Surveillance cameras rarely solve crimes.

Surveillance cameras are a budget sinkhole that absorbs manpower for monitoring and review, often resulting in very few crimes solved and usually only unimportant ones at that. Recently a murder in Philadelphia was solved by revealing an exterminator passing by the murder scene both before and after the murder.

Now Philadelphia want to have merchants register all surveillance cameras so that their video feeds can be automatically checked by the police if a nearby incident is reported.

Falklands ... again!

Margaret Thatcher underestimated the desperation of the Junta's situation and the Argentinian economy and was caught unprepared for war. This time its not a Junta and its nowhere near so desperate an economy ... but its not just saber rattling.

This time the Argentinians know what they did wrong and they know the odds are with them. The distance to the UK did not get any shorter in the interim. The UK is again wrapped up in its own problems.

Those barren windswept islands won't be invaded tomorrow, but Argentina is doing more than just rattling sabers from time to time. Its going to be an economic and public relations campaign over the islands, but it will come to a second Argentinian invasion eventually.

Punching Above Our Weight ?

No. No such Foreign Office phrase is applicable at all. MI5 and MI6 have always felt they played the game longer and better than the better-funded Americans. No amount of Retro-Colonial desires are applicable. MI5 and MI6 will be happy to stand on their own without any foolish longings for the days of past glory. British intelligence seduced? Don't be absurd.