The Peril that is Sir Bufton Tufton
“You couldn’t make it up” is a stock phrase at least if not a cliché, and besides it hardly fits the bill. Never mind ‘you’, the combined genius responsible for Python and for Yes (Prime) Minister could not have got anywhere near what we’ve seen in recent weeks.
22 July 2005. Looking back I think things really went pear-shaped the day the Old Bill slaughtered Jean Charles de Menezes on a tube train in south London. J-C (for short) was a 27 year old Brazilian living an essentially blameless existence, albeit with ‘irregular’ immigration status, who one morning Plod mistook for a mad Muslim bomber. At the time London was on a heightened state of alert following the bombings at the beginning of the month and a half-arsed copy-cat expedition that took place the on 21 July.
Inevitably and quite properly a massive intelligence operation was underway in London, and more widely, to identify and control those who’d been involved in the earlier mass bombing and find those who’d engaged in the botched copy-cat. Intelligence provided a link to the residential block in which de Menezes was sharing a flat with a couple of cousins.
De Menezes ended up on the floor of a tube train having had seven rounds pumped into his head. I don’t normally endorse wikipedia but it has a moderate account of the day’s events and the subsequent investigation.
I suppose everyone’s allowed a bad day at the office once in a while, but as a general rule when things go this severely tits up the best thing to do is at least admit to yourself that you’ve made a monumental cock-up and begin the fix up.
And it is in the nature of such events that they spawn a thousand conspiracy theories so it’s best to be honest with everyone else too, and if your story has to change over time its best have a bloody good explanation both for the new version and the earlier version.
And don’t for God’s Sake think that just because your victim’s parents are farming people from rural Brazil you can palm them off with a pocket full of notes.
And when you’re flailing around looking for the most suitable person to cut from the pack and string up as the ritual sacrifice look past Brian Paddick because he is definitely not your man.
Ian Blair remains in his post as the UK’s most senior flat foot. Brian Paddick continues to be the most senior (openly) gay Police Officer, though presumably he’s given up not indulging in the occasional spliff since extracting an apology from the Daily Mail for its bogus story about his drug taking. Besides, if rumours are accurate he’s too busy casting around for suitable parliamentary seat.
What goes around comes around. The apology only came after Paddick was shunted into a police intelligence role and away from community facing, front line police work where he’d been so spectacularly successful. But if he hadn’t been shunted into the intelligence role he’d not have been involved in the investigation into the bombings and in a position to successfully sueBlair Scotland Yard for promulgating the falsehood that Paddick had provided false testimony to the IPPC investigation into the shooting of J-C de Menezes.
The investigation into what happened on the day and why, as well as what happened afterwards, continues. In the longer term the response to the July 7 bombings has exposed all the weakness in this administration and the mistakes it has been shown to have made have undermined its confidence. With each false step its ability to walk the line has faded that little bit more.
A brief hiatus ensued. It was the calm before the storm
This Year we’ve had:
The saga of Tessa Jowell’s curious mortgage roundabout and her husband’s even more peculiar relationship with the now ex-Prime Minister of Italy along whomside he may or may not be required to stand in a fraud trial at some indeterminate time in the future, the Italian ‘system’ of justice being what it is. Tessa and Hubby have since parted ways. She remains close to the (UK) Prime Minister who is now bereft because his good mate Silvio is out of a job and no longer an ally within the club of EC nations’ leaders.
We’ve had the Flog It® approach to minor peerages. (This is the market economy at work and I for one don’t give a stuff.)
Anonymous funding of political parties via loans that may or may not ever be called in. Some of these loans have since been called in by donors with political convictions that don’t extend so far as to allowing open association with the left leaning Party of Government For The Time Being.
The rate of decent has accelerated rapidly in recent weeks and it has given us:
The long slow political death of Charles Clarke (who’s retired to the back benches shaking his preposterously large head in disbelief at actually being sacked for presiding over the debacle at the Home Office)
The Cheshire Cat-type extinction of John Prescott, Deputy PM who, for the crime of bonking his rather cheap and nasty secretary, has been stripped of everything except the decorative gold braid. Personally I think Blair should have left him with the uniform as well, for our sakes.
Pat Hewitt has survived at Health, possibly because she serves so excellently well as a lightening rod for a variety of tensions within the civil and public service ranks.
Ruth Kelly has been given more free time to spend with her Opus Dei chums and freed from responsibility for tampering with the minds and futures of the young of this country.
