From The Daily Mail:
A senior Cabinet minister has been caught throwing away sensitive papers in park bins around Westminster.
In a clear security breach Oliver Letwin, David Cameron’s policy adviser, was spotted on five separate occasions disposing of correspondence about national security and terrorism in a public park. Some of the documents he threw away revealed private details of his constituents.
Exhibit One:
Spies have been known to use dead drops, using various techniques to hide items (such as money, secrets or instructions) and to signal that the drop has been made.
The system involves using signals and locations which have been agreed upon in advance. These signals and locations must be common everyday things to which most people would not give a second glance. The signal may or may not be located close to the dead drop itself.
The location of the dead drop could be a loose brick in a wall, a library book, a hole in a tree, or under a boulder etc. It should be something common and from which the items can be picked up without the operatives being seen by a member of the public or the security forces who may be watching.
Exhibit Two (h/t Woman On A Raft)
The government says it will make £250m available to help English councils keep or restore weekly bin collections... Conservative Chairman of the Local Government Association, Sir Merrick Cockell, welcomed the news.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Any bid has to demonstrate the potential to increase recycling rates, which is one of the reasons a lot of councils went to every two weeks, and to provide other environmental benefits - reducing fly tipping, litter and all that side of good environmental waste collection. So, there's not one side to these bids."
On a lighter note: "... Labour's Caroline Flint said the money was effectively a bribe to councils to 'save Eric Pickles' face'". Crikey, if it costs £250 million to save the man's face alone, how many billions will it cost to save the rest of him?
Going on the dry
36 minutes ago
12 comments:
See, this is why we need weekly bin collections. Told you it would lead to householders dumping their extra rubbish in public bins.
WOAR, inspired! Do you have a link to such an article, I can bung it in as a second possible explanation.
It was only at the end of last month that Eric Pickles tried to force it through, including giving councils extra bribes to do the job they've already been paid for.
Caroline Spelman and DEFRA blocked it. Heck of a row in Cabinet. I still don't really understand it.
http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16011214
WOAR, I have updated :-)
Sir Merrick Cockell
I'm having that name for a light operetta. It is just begging for a tall fellow with with a beaky nose, a magnificent mane of white hair and braid on his jacket, who spends most of his life correcting people "Cock-ELL, not Cock-REL" but is frustrated by a universe determined to get his name wrong from his Cash's Woven Name Tapes to his memorial plaque in the church, which is doomed to have a engraving of a chicken on it.
WOAR, he could get married to The Merry Widow and spend the final act explaining that he is "Merrick Cockell" not "Merry Cockell" and that further, his wife's first name is not "Mary", despite indeed being merry, further that she is no longer a widow as she has remarried.
She in turn can foul it all up right at the end, once he has stormed off stage, by introducing herself as "Mary Cockerel".
The lyrics to the show stopper practically write themselves:
"If you marry Merrick, Mary,
you'll be Mary Cockell,
but don't go pulling out your hair
if they call you Merry Cockerel"
Or something.
LBC had 5 possible Letwin explanations.
1. He's mentally ill.
2. He is a spy
3. He is trying to relieve stress by dumping government material, clearing his desk, etc.
4. Its a planted story to remove Fox from the front pages
5. He is so arrogant he doesn't give a sh*t.
So lets see.
1.Unlikely, but not impossible. We haven't enough data to know. Its not as if he's emptying the contents of shredders from his pockets into the bin. Or eating the letters or something really mental.
2. Not much of a spy. If he's allowed to take official secret correspondence out of the office, without any checks or comebacks he could just post it to his control. Or hand it to him. Leaving material in a bin about to be empted is a bad move unless the bin collector is the contact.
And the letters were obviously not even remotely sensitive or the Mirror would have made much of a serious story from them.
3.Possible. Not very likely though. Far more satisfying to tear it up into confetti and bin it.
4. This got the most votes from listeners and is the most obviously false. The Mirror broke the story. They chose when to release it, not Letwin. They have already sat on it for days. And the sequence of tip-off events goes back before the Fox scandal broke. The Mirror is aware of the correspondence contents and knows there is nothing much there. Letwin would have to be pretty clever to have known and planned it all in advance.
5. yes..that's the most likely.
Bubble wrapped politio has never had to deal with stupid data protection laws that mean an application for car insurance has the same security attached to it as the Trident missile codes.
BQ, excellent summary, but categories 1, 3 and 5 seem to overlap.
Perhaps the bubble wrapping is driving him round the bend, and to relieve this tension, he gets his own back by smuggling this stuff out and dumping it in public parks (see also: wealthy people who shoplift for kicks).
WOAR, will the hero of your light operetta also have to explain that his name isn't "Cockle" either?
I was going to run one on the prat and then decided he was way too pratty to take column space.
Yes, but the working-clarrss characters will carry on calling him Mr Cockle no matter how many times he corrects them. Can I do you now, Mr Sir Cockle Sir?
Why is he not being prosecuted for disposing of industrial/commercial waste in a public litter bin?
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