The_Gza

The place struggled to cope with 300,000 at the first Hogmany event and is now restricted to 150,000 tickets. And that's when the city is quiet.

Add in a busy tourist season, another million people potentially without any accomodation - some of whom have already stated their aim is to cause maximum distruption whilst the summit is on - and we have a disaster in the making.

And if Bob thinks I'm going to open my garage to accomodate some crusties, he can **** off!

Think I'll be mostly catching some rays in the back garden that week...

Thoughts?

SiPie

Agreed....

The amount of work going on where I work preparing for this is unbelievable......Disaster Recovery etc.....

10,000 extra police being called in

Freak

Id be more worried about the G8 being bombed personally, than a load of crusty hippies

imlach

Interesting idea, but wanting 1M people to turn up in Edinburgh, is like asking 17M to turn up in London. The infrastructure cannot cope very well - we only have 1 A&E dept in Edinburgh!!! Go figure. There is a high risk of the city not coping IMHO.

OllyK

Usual story, bunch of do-gooders want to make a point without thinking through the effects of their actions.

PG

The work going on at Gleneagles just now is
2x helipads for assualt helicopters and 2x pads for Harriers.
They are building a Fire station within the compound too.(yet they are busy trying to justify closing others to save money ) The Gov have made it clear that all initial crews turning out to any incident are fully expendable!! Which is nice to know .....still, there's overtime to be had
£100m spent so these ***** can have a meeting at a luxury golf course hotel

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Whats more worrying about the G8 period (for me anyway) is that over the years, the average number of police fatalities directly due to G8 is 4 dead cops......

Geldof et all encouraging 1M extra "visitors" is downright irresponsible.....

The_Gza

Not great is it I hear there are reinforcements arriving from all across the UK. So not only are the 'protestors' going to **** up Edinburgh and the surrounding regions, but there'll be a far lighter police cover across the other areas in the event of anything major happening.

On a lighter note, I did have to smile at the idea of Edinburghers throwing open their doors to the nations great unwashed - "You'll have had your tea then?"

GM

Can't help but think that if these people really wanted to do something about global poverty they should stay home and give the money they've saved by not coming to Edinburgh to Oxfam or someone. Or am I being too sensible....

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Apparently the bickering over who's getting the best suites at Gleneagles has started already......

bazzaa

NO POSTS SHOULD BE PLACED ON SCOOBYNET WHILE THE G8 PERIOD IS ON OR THE ANARCHISTS WILL TRACK US DOWN AND SMASH OUR SCOOBS-- THATS THE MENTALITY OF THE RETARDED ******, I live in edinburgh and have a big house and if bob geldoff wants me to put any off them up for the week i'll smash their fuc king trouble making brains in while they sleep , screw their wallets and donate it to OXFAM

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

harsh but fair

The_Gza

ROFL

imlach

Few beers tonight mate?

Unless you live within 100m of the city centre or near a finance office, I wouldn't be worrying too much.

STi-Frenchie

When they held the last summit in Evian, France quite close to where I am (but on the other side of Lake Geneva), the security presence was overwhelming. There was some aggravation for a couple of nights and a fair number of shops trashed and looted in Geneva. They never got anywhere near Evian itself due to the very large numbers of the French equivalent of SWAT teams, armoured personnel carriers etc. and Swiss police reinforced with squads of German police.

I would imagine the forces of law and order in the UK will have a signficant backup from the military and I should think all those years spent in Northern Ireland will give them all the experience they need to deal with the more extreme demonstrators who show up.

The_Gza

Looks like the first march has passed off without too many problems - funny feeling we haven't seen the last of 'em though

imlach

Remember, today was not expected to be the problematic march.

Monday is the anti-globalisation march, which is always the one to attract the trouble....followed by the "Walk to G8" on Wednesday coinciding with the concert at Murrayfield Stadium.

Contrary to what SkyNews & the BBC were saying today, it is Wednesday's protest that Geldof wanted 1m people to attend, and NOT the Make Poverty History march today.....both the BBC and SkyNews were claiming that 250,000 people were well down on the 1m people Geldof had wanted....err, he wants 1m to descend on Edinburgh from the various G8 concerts by Wednesday (although I still think 1m people in Edinburgh is a bad idea, and suspect it won't happen anyway).

Media at it's best as ever

SkyNews were calling Edinburgh's main thoroughfare "Princes Square" from about 10am until midday - presumably somebody corrected them.

The_Gza

Only too aware of that unfortunately - was only making the point that the first march with upwards of 200,000 people passed off without much trouble. From reading some of the other forums it looks like - as you say - Monday onwards the **** may begin to hit the fan. There's already some significant planning going on for disruption around Gleneagles.

Unfortunately I fear that the tabloids will spin the whole weeks events beyond all semblance of reality - don't believe the hype!

I'll be an interested spectator - my diary has already been updated to cover working from home Wed-Fri next week

imlach

So, for Edinburgh, Monday is the Carnival for Full Enjoyment where which is the one for the anarchists. Groups like the Wombles are planning to target McDonalds, financial institutions etc, but apparently they don't want to get nicked on Monday, as Wednesday is the BIG one apparently.

Current plan seems to be for protestors to setup roadblocks around Edinburgh and all routes to Gleneagles. Tactics allegedly include human roadblocks, slow moving convoys, bicycle roadblocks, and even burning their own cars & HGVs on motorways/A-roads to block summit traffic.

Better cycle to work on Wednesday then eh!

The_Gza

Or not as the case may be