Security for the Olympics has not been compromised by the failure of G4S to recruit enough security staff, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe has said.
It emerged last Wednesday that 3,500 troops were being drafted in to plug gaps in staff provision.
“We will work very hard, we will remedy this – security will not be compromised,” he told BBC Radio 5 live.
Meanwhile, Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman told Sky News the government had failed to properly monitor G4S.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper also said there had “been fantastic work delivering the venues and so on but it’s not just about G4S letting the country down – why on earth did the Home Office not know what was happening?”
BBC’s political correspondent Robin Brant said Labour is hoping Home Secretary Theresa May will go to Parliament on Monday to update MPs.
The party thinks there are “serious questions” for Mrs May over the extent to which the Home Office had oversight over the contract, our correspondent said.
G4S has said it stands to lose up to £50m on the contract, worth a total of about £280m, after being unable to provide the 10,000 staff it had been contracted to deliver.
- BBC News
10 Comments
Wow, that’s some overkill.
This is London, where it’s just another “rat with wings”.
Ah yes, Red Ken. Don’t let him near any of that shooty equipment anytime around the time they release the doves. He’s probably already complaining about them shitting all over Nelson’s Column.
It looks as if the dove in the image has been shot down in flames.
Y@4 Yes, that was the way I first saw it too …
isn’t that Boris Johnson, not Red Ken?
DEM, you should add a pane on the poor wretches who are having anti-aircraft missiles (or whatever type of missiles they are) positioned on their rooftop. I mean, if any meanies were to attack, they’re only apartment-dwelling plebs, eh? Expendable!
They’ve been very careful not to have any photographs of anti-air stuff on top of residential blocks ,though I almost included one with a dog walker in front of missiles which are in their turn in front of some pretty posh Heath real estate, so it’s not just us plebs doing our bit! They’re going up in “gated communities” too (probably because they wouldn’t be safe from local vandals anywhere else).
Yes that is the one and only Boris (of whiff waff is coming home fame) … but London Mayors and their hostility to the humble pigeon are universal.
In fairness Helen I don’t think they are anticipating attack from enemies who can take out anti-aircraft defences.
That would be quite some attack, rather like a war.
The ‘rats with wings’ quip is a Red Ken coinage, taken up in its turn by Boris.
The biggest trouble with putting anti-aircraft guns on top of London towerblocks is getting the damn things off the pirate radio operators after the Olympics is over.