So, have I got this right:

The informed opinion is that the Olympics pose an increased security risk, and there has to be a layered response to any actual, or perceived threat. Where ever it comes from, be it a highjacked aircraft, or the traditional swarthy chap with a big rucksack riding around on London's Transport system. The pros and cons of any escalating response will have been war gamed many times, the collateral damage estimated,and the political briefings already written. Sounds sensible to me, although it is quietly understood that most of the advantages lie with the bombers. As one Irish terrorist opined 30 years ago....."yous have to be lucky all the time, we have to be lucky once"

That still holds true today


And on the other hand, what alternatives are being offered? Well, we have to give credit to IA for an excellent impression from Dads Army of Corporal Jones doing his famous headless chicken routine......"Don't panic....don't panic!"

I'm not convinced IA.

Perhaps someone could propose an alternative response, that offer something a tad more substantial in the defence of Mintballs et al?

It's one of the many reasons Heathrow is useless - it's in the wrong place because of prevailing wind direction - planes don't like cross wind when taking off or landing. There was a patch after 9/11 when all planes were diverted around London and had to approach Heathrow from the east. It was a nightmare.

Has that happened regularly, then?

Its a pity we have to put measure such as Ground to air missles on top of flats or fully armed Typhoon Fighters up over the capital, but it is far better that then wishing we had them after an incident. Hopefully they will not be needed and if they do need to take action against any aircraft they will have seconds to act and I suspect the decision has already been passed to the military to act if required.

I pose the question,

9/11 If US knew those planes where going to or thought they might have caused the death and destruction they did would they have shot them down ?

I think they would and think we would

I wonder how a Typhoon would square up against a small light aircrfat with no jet pipe, travelling slowly.

Not a declared Tory but very close to acting like one: [url=http://www.securityoracle.com/news/G4S-Appoints-John-Reid-As-Group-Consultant_14833.htmlEx Home Secretary Lord Reid appointed as Group Consultant to G4S[/url

The problem in 2001 is that the US authorities didn't know where the four jets were until they turned up on CNN / Fox News and given that the world had no other experience of hijacking other than that they always ended with a safe landing at an airport and then prolonged negotiations, sometimes successful, sometimes not, then I doubt that anyone would have given the order to shoot the flights down unless there was a definite proclamation that they were on a suicide mission.

Here's what will happen.

NOTHING.

A few un-named people will be arrested, then quietly released. Sky news will be getting carried away with non-existant terrorism stories.

David Cameron will tell the world that we're winning the war on terror.

Wouldn't need a Typhoon to take it down. I'm not sure what the slowest speed a Typhoon can do while staying airbourne if the aircraft needed to be 'intercepted'. I suppose if ground crews really think it is a terrorist in a small aircraft and they need to shoot it down then the damage it would cause on the ground would not be that massive. But then why use a light aircraft in the first place? Flying it into a crowded stadium would probably cause a few deaths but not a huge amount of damage in the grand scheme of things.

If there are terrorists hell-bent of flying planes into major sporting events then why choose the Olympic games with all the security measures surrounding it? The FA cup final or the Challenge Cup final would be much softer targets and would be just as devestating.

Probably because there'd be far fewer watching the FA or CC finals than the olympics

Just heard on 5Live that G4S are going to pay for the additional cost of the 3500 additional military personnel who will be pressed into service and that because of this they will make a loss of between £30 and $50 million on the contract. If i was a share holder I would be asking some serious questionsof the board of directors and senior management.

I am finding that seriously difficult to believe when you consider the uprate in charging they were allowed to factor in.

They may be hoping that no one looks too closely at the other contracts they've been gifted by the UK taxpayer

Being of a very sceptical nature I don't quite read (for instance) the BBC's report on the G4S statement [urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18837524[/url which states that the company will lose up to £50million of their contract - its a very fine and pedantic point but thats not the same as making an overall loss of £50million on your work.

Its clear that the Home Office are now saying that a large portion of the POTENTIAL earnings of G4S during the actual period of the Olympics would have been paid to cover wages for the 10400 staff and that as they won't now be supplying that number then they won't be receiving some of that money - a company man would therefore be justified in stating that they will lose £50m from the contract - see the difference - and that is all that the statement on the BBC News web site is saying (at the time of posting this message).

What's sad is that in many cases, the terrorists have already won; here, for instance, we actually have superficially sane, intelligent people, actually advocating that the State [ishould[/i shoot down a passenger jet full of innocent civilians, at an unknown toll of death and destruction at some random location, as this is somehow "better" than taking the risk the plane might be destined for an Olympic venue.

There are indeed many people in the States who would rather their government shot down an airliner than let it potentially crash into (say) the White House or the Pentagon. As if murdering hundreds or thousands of your own citizens is somehow a victory if you don't let the terrorists knock down a famous building. If you don't see why that's nuts then there is nothing I can say to you.

In answer to your question, I ask you to think carefully about it and answer again yourself. What caused most of the deaths on 9/11 was NOT the plane crashes but the totally unpredictable collapse of the buildings, and compounded by the ignorance of the majority of the casualties above the impacts of the existence of a secondary fire escape route.

But it has already been posited on here that a plane crashing into any given city area will only cause relatively localised damage. (This must be true, although the proponents overlook that this would not be a low speed impact and the casualties would be widespread and worse than is suggested). And it would (but for the collapses) have been true of 9/11. So please explain to me how you would justify shooting down the Twin Tower planes, when the anticipated death toll from hitting the Twin Towers would only be the same as the plane crashing anywhere else in New York?

