A Cock-up of Olympic Proportions

The Government announced today that the private security company "G4S" had failed to recruit sufficient staff to meet their obligations towards the provision of effective security at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Apparently they did not even start recruiting until January of this year. What a shambles.

Now the Government is proposing to fill the security gap by sending in the Army to the tune of 3,500 soldiers.

What was it the Conservative Party has been ramming down our throats for several decades now? Oh yes, I remember .. the only way to get things done properly and efficiently is to have them done by private enterprise.

The hackneyed argument has always been, Private Enterprise good, State Control bad. What we have seen in recent years is evidence that Private Enterprise can be both good or bad, and State Control can also be both good or bad. The banking fiascos of recent years knocks further nails into the coffin of the "Private Enterprise is best" philosophy.

Sgt. Kimberly Denise Munley

My congratulations to Sgt Kimberley Munley. She was the one who fired the first shot to bring down the crazed psychiatrist major who turned his gun on his own men at Fort Hood army base in Texas.

The phrase "Physician, heal thyself" comes to mind.

Fortunately, though incapacitated, Major Hasan was not killed. This means that someone (presumably some other psychiatrist?) might get some insight into this man's motives.

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Remembrance Day

There is a group of people called the anti-war coalition who oppose the expectation that we

should all be wearing red poppies this month. Their reasoning is that they symbolise support for our military campaign in Afghanistan. This is, of course, quite wrong. They symbolise our communal remembrance of all those who have fallen in military conflicts since the 1st World War.

Having said that, it has to be recognised that the anti-war coalition has a point, for the following reason: certain football teams are being required (even coerced) into wearing the Poppy "In support of our troops". There is a subtle difference between remembering the dead and supporting our troops. By all means support our troops if you want, but wearing the Poppy has nothing to do with it!