Armed foreign police may patrol London during 2012 Olympics

The Evening Standard reports:

The Olympic flame fiasco has ignited a row over foreign security services helping to police the 2012 Olympics, the Evening Standard can reveal.

As alarm grew over the Chinese guards who accompanied the torch through London it emerged Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has approved a plan to hand over some of London's Olympic security to visiting countries.

Although a final decision has yet to be made,it is understood police officers from abroad accompanying their own teams may be allowed to carry guns.

It has not emerged since the torch fiasco at all. The story was reported by the BBC in June of last year and I pointed you to it at the time.

Still the Standard does quote Norman Baker later in the story:

Norman Baker, the Lib-Dem frontbencher and UK president of the Tibet Society, told the Standard: "The streets of London must be policed by the police of London, not by Chinese security forces.

When it comes to Tibet, the people of Britain want a strong moral stand. But it seems the Government is prepared to kowtow to the Chinese at every turn."

Mr Baker, who has held talks with the Dalai Lama at his refuge in northern India, added: "Gordon Brown seems more interested in trade deals with China than the fate of Tibet."

Norman Baker holding talks with the Dalai Lama? I'd love to have been a fly on that wall. Perhaps the two outstanding figures of their time together in one room.