Andrew Mitchell, accused of being a bully, was bullied in turn. There was tremendous journalistic laziness in the reporting of his alleged remarks to police officers at the Downing Street gates. A few months ago it was considered a national scandal that the police were always slipping information to the Murdoch press. Now they planted a story in the Sun and no one minded. Yet what they did was a breach of trust for which they should be sacked. How can people who work in Downing Street now be confident that the men and women at the gate really are protecting them? It is a well-known tradition for police to concoct evidence against the accused. If you read the police log of the incident, you will see that the words attributed to Mr Mitchell are the sort of thing that people think nasty toffs would say to them. It is as crude as if a gang of dim toffs were to testify that a policeman had said to them, ‘Allo allo, what’s all this then? You’re nicked, sunshine.’ Yet no one questions the police account. Lord Justice Leveson should summon the Sun and the police to give evidence on oath about how they communicated with each other.
Nor did anyone investigate why it is that cyclists who work there every day (despite being a caste piously accorded approval by modern official culture) have more difficulty than cars in going through the Downing Street gates unimpeded. No one pointed out that the police frequently behave in a ‘by the book’ manner which does tend to incite profanity in all but the most refined mouths. As someone who has moved round Whitehall for more than 30 years, I notice a great change for the worse in the manners of the police. In Parliament, in particular, they used to appear to have been specially chosen for their Ealing Studios good humour, comic moustaches and smart appearance.
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