Animals & National Security: I

[webofevil]

The government's emergency committee, which convenes at times of national crisis, is called COBRA. Not knowing what, if anything, this stood for, I assumed it was the usual kind of Tom Clancy nonsense people are prone to succumb to when the balloon goes up (“Strike force now at Threat Level Delta”, etc).

Brilliantly, however, the name has an infinitely more mundane origin: the committee always meets in “Cabinet Office Briefing Room A”.