Astounding interview in last Saturday’s Guardian with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. An employment tribunal had just torn into him for ‘hanging his own officers out to dry’ to prove his anti-racist credentials, after his force was found to have racially discriminated against three white officers who were disciplined after alleged racist remarks at a training day.

The men had faced disciplinary action after an Asian officer alleged that one of the three had made racist remarks at a training day in 1999. The tribunal heard that in a bungled presentation on Islam, he referred to Muslim headwear as ‘tea cosies’, mispronounced Shi'ites as ‘shitties’ and said he felt sorry for Muslims who fasted during Ramadan. Although he apologised immediately, a complaint was made by the Asian officer who also criticised the two other officers for not taking appropriate action over these remarks. All three were brought before a disciplinary panel in June 2001 and found guilty of inappropriate behaviour, but the board ruled that there should be no further action. The tribunal heard that Sir Ian found the panel’s decision ‘extraordinary’ and sought legal advice about having it overturned. They were later cleared on appeal by Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, the most senior Asian officer at the Yard. Ian Pritchard-Witts, the tribunal chairman, ruled that the Yard was justified in suspending the officers during an investigation but concluded that Sir Ian's intervention was unlawful.

“We take the view, using his own words, that white officers were to be hung out to dry. He prejudiced the matter,”

Mr Pritchard-Witts said.

After such a devastating condemnation and an exposure of institutional bullying over remarks which, although clearly inappropriate had equally clearly been made without malice, one might think Sir Ian would have promptly fallen on his truncheon. After all, he had been excoriated by a tribunal for wholly unprofessional behaviour and appalling judgment, revealing himself to be so much in the grip of the witch-hunting lunacy of the age that he had ruined the lives and reputations of three officers who had been arraigned on preposterously inflated charges of racism – the very crime for which Sir Ian was himself ultimately condemned by the tribunal for his treatment of these white officers.

But not only did Sir Ian not resign – he went onto the offensive, in every sense of the word. He showed absolutely no understanding of the ruling, and indeed compounded his original offence by repeating the slur on the three officers:

‘Sir Ian described the remarks at the heart of this week's employment tribunal defeat as Islamophobic: "That language was gratuitous, offensive and deliberate. Officers can expect to be disciplined for using language like that. I want this force to have no place for racism”… Sir Ian said the Met and British policing had no choice but to embrace diversity, because it delivered better protection to the public: “Issues about understanding diversity, about respect for different communities, respect for different traditions in many occupations is broadly a moral case. For the police service and Metropolitan police in particular, it is a fundamental, brutal business case. You can't police London without understanding the diverse communities we serve. How can you police the Chinese community, the Tamil community, emerging east European communities, north African community, how can you do this without understanding and showing respect to the cultures of which this city is made up? That's why I'm so unrepentant.”’

But this case had nothing to do with understanding or respecting diversity. It reflected instead the neurotic hypersensitivity which inflates minor error into the hanging offence of racial insult -- our modern witch-hunt, in which the slightest deviation from permitted speech is regarded as a heresy to be punished by excommunication and banishment.

Nor was this all. For the Guardian informs us of Sir Ian that, having read the damaging headlines about himself after the tribunal’s comments:

‘He feared rank and file officers would believe the claims that he had betrayed their fellow officers, and had even commissioned an instant poll to assess the damage within his force.’

Is this really a proper use of public money, to enable Sir Ian to assess whether his reputation has suffered from a public rebuke? And in any event, it would seem that he is well aware that he is hardly providing unifying leadership at the head of Britain’s largest police force:

‘The Commissioner admitted that while about one in five of his officers backs him wholeheartedly over the need for change, thousands do not or are undecided: "In any organisation you have 20% who are deeply and firmly committed on your side, 70% in the middle who are watching and 10% who are opposed." Sir Ian revealed that he has turned for help to BBC director general Mark Thompson, with whom he "compares notes" on how to transform their respective institutions: "Mark's term as director-general will be turbulent as he's modernising the organisation."’

Just what does this tell us about the leadership of the Metropolitan Police? What, come to that, does it tell us about the BBC -- and about institutional life in general, in what was once a country that totally eschewed the monstrous tyranny of ideology and relied instead on empirical, feet-on-the-ground common-sense and decency?

Posted by melanie at July 5, 2005