Oct 2008 – Page 2 – Phil Taylor

Boris and the Met

I have been holidaying for a few days with the in-laws on the Redneck Riviera hence the continuing paucity of postings on the blog.

Rather sadly I am currently listening to the webcast of the Mayor’s first appearance as MPA chairman here in my board shorts by the beach. While I have been away the Met seems to have been the biggest story in London whether it was Sir Ian Blair’s resignation or Met BPA trying to undermine it with its counter-productive efforts to dissuade a wide range of people from joining the Met.

Non-Tory members of the MPA and left leaning blogs such as Tory Troll have been decrying Sir Ian Blair’s resignation, or at least the manner of it, and Boris’s decision to launch an investigation into racism in the Met in an attempt to head off the ridiculous Metropolitan Black Police Association’s attempt to spread unrest in the Met.

LibDem Assembly Member and member of the MPA Dee Doocey stands out as being particularly silly. Although she wanted Blair to go and voted against him in the MPA’s vote of confidence in him some months ago she said today:

I do not have a problem with the outcome, I believe he should have gone a long time ago, but it was the manner in which it was done. If you do not consult the MPA on a matter as important as this, then what happens next time?

The impotent and unrepresentative MPA cost us £3 million last year. The Mayor has demonstrated that his million vote mandate trumps the quango-state and, believe me, London will end up with a police force that is accountable to the Mayor before too long and not one that is effectively accountable to no-one unless you count a constitutional mess of Home Secretary, expensive quango, the mayor, etc.

In Ealing I have come across many fine black officers and I can’t see that the activities of the Met BPA are doing anything to enhance their status and advancement.

Echoes of Boris?

I couldn’t stay in Birmingham for the leader’s speech this afternoon as I had to get back to London for work this morning.

I did though get the chance to watch the whole thing on BBC Parliament. It was a long speech but I was enthralled by it. I have not always been a total Cameroon but I loved the way he knitted the past with the future and managed to weave a fabric that encompassed so many issues.

One thing that struck me particularly were two items that are straight lifts from Boris’ London campaign. One was the reference to incivility and the other was the incidence of teen crime. I reproduce two snippets below:

But it’s not just the crime; not even the anti-social behaviour. It’s the angry, harsh culture of incivility that seems to be all around us. When in one generation we seem to have abandoned the habits of all human history that in a civilised society, adults have a proper role – a responsibility – to uphold rules and order in the public realm not just for their own children but for other people’s too.

Just consider the senseless, barbaric violence on our streets. Children killing children. Twenty-seven kids murdered on the streets of London this year.

They worked for Boris. I am sure they will work for Cameron too.