggested the military should have been brought in at the very start: “Would you rather have your ID and your bag checked by someone selected, trained and disciplined to the exacting standards of the British military, or someone rushed through a mainly box-ticking exercise to make up the numbers and save a commercial contract?”
London 2012 on a knife edge
Quite apart from the security shambles, there are a host of problems with the potential to beset the Games, from transport meltdown to huge queues outside venues, wrote Matthew Norman in The Telegraph: “Any dream that this Olympiad, won in the boom times and held in a slump, would be flash, slick and a beacon of elegance to the world have disintegrated.”
Time to stop moaning and start celebrating
Security concerns over the Olympics are understandable, said a Times (£) editorial, but “the glee with which some have seized upon them is wholly inappropriate, and should be damned as the political opportunism it so clearly is.” There will be ample time to complain about the Games after they have finished: “Now is a time to concentrate on Faster, Higher and Stronger. Slower, Costlier and More Chaotic can wait.”
Watch Home Secretary Theresa May face questions in the Commons over London 2012 security.
