Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/nb/nb4.htm

A potentially major panic over the Year 2000 issue is brewing in the UK Friday morning after late editions of the Daily Telegraph Thursday revealed details of a leaked government memo on the problem.

According to the London daily paper, a confidential memo from Donald Dewar, the Scottish Secretary to George Robertson, the British Defense Secretary, argued against proposed cuts in the British civilian reserve army, known as the Territorial Army.

Dewar is reported to have reasoned that the cuts in Scotland could cause problems in the aftermath of Jan. 1, 2000, since it "would severely hamper Scotland's ability to cope with a serious civil emergency."

In his memo, Dewar noted that, if the Year 2000 computer problem hits home, the troops may be called onto British streets to help local governments cope with problems such as lost power and telephone lines, as well as a lack of essential services.

All these problems, Dewar is reported to have noted, are possible scenarios caused by the Year 2000 problem.

The memo entered the public domain, it seems, when it was leaked by persons unknown to the Scottish National Party. In parliament, Conservative MPs criticized the Labour government for failing to admit that the Year 2000 issue poses a far more worrysome problem than ministers have previously admitted.

The memo reportedly notes that local authorities around the UK are now in the process of drawing up emergency plans to cope with the Year 2000 under the Armed Forces Military Aid to Civil Authorities Act.

Under this legislation, Newsbytes understands, a national emergency situation would see the British Army deployed on the streets of the UK to handle the situation.

-- Ben Davenport (bendaven@microsoft.com), November 06, 1998

Answers

"In parliament, Conservative MPs criticized the Labour government for failing to admit that the Year 2000 issue poses a far more worrysome problem than ministers have previously admitted. "

Oh goody..Y2K has officially become a political arguing point. Oh joy

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), November 06, 1998.

Don't get too excited, the British Czarina (Ms Buckett) is not really convinced there is a problem (she is where we all were in 1992). "action 2000" (who were responsible for the ill-fated bug-buster scheme) $50 M to train up about 24 COBOL programmers) are now monitoring a cross section of 15 named organisations to see how they're dealing with y2k. She wants "hard facts rather than speculation", of course she does not trust "self-styled industry gurus". She has never worked in IT, or anything else for that matter.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 09, 1998.