Be informed

Source: Holger.Ellgaard, Wikipedia

The Olympic debacle continues. Not only are there missiles ready to shoot down unauthorised aeroplanes over East London housing estates, but now army personnel are checking bags as people enter the Olympic village. G4S – a company to which the state has outsourced a lot of public sector work over the years – cannot meet its contractual obligations to supply 10,000 ‘guards’; though waits until 2 weeks before the event to tell anyone.

Its chief executive, Nick Buckles, went on the Today programme yesterday to answer some benign and straightforward questions from Justin Webb. Clearly, over the preceding 24 hours he had had some media training. The advice was – “tell your story and stick to it. Repeat it and then repeat it again; go for the sympathy thing, the company will take a big hit, maybe £50m.”

We wait to see if Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee – can get any more out of him next week when he appears before them.

The interview can be heard here.