The G20 protesters: Anti Capitalists. Do they mean us?It seems that climate change and anti-capitalism are all the rage today. Bad news for capitalists! Yet there are grounds for agreement.
Of the weathers protesters, some groups targeted European Climate Exchange in Bishopsgate.
They said Carbon Trading Credits are a big con. A revenue raising exercise that is used as a figleaf for governments to carry emitting CO2 but pretend to be doing something about it.
That's a pretty fair assessment. We could probably agree on a lot of issues. Up to the point where you want us to sit in the dark and ban all aircraft that is.
“I’ve got 12 grandchildren, and I’m afraid for the world we left them,” said Felicity Whittaker, 80, as she headed toward the bank. She said she’d been attending demonstrations “all my life.”
Amazing resilience. If I'd been doing something for 60 years without success I probably would have given up.. But as an anger vent, why not. Banks are a pretty fair target.
Harry, who was dressed as the Grim Reaper who said it was the first time he had marched in 10 years. "I'm protesting for the small individuals in Britain who have been left with their pants down as the government bails out the banks for billions of dollars. Where's the money for the struggling baker, butcher, small marketing people and architectural companies?"
Too right Harry. Lots has been promised, little has been delivered.If commerce dies who will pay for the bailouts?Crowds were chanting "one solution revolution" and "climate, justice, peace".
Which I didn't really understand the meaning of. To random a collection of words that appear to have meaning but then don't. Like 'The Jason Bourne' dinner party game where guests do proper noun, spy sounding noun. "The Jesus Briefing" - "The Toby Memorandum" "One Solution revolution."
"Climate, justice, peace" just creates images of lying on a beach in Monaco.
So far the only protest that has really annoyed me was the cyclists. Very smugly peddling first into the City this morning, bell ringing and waving, and by virtue of being healthy and fit and drug free managed to get up before the students. They managed to get some good airtime on R5L.
"We want the streets to be made safe for cyclists to travel on and for there to be much fewer vehicles in London"
Now that's not just taking the biscuit, but the cup of Twinings ,scones, cakes, in fact the whole afternoon tea as well.
First, there is already the congestion charge.
Second, who would pay for all these extra cycle tracks and pedestrian/motor vehicle free routes? The cyclists with their zero road fund licence? Or the cars and trucks through fuel duty, road fund licence and the double tax of VAT? Fancy a compulsory £15 road licence to help maintain the roads and cycle lanes and parks ? Didn't think so..
As one middle aged lady protester just said on News 24. "I'm penned in, and need the loo. But i had to come today.. just to stand up and be counted"
A very British protest, and if it all kicks later off someone give one of the 'cycling for climate change' a whack.
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All that marching about, breathing hard! If only these people had stayed at home; their carbon footprint would be so much smaller.
Such a disparate grouping of protestors, they basically seem to be against modern life. Is their slogan (like the Priests protesting outside the cinema in Father Ted) "down with this sort of thing"?
OLYMPIC GAMES 2012
POTENTIAL SECURITY COSTS AND IMPLICATIONS
The economic gloom and confused politics of 2009 mean that the Government will be promoting the 2012 Olympic Games to an even greater extent. But there are key issues that are little discussed in public. One is the security arrangements and the probable real costs. Their will be a reluctance on the part of the Games organisers to say much about these questions. The shenanigans of the G20 Meeting are just an offering of canapés in comparison to the engorging feast of an Olympic Games.
What few people grasp is that in the modern Olympic Games there have been only a small minority where heavy security and military presence has been necessary. The Beijing Games of 2008 was one. Others were the Berlin Games of 1936 and the following Games in 1948 in London that drew on the lessons of its predecessor in that the substantial military involvement was necessary for the organisation and the running of the Games. The 1980 Moscow Games relied heavily on military personnel for the running and support facilities as well as political control.
In all of these the Olympic hosts had substantial military forces, other facilities, and powers of action that will not be available to London in 2012. The difference between the London of 1948 and London of 2012 is that the security challenges and their management are of a totally different order and complexity.
What Security Risks in 2012?
