Blair Must Go

The Metropolitan Police have been found guilty in a criminal court of causing the death of an innocent man, and yet the Commissioner says that he won't resign. This is sadly sympotomatic of modern society, where people seem to want the power without the responsibility that came with it. I think politicians started acting like this when John Major was at number 10, and it has carried on since Labour came to power.

The bottom line is that there are times when the person leading an organisation must take responsibility for the actions of that organisation. This is one of those times. However much Blair tried to justify himself today (and his comments outside of court were cringeworthy) he is the man at the top and his organisations actions have been proved, beyond reasonable doubt, to have caused the death of an innocent man. For him to stay in post now would be to drag the Metropolitan Police even further into the gutter than they already are. Likewise the officer in direct charge of the operation, Commander Dick, should also resign. The jury may have said that they attach no personal blame to her but she headed up that unit and they caused the mans death.

One point that needs now to be looked at was why this matter even went to trial. Why didn't the Metropolitan police plead guilty and admit what they have done wrong? Why did they try and blame the victim, and try and exonerate themselves? The honourable thing to do would have been to accept that they had failed Mr De Menzes and his family, but they didn't even have the decency to do this. Every day the police seek confessions from suspected criminals for teh crimes that they have committed and yet the police themselves were unwilling to admit their own criminality.

Ever since Mr De Menzes was shot I've wondered where this shoot to kill policy of the police came from? How do they possibly think that this could have been lawful? The police are allowed to use reasonable force to restrain or arrest someone, and at times this could equate to lethal force. However to have a policy of shoot to kill is something different altogether, and yet the police adopted it without any public discussion or concensus, and without seeking the approval of parliament.