LONDON VAUXHALL DEALERS

Hello, and welcome to today’s Olympics live blog. There are eight days to go until the Games begin, and the sun is shining.

Here’s what’s coming up today:

• The Olympic torch roams the Kent coastline, travelling from Dover to Deal, Sandwich and Margate, before heading inland to Canterbury, and then hitting Faversham and Maidstone. In Margate artist Tracey Emin will carry the flame. Send your pictures to paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or tweet me @paultowen.

• Britain’s men’s basketball team will play a friendly against the USA in Manchester tonight.

• Ed Miliband wants G4S to be barred from taking on any more government contracts until its competence has been reviewed in the wake of the Olympic security scandal. The Labour leader will make a speech on the subject this morning. Meanwhile G4S came under further pressure after MPs questioned the "astonishing" rise in the price of the contract to provide Olympic venue guards and insisted the recent humiliating debacle over numbers was predictable.

And here’s today’s news so far:

• Thousands of rail commuters heading for London Bridge station faced delays today due to signalling problems, the London Evening Standard reported. This is the third day running of problems and delays on the London transport system. London Bridge is expected to be a particular pinch point for commuters during the Games, and Transport for London is advising them to avoid the station altogether for the duration of the Olympics.

• Gary Neville says he understands Team GB manager Stuart Pearce’s decision to leave David Beckham out of his Olympic squad. Neville, a close friend of Beckham’s, said the former England captain would not have wanted to have been chosen for anything other than football reasons. "There will be people who argue that he does deserve a position in the GB team for helping to bring the Games here. But I think David wanted to be selected on his own merits, for his talent, skill and ability. I spoke to him and he's disappointed. He wanted to be part of it … This would have been a great occasion for him. So I'm disappointed for him as a friend, but professionally I can understand that there are difficult decisions to be made."

• David Cameron has condemned a planned strike by border staff. The prime minister said he hoped the strike would not go ahead but insisted the Olympics would be safe and secure regardless. Speaking at a press conference in Kabul, he said: "I do not believe it will be right, I do not believe it will be justified." Thousands of staff at the Home Office, including airport immigration workers, have voted to go on strike over jobs, pay and other issues, raising the threat of industrial action hitting the Games.

• Japan's world champion women's football team has taken exception to flying economy while their male counterparts sat in business class on a flight to Europe for the Olympics. The women's team was assigned seats in premium economy for the 13-hour flight to Paris while the nation's under-23 men's team was up front on the same flight. Homare Sawa, the 2011 FIFA women's world player of the year said, "it should have been the other way around”. The Japan Football Association said the men fly business class to the Olympics in consideration of their status as professionals. The association upgraded the women's team from standard to premium economy in recognition of their status as gold medal contenders, it said. Tactful.

• Russian tennis player Nadia Petrova is aiming for an Olympic medal in London but insists she will not be devastated if she failed to win one. Russia has a successful Olympic history, Elena Dementieva, Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva won the gold, silver and bronze medal in singles respectively at the 2008 Beijing Games. "The Russian mentality is if you are going to the Olympics you have got to be winning medals and failure is not acceptable," Petrova told Reuters.

• The health and life chances of children in the six London boroughs hosting the Olympics deteriorate significantly by the time they reach their teens, according to an NHS assessment setting a baseline for whether there is a lasting legacy for those living on the Games' doorstep.

• Some Olympic and Paralympic teams are not bringing any doctors to treat their athletes should anything go wrong during the Games. Doctors from 141 nations out of a possible 203 have registered to practice in the UK during the competition, figures from the General Medical Council suggest. The GMC, which oversees all doctor registrations, said that 849 foreign doctors had applied for temporary registrations, and it was processing a further 29 applications. The French team has registered 58 doctors, the highest number for any country, to support their 333 athletes. Eighteen doctors will be supporting Team GB's 542 sports men and women.

• The Associated Press has a slightly bizarre story seemingly designed to panic tourists arriving in London. “The Olympics crush has begun in London and so has the scramble for cold, hard cash in the pricey British capital. Lines are getting longer at ATMs, visitors are in sticker shock over British prices and some befuddled tourists are wondering what currency to use. Stores in the Olympic Park only accept certain credit cards and a top British financial authority is even recommending that tourists make sure to bring British pounds with them.” For the avoidance of doubt, the currency to use is pounds sterling, and, yes, it's a good idea to bring some with you. But as regular readers of this blog will know, Visa is indeed the only card you can use at the Olympic venues, something which may well lead to problems for many spectators.

All this and more right here throughout the day.