London, because of its central position in Britain’s Imperial history, and the epicentre of the UK modern government, financial, and media systems has a role unlike that of many Olympic hosts of the recent past. In recent years large scale migration from across the world has had the consequence that London has become host to all the world’s sorrows and conflicts. Groups from almost anywhere in the world who have enmities or hatreds are present in London, whether peaceful, involved in conflict abroad, or potentially beyond the law or violent in the UK. The application of the Human Rights legislation in the courts allows almost unrestricted opportunities for recruitment, indoctrination, training, planning, and logistics. It is unlikely that the total number and scope of their activities will be reduced by 2012. They are likely to increase given the spreading economic disruptions in all the world’s polities and economies. These events will spill more increasingly discontented and complicated elements into London, the South East, and other urban areas.
Policing has broken down in some parts of London, spawning not merely gangs and lethal feral youngsters, but the worse prospect of these becoming enmeshed with all the many bitter hatreds, disputes, and armed confrontations endemic throughout the world. It is not a powder keg; it is a large warehouse full of big nasty fireworks, all of which may go off in 2012. When Yob Culture becomes political then it is every man for himself. There are too many lessons in history.
So in the summer of 2012 it will not mean just a few more happy smiling policemen directing the traffic and telling the time with a crew of blazer clad volunteers running about with millboards trying to be useful, although some of these will be needed for media and publicity purposes; nor regular staff on overtime to cope with the extra numbers on public transport. It will mean an army of trained, expert, and effectively commanded people across the south east of England and at points elsewhere, rather more capable, better organised and co-ordinated than the present forces.
What Will The 2012 Security Demands Be?
• The entry points to the UK by air, sea, and land will need additional controls and safeguards with substantially more efficient communications, support and co-ordination facilities.
• Existing sensitive security, research, military and related locations will need augmented protection during and up to the period of the Games. We do not want one Liberation Front or another raiding certain research facilities.
• An outer screen of security forces (the M25 Net) will need to be in place to cover the approaches to London in the event of emergencies on a response basis. This will need its own communication system.
• Within London there will need to be high security response teams available to cover all sensitive locations, e.g. foreign embassies, on an area basis.
• The surface transport networks will require added staffing beyond the needs of ordinary passenger movement and assistance. This should cover stations and trains on a comprehensive basis.
• There is the security and monitoring within the Games venues, apart from the event control and management staff.
• Security and monitoring at the approaches, in the immediate vicinity of the venues, and at the road and transport links.
• The same two facilities at all the accommodation facilities for the athletes, the organisers, the support staff, and the VIP elements.
• Also, along the transport networks for these categories and for spectators and other associated groups.
• For those either taking part in the Games or who are closely involved with them on one basis or another, particular security and monitoring will need to be in place for groups or individuals who might be chosen as prime targets by any dissident or terrorist group.
How Much Does Security Cost?
It will depend how you do the costing, the assumptions you make, and what will be entailed in the deployment of large numbers of people operating on a basis of both established provision and special facilities. Inevitably, to keep the apparent costs down it is likely that this will be hidden and that will kept off the balance sheet to reduce the admitted cost. The reality will be much greater.
Assuming that the UK government, unlike in 1948, will not have the option of using forced labour in the shape of conscripted troops, and assuming that it will not seek to use cheap labour from the Balkans and East Europe as the basis for its internal security, then who might be available from within the UK labour force? At present we do not have the numbers, the structure, the support organisation, the computer systems and the communications systems, to allow us to calculate the figures.
It is not a question of thinking of a figure of people, assuming an average wage, and then booking a figure for the month at that price, hiving off other costs as within the existing structures, or covered by some sort of “legacy”. Nor should there be any off balance sheet contrivances through shifting loans or loading onto other accounts, for example, local council finances rolled into the Games provision. Moreover for each person engaged in the security the real cost will include all the backup, support and management systems necessary to sustain a comprehensive coverage.
What does this mean?
