I’ve spent a significant chunk of my career saying more-or-less these words to clients.
“Almost certainly” because trying to fix deep structural problems using tech just opens a new front in the existing turf wars within any organization.
My guess is Starmer has found a side he’d like to back in a turf war. Politicians gonna politic.
Digging through my files of audio books and radio plays over the weekend I re-discovered the radio episodes of Absolute Power from ~20 years ago.
Sometimes a bit topical, but all you’d have to do in order to bring it up to date is change a few names.
Aa far as I remember In the Red, In the Balance, In the Chair, and In the End were good too.
BBC News - Man arrested after car crashes into Downing Street gates
“Earlier this month, masked trans activists placed bottles of urine outside the EHRC offices in Westminster, which reportedly led to police erecting a cordon and carrying out a controlled explosion.”
That is not how to deal with bottles of piss. But you do you Met. You do you.
Explosive urine? So that’s why they don’t want us in restrooms!
That was the same year the IRA killed people with a car bomb set to detonate right outside the main entrance to Harrod’s at the time it opened on the Saturday before Christmas that year. (Amazing they didn’t kill more people, considering.) And then later that same day, they called in ANOTHER bomb threat, which wasn’t publicized because authorities were worried it would cause panic. I know because I was at one of the sites (having previously arranged to meet a friend at the entrance to Harrod’s when it opened that morning…it was a memorable day). The technique at the time was to create identical bombs: only one was live, but trained specialists would have to take each one apart to determine that, and there would be one more bomb than number of bomb units. They would be placed, the calls would come in, and the bomb squads had to hope they reacted quickly enough and in the right order to find the live one in time. I was at a performance of Handel’s Messiah at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, so obviously it was a high value target that evening. We had one of the dummies. They let us back in the building and the concert continued as if nothing had happened after they made that determination.
So yeah, I totally believe they would have had plans like this.
Oh wow! That must have been scary… 
I don’t doubt that it was a plan… I know that there was some serious support coming from the Irish American community for the IRA during these years as well. As far as I know, though, I don’t think any bombings were carried out here in the US (correct me if I’m wrong, of course).
I do find it interesting that this story comes out just after Sinn Fein’s recent electoral victory…
I have to say, I do always wonder about the timing of such things, especially given all Harry has accused the Firm of doing with regards to how they used the media to their advantage…
Your recall is slightly off, the bomb was at a side entrance. I remember because my sister was amongst those being turned away from the main entrance when the bomb went off.
The file was only uploaded to the FBI site on Monday.
Only this wasn’t the IRA, just some guy who claimed his daughter was killed making threats.
Police claims about who or what is the IRA need to be taken with large grains of salt. See for example the arrests yesterday for the attempted murder of John Caldwell.
Who could have predicted it?
