"Securing Your World" is G4S's maxim. But it looks like the world's largest security firm has failed to secure its own world, at least as far as London 2012 is concerned.

Just fifteen days before the start of the Olympic Games, it has had to admit that it cannot supply all of the 10,000 security staff to Olympic organiser Locog it is contracted to.

As a result, 3,500 soldiers will stand in for G4S, at a time when the British Army is undergoing large-scale redundancies.