For the personnel involved the work will begin, not days or weeks, but months in advance in terms of the deployment, training, and preparation for the Games. They will all have to know exactly what they are doing, why, how the operation is being managed, where they will be, and when they will be there. If they do not then the consequences could be chaotic with the risks attached. Mayor Boris Johnson’s vision of 10,000 volunteer policemen is inadequate and dangerously over confident. Such a group may ornament the approaches to events, and dress the photo-opportunities for the politicians and celebrities, but who will they be, where from, and now trained?
The implications for this are serious. The military will need to be withdrawn from previous duties and redeployed from the Autumn of 2011. The police forces will need to be progressively released from other duties from early in 2012. The security forces inputs and detachment from earlier tasks; necessarily will be from before that time, and increasing through 2012 until the end of the Games. Other groups and staff taken from existing services will be transferring their work again from early 2012 in increasing numbers. Even if it is assumed that many of the staff on the ground will be only temporary, a substantial proportion will need to be in place and in training rather before that time. If assistance is being given by other countries, for example the French CRS, this will take some time. The CRS certainly would have to made aware of British sensitivities in the handling of demonstrations.
There are other implications. The number available from the British military will be far smaller than the military capability for the Beijing Olympics, even if the whole of the British Armed Forces were to be deployed. For the police to approach the numbers deployed in Beijing might entail effectively the withdrawal of the police services from large areas of the United Kingdom for several months. Either there will have to be significant recruitment of extra police from this year onwards or the government will have to face other options for policing communities beyond the M25.
A back of the envelope figure for the real numbers for security of 250,000 people at a typical real head cost of £25,000 each, yields a total in the order of £7.5 billion. This does not include hardware costs, such as IT, software development, transport facilities, and kit. The figures for government and local authority IT development in recent years would suggest more billions, but this is only speculation. If a table is devised to set on the one hand the numbers to be employed against the real cost of each then the running costs for personnel and management, less hardware, could escalate well beyond £15 billion.
In short, the real total security bill may well exceed all other costs.
What is necessary now is a clear statement of the intentions of the Government and the implications for the budgets of central and local government of the security plans. With this should be clear statements concerning the impact on local and other services, not just during the month of the Games, but during the whole period when staff and others will be occupied with them as either their sole or first priority.
I cycle round London and the "cycle lanes" are pants. basically they paint a line where there's a wide road. When the road isn't wide they stop painting.
It's pointless, the whole exercise is just to say we have x miles of cycle lanes when nothing has really happened (apart from someone with a cushy line painting contract.)
Was listening to PM on the way home, interviewing various protesters. The very last one to come on said;
"I'm just here for the violence"
Brilliant! Presumably he'll be off to Wembley straight after to beat up some Ukrainians.
Remember the Air Passenger Tax? The revenue was supposed to go to "Green" solutions. Did it F..
Mama, mama, we're all suspects now...
SW: It was more of a mini festival for many. Like Glastonbury. Some just wanted to fight.. some to share.
Colleagues at RBS said they were home by 6pm, earlier than usual, so they enjoyed it too.
Demetrius. Very interesting. We shall see when plans are announced.
But stewards are 10 a penny and easy to recruit. An induction, H+S video and a high viz vest and one WT between three.
AntiCitizenOne.
I am not anti cycling or cyclists. The problem you mention is replicated around the country and is just a very visible manifestation of spin. Cycle lanes are a joke.
What annoyed was people calling for lots to be done,to benefit them, at the expense of others, who they despise.
It all sounded a bit New Labour to me.
At least the Eco warriors believe they are saving everyone, not just themselves.
John: Yet I've seen more broken street architecture on any Saturday night in Cardiff or Manchester or even Walton-On-Thames.
Remarkably unviolent. The newsmen were very disappointed, but ran the 'violence' story anyway. Look at Letters from a Tory blog today.
WW: And Brown is still using it. The upcoming budget is going to be so full of green taxes it should be delivered in compost.
Elby: How did all the media avoid prosecution for photographing a policeman or a government building? Its an offence now, under the pointless, unenforceable,but might come in handy to charge someone if we haven't found anything else, act 2009{desperate, desperate people}
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