The Territorial Support Group’s map for policing the Olympics is doing the rounds on Twitter (thanks to Nina Power for the alert). This is an area I know quite well – when I had a visiting post at Queen Mary a few years ago I cycled a lot around this area. I could see the site under construction from my flat’s window too.

The TSG is a controversial police unit involved in large-scale policing operations in London, and providing “anti-terrorism and domestic extremism capability”  – their official site is here. Disturbingly they trumpet that their officers can deploy the following ‘skills’

• Firearms
• Public Order Training
• Rapid entry
• Taser
• Plain clothes/Uniform tactics
• Providing tactical solutions and advice to borough and business group problems.

I know quite a bit has been written about paramilitary policing, but is there any literature examining the curious choice of name?