Please explain to me why it would be better to shoot down a plane rather than take the chance of it crashing into the White House, or the Pentagon, or a skyscraper?

Mercifully, none of you are in charge. I am certain that none of our armed forces would under any circumstances shoot down a planeful of innocent civilians, murdering many more on the ground. There is a risk that not doing so would allow a target such as the Olympic village to be struck but the blood would be on the hands of the terrorists, and not our own government.

The other fact overlooked is that no aircraft could be hijacked like the 9/11 hijacks, simply because the terrorists would not have access to the cockpit, and because the cockpit crew are armed. I also believe that following 9/11 you would not nowadays get a planeful of passengers who would meekly await their fate. Those people probably expected to land somewhere remote, and be negotiated as hostages. Nowadays, people would certainly think, if they don't attack the hijackers, then they are dead anyway, so they would have nothing to lose. Indeed that was already demonstrated by the passengers on UA 93, who got word what had happened elsewhere.

That's the way I see it: conflating not receiving an extra £50m with losing £50m.

Tells us plenty of the company's culture I suppose

At the very least, as a gesture to all those extra servicemen who have now been inconvenienced through having leave cancelled, due to G4S's sheer and utter incompetence, the company should fund all-expenses paid holidays for them and their families, to a resort of their choice.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/14/private-sector-efficiency-deborah-orr?CMP=twt_guThe lie of private sector efficiency[/url

There was an interview with someone (the CEO?) of G4S on radio 4 this morning, he stated this contract was for 270ish million, but would cost them about 310ish.

Mind he also squirmed a lot when asked how they'd managed to bollox things up so comprehensively given they signed the deal close to 3 years ago.

There is a lot of conflicting information appearing in the press over G4S as can be seen in the history of this thread - in this report [urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/14/london-2012-olympic-security-g4s[/url their CEO re-states the position that his company may lose up to £50m on their contract because of penalties while David Cameron blusters in with a statement that companies who fail in their commitments will be persued for refunds and penalties, while seemingly unaware that earlier in the week the Independant reported that the G4S contract did not include penalty clauses but seemed to be structured in a supermarket-style procurement procedure where the Olympic organisers can pay-as-you-go from shelves full of trained security staff.

And now (in that first article) we learn that the CEO of G4S only found out 8 days ago that they weren't able to fulfil the clients requirements.

Its wearing a bit thin as an excuse isn't it ?

Every time a business fails in its basic requirement to provide a service to its customers the CEO pleads that he/she has only just found out yesterday and presumably the day before yesterday thought that they were running a simply wonderful company.

WTF does your average CEO do these days anyway, I know that if I fart in the office my company MD is downstairs with a can of air freshener and an invitation to a disciplinary hearing within minutes.

www.g4s.com/en/Who%20we%20are/Ou ... 0profiles/ www.g4s.com/en/Who%20we%20are/Ou ... 0profiles/ I fuçking hate non executive directors. You'd think that with all these accountants they'd have known about a "loss"

www.g4s.com/en/Who%20we%20are/Ou ... 0profiles/ www.g4s.com/en/Who%20we%20are/Ou ... 0profiles/ I fuçking hate non executive directors. You'd think that with all these accountants they'd have known about a "loss"

What's also worrying is they don't seem to be doing proper background checks on any of the staff who will be searching bags etc. A terrorist organisation could have it's members hired and let bombs etc into the stadiums.

That is appalling. I used to work a company that managed contracted out services that included penalty fines for not meeting deadlines for issues, down to even the speed at which small maintenance tasks e.g. changing light bulbs, were completed. To not have than in place at the start surely has to be a conscious decision agreed via consultation with G4S. I can't see how a fully trained and experienced group of lawyers would have overlooked this possibility on a contract worth £300m. This means that the government officials who agreed to this at the time must have been aware that this aspect of the contract may not be fulfilled. In which case you are talking willful negligence, a gross misconduct issue in any workplace.

If this report [urlhttp://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/cameron-says-g4s-will-be-penalised-for-its-failings-7942379.html[/url in the Indy is to be believed in its entirety then even David Cameron is not yet aware of the scope of the contract with G4S, either that or he is blustering again.

Why would you expect them to do something that requires time and manpower – and thus impinges on their profits?

Indeed, as has been touched on, it's just outrageous that government hasn't scrapped the red tape and allowed them to employ without any checks whatsoever, never mind 'proper' ones. After all, we know that it's exactly that sort of red tape that is the cause of unemployment and is just holding back business and the economy.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18856922Not just the army being brought in, police too[/url

This afternoon's statement by Theresa "and I am not making this up" May, should be interesting. An open goal for the opposition, especially as May apparently has shares in the company that is the major shareholder in G4S

Apologies in advance for linking to a [iDaily Mail[/i piece (from a Ben Goldacre tweet), but [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174034/London-2012-Olympics-10-room-1-shower-75-people-Inside-slum-camp-Olympic-cleaners.htmlcleaners at the Olympics are being housed in dreadful conditions[/url.

And the government/Locog is struggling to work out [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/3500-soldiers-set-to-bed-down-in-a-prison-warehouse-7945441.htmlwhere to house the extra soldiers too[/url.

Incidentally, even [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/9238712/Olympics-unlikely-to-boost-economy-says-Moodys.htmlMoody's is saying there will be little general economic benefit to the country from the Games, outside of the usual corporate suspects.[/url