When do we know if a crime is a crime?

The more time passes the more the centre of the British Establishment appears befuddled and unsure. So many recent occurrences of sleazy activity and dodgy dealings have been happening, that the poachers and gamekeepers are into a severe bout of cross-dressing. Not only that their traps and shotguns are going all over the place.

The latest farcical nonsense is that of Sir Ian Blair (himself a subject of recent scutiny) writing a letter (or getting a senior officer to do it for him) to John Lyon, the House of Commons Standards Commissioner complaining that the matter of Derek Conway's financial irregularities had not been referred to him. Blair said there was an agreed protocol to pass on such information to the Metropolitan Police Service. John Lyon's office thinks there is no protocol requiring him to explain the reasons to the police. A case of too many Commissioners spoiling the arrangements?

Ian Blair told the Metropolitan Police Authority that "there is a protocol. The protocol was agreed with the previous Parliamentary standards commissioner. It doesn't appear from the face of it that that protocol was fully followed in this particular case." The trouble here is that we are being policed and governed by people who have mostly been shown to have their own problems with regard to integrity. How they can sit in judgement, well......?

A protocol is only an understanding. It seems that we have passed this point of having protocols. The only thing these people will comprehend is a very short law, written with very big letters, telling them exactly what they can and can't do!

Why on earth, after all the publicity, over the last ten years at least, do these misunderstandings and "breakdowns in communication" carry on. We need TRANSPARENCY in Parliament and TRANSPARENCY in the Police! Until that happens, it's just a case of pot calling the kettle black!

Posted in: House of Commons,Ian Blair,Metropolitan Police,sleaze,standards