I’ve just returned from the morning lobby briefing, where the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was grilled on the unfolding G4S debacle. He rather surprised journalists by claiming ‘the story is a good one’ on the Olympics because all the venues have been delivered on time and the Government had thought to put contingency plans in place on this matter, which it can now use given G4S’ failure to recruit sufficient numbers of security staff.
‘There are going to be millions of additional visitors to London over the next few weeks and people will notice the difference, but we have plans to deal with those challenges and we have contingency plans for all of these things.’
The spokesman said the government had been monitoring the progression of G4S’ recruitment drive, and refused to speculate on whether additional numbers of troops might be required should there be a bigger shortfall than first envisaged.
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