Thats the way government works aint it – everyone keeping each others secrets or the whole house of cards will fall down.

What we need are competent journalists working for independent-minded media organisations willing to enquire and expose waste, humbug, incompetence and corruption. My nostalgia for the 70s increases…

May may be reluctant to attack G4S for reasons beyound the Olympics – because G4S are such a major government contractor – G4S are running the Work Programme, prisons, immigration detention centres, probation services etc. If May tells the truth, that they squeeze out profits for crap services, she throws into doubt great swathes of the government’s privatisation programme.

You could see a similar effect with A4E – even though A4E had clearly cheated the DWP, Chris Grayling was keen to defend the firm and attack whistleblowers, because their bad behaviour brought his programme into doubt : Privatisation makes the govt into a masochistic customer, happily accepting shoddy goods from G4S, A4E &c.

There could be another reason. Not starting the “blame game” means that no-one starts asking awkward questions: Dr Mark Button (University of Portsmouth) has a letter in today’s Guardin, in which he says:

“The vilification of G4S may well be deserved. However, as someone who has studied the security industry for a long time, I believe the decision to award the contract to one provider seems even more incompetent. The guarding industry is riven with high labour turnover, low commitment of staff, and long vetting and training periods for guards. It is not unusual for a student with no criminal record to take several months to be vetted because they cannot provide evidence of a period of employment (and sometimes might be rejected).

Guards not turning up for duty and switching to other jobs for a few pence more is common practice. Providing 10,000 guards was bound to be one of the greatest challenges ever in the UK security industry. Using one contractor was a huge risk. The guarding contract should have been broken up into multiple contracts, spreading the risk. Putting all their eggs in one basket was the greatest folly. Critics should look to who made this decision.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/17/g4s-fiasco-stark-warning?INTCMP=SRCH

So, why did they do it? Why one big contract? Who’s bright idea was that?

Surely the ultimate source of the problem was the panic decision – who took it? – that we “needed” these additional thousands of “guards” at relatively short notice.

John B has a good post on this in the meantime.

http://www.johnband.org/blog/2012/07/17/why-the-g4s-olympics-screw-up-proves-that-outsourcing-is-good/

A more cynical person could wonder how much G4S donate to the Tory party coffers

Wasn’t the broader G4S contract awarded before the last election?

G4S consultant @ £50k?

Former Labour Home Sec John Reid.

Lets not ignore the fact that, 3 months before G4S were awarded the Contract, Former Home Secretary John Reid joined Paul Condon (Former Commissioner of Metropolitan Police) on the Board of G4S, and during the bidding process, tendered at 25% less than any other bidder.

Jeremy Hunt has also been rather heavy handed in his utter lacck of criticism. God he makes me wanna puke he’s still kicking around smug as chuff!

Solomon Huges. “Privatisation makes the govt into a masochistic customer, happily accepting shoddy goods from G4S, A4E &c.”

Quite. For privatisation to really work you would require there to be a large number of small suppliers and the Government would have to be quite happy to get rid of any one of them as soon as they failed to deliver what was in the contract. In practice there are a small number of suppliers and the Government is very reluctant to call them out over failure to deliver (because it is difficult to find a replacement and because it means admitting that some private suppliers aren’t up to the job). Government is practically and emotionally dependent on the suppliers and not the other way round (which is waht is required for competitive pressures to work).

Solomon Hughes. “Privatisation makes the govt into a masochistic customer, happily accepting shoddy goods from G4S, A4E &c.”

Quite. For privatisation to really work you would require there to be a large number of small suppliers and the Government would have to be quite happy to get rid of any one of them as soon as they failed to deliver what was in the contract. In practice there are a small number of suppliers and the Government is very reluctant to call them out over failure to deliver (because it is difficult to find a replacement and because it means admitting that some private suppliers aren’t up to the job). Government is practically and emotionally dependent on the suppliers and not the other way round (which is waht is required for competitive pressures to work).

Classic case of fascism. Big business and senior politicians conspiring to fuck over the tax payer.

VICE have produced an eye opening documentary focusing on how the Olympics is affecting the general public and the different factors involved with the games that have an enormous effect.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/rul?e-britannia/the-vice-guide-to?-the-olympics-part-1