Who saw the bumbling buffoon yesterday, gasping for air like a goldfish and resembling a rabbit caught in headlights? After the Buckles performance, and all the recent revelations about G4S failings, it’s not hard to understand why people are saying the ‘S’ in the company name stands for shambolic, or worse!
The seemingly never-ending London 2012 G4S debacle has dealt an “Olympic-sized blow” to the company’s global reputation. They may have recovered from this kind of setback before but what about this one? Could this be the final nail in the coffin of the G4S bid to take over policing functions in the UK? The final nail that so many, including me, are trying to hammer home.
Finally, but mostly belatedly, more people are now asking the important questions like; are G4S capable of providing policing services, or running our prisons? Indeed, after all this G4Shambles guff, is there anyone left who truly believes outsourcing of public services, especially public security ones, to a commercial company actually works?
In Taxi for Mr Buckles it was reported how “MPs savaged G4S boss” over the Olympics chaos. I have to agree with the comment, after watching a fair part of the HASC proceedings; “He came across as someone who couldn’t organise a tea party at Twinings, or a pig-out in a pie shop”…(Read more)
It was horrible, painful, almost bestial. I have never seen anyone get such a monstering at a select committee. If Nick Buckles weren’t a multimillionaire who got rich by paying peanuts to people who can’t get any other work, you might begin to feel sorry for him…(Simon Hoggart)
Immediately before yesterday’s Home Affairs Select Committee, G4S shares had already fallen another 2% to six month low. With analysts estimating further fallout (see here) the security group is likely to suffer even more than just Buckle’s embarrassment at the HASC beasting! But, as the government always suggests when people call for regulation of banksters, perhaps the G4S share holders will actually be the ones to call a halt to policing privatisation? I doubt it, after all, the contracts will be worth millions nationally and cash is king.
You would think that G4S management would have expected a kicking yesterday, despite Buckles looking like a hurt kid who has been chastised for an ‘innocent’ juvenile mistake. But perhaps that was the plan, act all hurt and dejected about trying to do your best. Play on the sympathy vote, in short do a ‘Mr Bean‘ then, in all probability, you can still claim your considerable payout, despite the piss poor performance!
But just in case any one is shedding a tear for the plight of poor little Buckles… People at his level are paid massive salaries because they are supposed to have the skills, experience and ability to manage such tasks. If they can’t, get rid of them!
But, as Polly Toynbee recently pointed out in The Guardian, despite “confidentiality clauses and fiendish complexity in contracts for public services” any company also faces a “moral hazard on a grand scale” when bidding for public services. The problem here is that, in general, morality is in short supply in society these days, let alone in business where it can be almost non-existent.
One thing is for sure, the G4S shambles and Buckles’ subsequent equity card performance couldn’t have come at a better time. It all serves to galvanise the fact – policing should not be a process up for sale. Especially to a bidder likely to make an utter bollocks of it all, our society deserves and should demand better!
Related articles
- Nick Buckles tells MPs G4S will claim its multi-million management fee despite Olympics ‘shambles’ (telegraph.co.uk)
- Mr Buckles lived up to his name…he buckled (dailymail.co.uk)
- A ‘humiliating shambles’, but G4S will take full Olympic fee (theweek.co.uk)
- I’m sorry over Olympic security debacle, says G4S boss Nick Buckles (independent.co.uk)
- Taxi for Mr Buckles: MPs savage G4S boss over Olympics chaos | Simon Hoggart (guardian.co.uk)
- ‘Humiliated’ G4S to claim millions (standard.co.uk)
Dave's Bankside Babble 
Wise words my friend, however both you and I know that those that make the decisions do not live in the same (real) world as you and I, this will be old news after a few quaffs of champers and a good old brown envelope has been passed between the toffs and it will be back in the brown mire for PC Plod and Joe and Jane Public. Thankfully at this time when it is needed we still have a police force and a military that are capable of stepping in where Buckle has failed, but what if this was next year after the redundancies to the military kick in?
God save our Great Britain not just from terrorism but from those privelaged few that don’t have a clue. Slainte.
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Unfortunately i fear the only outcome of this is that Serco, Reliance, Geo Amey or one of the other companies will benefit. I can’t see this lot of Tory toffs changing their ethos over a debacle like this.
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