Fings

David Boothroyd

'There were no politics in it'? Pull the other one, it's got bells on. To go on immediately after to discuss "how we change the Met's culture and philosophy of crime fighting" makes it clear the decision was political in every aspect. If you really don't think it was a fundamentally political decision then how would you (and Boris) react to the appointment as his successor of someone who shared Sir Ian Blair's approach?

The more important point is this. Boris has a right to be political, and that is why he is there. But the post of Met Commissioner is not in the gift of Boris at the moment (he implicitly acknowledged so by arguing that it should be in his gift in his Conservative conference speech). Therefore Boris has just sacked someone he did not employ.

This fits into a rather disreputable pattern with the Boris administration regarding itself as exempt from the normal rules of propriety. First Boris started creating jobs of Deputy Mayors that did not accord with the statute. Then he tried to get in Sir Simon Milton in ignorance of the 'Widdicombe Rules' which prohibit councillors serving as council officers. Then he brought in his own crony (Tim Parker) to do a job which should have been appointed by the Mayor and Assembly jointly.

Now he has subverted the appointment of someone who was accountable jointly to himself and the Home Secretary, but without ever consulting or even informing the Home Secretary about what he was doing and why.

This is all very disturbing and whatever you think of his faults, Ken Livingstone never behaved in such a fashion. It is even more disturbing that there is a regular push by London Tories to get rid of a separately elected London Assembly and replace it by a joint board of London council leaders. Boris needs to be accountable and realise that he is accountable.

Fabio P.Barbieri

David Boothroyd: that is all very well, but the truth is that Boris has done the Government a favour. Whatever you think of his record - and I think all possible ill of it - it is obvious that someone had to bring Sir Ian Blair to reason. There simply were too many rows going on. Whatever the rights and wrongs, a man who is spending his life defending himself and his record against his colleagues, the public, journalists, and the whole nation of Brazil, cannot possibly be an effective leader for a huge organization such as the Met. By taking it on himself to do so, Borish removed from the government the need to sack a man who was in effect their own man; and it may be noticed that Jacqui Smith had the power to refuse his resignation - and did not exercise it. It seems to me fairly evident, after that, that her attack against Boris is pure and rather dirty point-scoring.

Ross

"Ken Livingstone never behaved in such a fashion. "

Are you serious?

dearieme

Mandy is Gordo's Sarah Palin.

Owen Morgan

David Boothroyd,
Boris Johnson already is accountable. He is elected and, if he doesn't perform, he will not be re-elected. Ian Blair was not accountable; he positively revelled in being unaccountable. The Mayor does not have the power to sack the Metropolitan Commissioner, it's true, so it stands to reason that Boris Johnson did not, in fact, sack Blair. He told Blair that he could not work with him. At least Blair had sufficient intellect to work out that he, the unelected functionary, was the one that would have to give way. The point seems lost on the likes of Call-Me-Ken, Jacqui Smith and Tony McNulty. Didn't David Blunkett, while Home Secretary, explicitly demand the resignation of a Chief Constable in Sussex? Johnson is far more accountable in this case than Blunkett was in that, since Johnson's parish equates to the Metropolitan Police area, whereas Blunkett's electorate lay a good two hundred miles from Sussex.

David Boothroyd

Owen, I'm sorry but you're talking rubbish generally, and utter rubbish with that last point.

The Commissioner of the Met is jointly accountable as I wrote previously. Boris deliberately subverted the joint accountability by declaring his lack of confidence in a way which made it clear to Sir Ian Blair that he would be undermined. Boris, by exceeding his authority, forced Blair's resignation. I notice you don't have any words in defence of his failure to consult or even inform the Home Secretary, whose joint appointment this was.

As Home Secretary, David Blunkett did have oversight over all English police authorities, and did have the power to express his opinion to Sussex Police Authority.

But then we get your constitutional bunkum. It was and is no role of the electors of Sheffield Brightside to pass judgment on the performance of David Blunkett in office as Home Secretary. They only choose whether he represents them in Parliament. It is the Prime Minister who appoints members to particular Government roles and it is Parliament which assesses their performance, not their constituency. It is utter rubbish to place any connection between Ministers' role as constituency Members of Parliament and their individual performance in Government office. This stupid argument which owes nothing either to good sense or to our constitution has been paraded far too often.

Owen Morgan

DB, your readiness to resort to abuse betrays the reality that you have far less confidence in your arguments than you would like to pretend. Yet again, you show that you can't appreciate why an elected official carries more weight in a democracy than an appointed one. Ian Blair acted at the behest of the Labour government, not of the people of London. On his watch, crime statistics emanating from Scotland Yard could have qualified for the Booker Prize, except that his fiction didn't change from one year to the next. When Blair publicly endorsed ID cards, or the ending of habeas corpus, he did so as the tool of the labour party. Quite how he could more blatantly have prostituted the post of Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to naked politics is hard to imagine. Boris Johnson directly represents the people for whose policing the Commissioner has responsibility. Ideally, those people would elect their own Commissioner, but, until that happens, it is self-evident that the elected Mayor should have some say in who the Commissioner is, or in who he isn't. I did enjoy the way in which you fell into my Blunkett-trap, by the way.

Fergus Pickering

In politics your authority is what you manage to get for yourself. Blair thought he could manage Ken Livingstone. But he couldn't. Livingstone made the Mayor's position much more powerful. He treated the Assembly members like children and didn'tlisten to a word they said. Boris has benefitted from all this. He didn't sack Blair the Copper but he made it difficult for him to stay. Good for him. The limpet was prised fom his rock. And it will not be possible for the Home secretary to find a Chief Constable who is not acceptable to Boris. That's the way these things happen here.Jolly good thing too, I say.

jameshigham

We're in strange days, Stephen.