Fun With Oliver Letwin

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?