Sun, 24 Dec 2006
Last
August,
Paul Stephenson, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said:
‘
This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable
scale’ while John Reid, the Home
Secretary, exclaimed that
‘
loss of life would have been on an unprecedented
scale’.
Fast
forward to December, and Sir
Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner
says
on a Radio 4 (well worth
listening
to the whole 16 minutes of the interview):
‘We
have no specific intelligence [...] The level of threat against the
United Kingdom is of an unparalleled nature and growing. [...]
Unparalleled in terms of operational threat since the
second World War. Far
graver threat in terms of civilians than probably during the second World
War or
the Cold War; that's it.’
So on one hand
Sir Ian Blair says he doesn't have any specific intelligence, and on
the other that the threat is greater than during WW2 when tens of
thousands of people were killed in London. This is irresponsible
propaganda.
During
the same interview, Sir Ian Blair said: ‘I'd say
this: I, for my own part, I am quite confident that I will not face any
kind of misconduct... in relation to Stockwell. [...] I'll just say
that I'm confident, shall we leave it at that?’ This follows
the
news
the previous week that the High Court of England and Wales dismissed
the legal challenge brought by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes
against the prosecuting authorities' decision not to bring criminal
charges against any individuals in connection with his killing in
London in July 2005.
Consequences of shooting Jean
Charles de Menezes: a dirty campaign (he was wrongly accused of wearing
a too warm jacket, of being illegally in the UK, even of having raped a
woman - all this eventually disproved by the family), no individual
officer involved to be charged (and one of the officers
killed
another man since), a
promotion
for the officer in charge, and possibly a Health and Safety charge for
the Police (of which the fine would then have to be paid by taxpayers).
In
times of perceived
unparalleled threat, one is concerned as well by the uncontrollable
actions of a Police so confident in its power over the law.
