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August 19, 2005
Don Blairo and modern-day Omerta
Some days in particular, you just never know what's going to happen. The world's messed up like that – confused, illogical and unstructured. The evidence is on this very blog. Having taken my A levels a good few years ago, I'm in the position to know that this is the fifth posting on this here blog today. Conversely, the only thing posted yesterday was stolen from somewhere else.
I don't know how busy 22 July 2005 was for Jean Charles de Menezes, but I bet the poor bastard didn't know how it was going to end up, shot in if not cold, then no-higher-than-room-temperature blood, while being restrained on a tube train.
At the time, the prevalent mood was one of mild shock mixed with a feeling that it must have been excusable in some way, just make sure it doesn't happen again. This was fuelled by a swarm of speculative soupcons of information, designed to make the execution appear somehow less wrong, all of which we now know to be bollocks.
The atmosphere now is one of growing, or rather maximised, disbelief. This man really didn't have to die, in the name of safety, national security, or anything else. The unfortunate Brazilian got knocked off by incompetence, ineptitude, and, one suspects, a bit of panic – how do you miss three of eleven shots when fired from a few feet away? Even GIs can do better than that.
At the centre of the controversy (sorry George) is Met chief Ian Blair. The new liar.
Now we're told that the person responsible for making him look like a shameful tit has been suspended for breaking Blair's own Omerta, which, given that Ian is still knocking around, doing his job, saving us from terrorists etc., means that letting the public know what's going on is worse than overseeing the biggest botch-job in history.
There's no need for me to elaborate here, Robin's summed it up perfect-ly well already (geddit?). Don't be surprised to never hear from the leaker again, he's clearly messed with the wrong dude.
The poor sucker probably won't even see it coming.
From The Times
A CLERK at the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was suspended last night for allegedly leaking secret documents about the Stockwell Underground shooting of an innocent man to a television station.
Sir Ian yesterday rejected demands for him to resign. He said: "I’m not going to resign — I have a job to do."
Sir Ian replied that he raised the role of the IPCC because it would have to disclose information to the families of those affected and he questioned how this would work during a counter-terrorism operation.
N.B. (in case not obvious) exaggerated tone... police do a wonderful job under incredibly difficult circumstances and I'd be shit at it... but this is just sick.
Posted by pauldavies on August 19, 2005
Comments
Are you in the tiniest bit surprised?
Posted by: Innocent Abroad at August 19, 2005 07:12 PM
Of course not; not even on my random days of truly astounding optimism and light-headed thinking would I expect anything else.
It was, in truth, a bit of a pointless post, but the way this has built up - the crescendo of sickening bullshit - has ruffled me rather, and Mr I Blair has increasingly looked like a complete arse. But when a post's main purpose is cathartic, it doesn't exactly demand an audience :)
Posted by: Paul Davies at August 19, 2005 08:47 PM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
