Anthony Barnett (London, OK): "You and I will never face the challenge of making split second decisions in life and death policing operations," Jacqui Smith argues in defence of Ian Blair, the soon-to-resign head of London's police. She says that the job of "responsible politicians" is to place what happened in its "proper context". Quite, I agree. But the context is no longer about whether Blair should resign because of what happened in those "split seconds". Quite a few things went dreadfully wrong. The Met was asked to account for its systems, under the rubric of health and safety which is unfortunate, but not the point. Blair had the chance to agree that the Met's systems were not adequate then to the emergency, plead mitigating circumstances, give evidence of the improvements put in place to try and ensure nothing like the killing of Menendez should happen again. There may have been a small fine, no lawyers fees and a sense of police accountability. Instead - and this is the key point - Blair decided, with all the time in the world and against advice, to put his organisation up before a jury and argue that it was blameless. This is the kind of decision chief executives have to take and if they get it wrong they have to resign. I made this point in my original post and I am very sorry that the story has shifted onto his responsibility for the event itself, where he has a case, rather than to his decision to fight any admission of systemic culpability. That was a career ending mistake. It really matters because it is part and parcel of the 'Political Class' (see Peter Oborne's book) treating itself as being above the law. Now that the London Assembly Police committee have voted that he should resign, it is intolerable for him to defy them. The police must accept they are accountable.
Join the facebook group here: Sir Ian Blair must go.