Poor old Jack Straw (the only card in this pack of Jokers I’ve actually met and had a lengthy conversation with) has been shuffled into a non-Job, for the crime of not making a big enough blunder for all anyone could possibly tell.
The fun and games aren’t over. Blair’s essentially promoted loyalists in so far as that was possible to the evident exasperation of his next door neighbour. Blair’s also done his level best to advance the interests of those who might at least give Gordon Brown a run for his money when the time comes for a leadership election to decide who replaces Blair.
In quiet moments pundits will return to what for them is the Great Vexed Question arising from this reshuffle which is How The Hell Did Margaret Becket End Up As Foreign Secretary?
One might as well ask How The Hell Did John Howard End Up As Prime Minister Of Australia?
I suspect the answers to these two questions might be similar.
PS the above is all very well but Sir Bufton Tufton’s just been on the radio spluttering that the very idea of Margaret Beckett as Foreign Secretary is “preposterous” and perversely I see merit in her appointment. Lock me up!
22 July 2005. Looking back I think things really went pear-shaped the day the Old Bill slaughtered Jean Charles de Menezes on a tube train in south London. J-C (for short) was a 27 year old Brazilian living an essentially blameless existence, albeit with ‘irregular’ immigration status, who one morning Plod mistook for a mad Muslim bomber. At the time London was on a heightened state of alert following the bombings at the beginning of the month and a half-arsed copy-cat expedition that took place the on 21 July.
Inevitably and quite properly a massive intelligence operation was underway in London, and more widely, to identify and control those who’d been involved in the earlier mass bombing and find those who’d engaged in the botched copy-cat. Intelligence provided a link to the residential block in which de Menezes was sharing a flat with a couple of cousins.
De Menezes ended up on the floor of a tube train having had seven rounds pumped into his head. I don’t normally endorse wikipedia but it has a moderate account of the day’s events and the subsequent investigation.
I suppose everyone’s allowed a bad day at the office once in a while, but as a general rule when things go this severely tits up the best thing to do is at least admit to yourself that you’ve made a monumental cock-up and begin the fix up.
And it is in the nature of such events that they spawn a thousand conspiracy theories so it’s best to be honest with everyone else too, and if your story has to change over time its best have a bloody good explanation both for the new version and the earlier version.
And don’t for God’s Sake think that just because your victim’s parents are farming people from rural Brazil you can palm them off with a pocket full of notes.
And when you’re flailing around looking for the most suitable person to cut from the pack and string up as the ritual sacrifice look past Brian Paddick because he is definitely not your man.
Ian Blair remains in his post as the UK’s most senior flat foot. Brian Paddick continues to be the most senior (openly) gay Police Officer, though presumably he’s given up not indulging in the occasional spliff since extracting an apology from the Daily Mail for its bogus story about his drug taking. Besides, if rumours are accurate he’s too busy casting around for suitable parliamentary seat.
What goes around comes around. The apology only came after Paddick was shunted into a police intelligence role and away from community facing, front line police work where he’d been so spectacularly successful. But if he hadn’t been shunted into the intelligence role he’d not have been involved in the investigation into the bombings and in a position to successfully sue
The investigation into what happened on the day and why, as well as what happened afterwards, continues. In the longer term the response to the July 7 bombings has exposed all the weakness in this administration and the mistakes it has been shown to have made have undermined its confidence. With each false step its ability to walk the line has faded that little bit more.
A brief hiatus ensued. It was the calm before the storm
This Year we’ve had:
The saga of Tessa Jowell’s curious mortgage roundabout and her husband’s even more peculiar relationship with the now ex-Prime Minister of Italy along whomside he may or may not be required to stand in a fraud trial at some indeterminate time in the future, the Italian ‘system’ of justice being what it is. Tessa and Hubby have since parted ways. She remains close to the (UK) Prime Minister who is now bereft because his good mate Silvio is out of a job and no longer an ally within the club of EC nations’ leaders.
We’ve had the Flog It® approach to minor peerages. (This is the market economy at work and I for one don’t give a stuff.)
Anonymous funding of political parties via loans that may or may not ever be called in. Some of these loans have since been called in by donors with political convictions that don’t extend so far as to allowing open association with the left leaning Party of Government For The Time Being.
The rate of decent has accelerated rapidly in recent weeks and it has given us:
The long slow political death of Charles Clarke (who’s retired to the back benches shaking his preposterously large head in disbelief at actually being sacked for presiding over the debacle at the Home Office)
The Cheshire Cat-type extinction of John Prescott, Deputy PM who, for the crime of bonking his rather cheap and nasty secretary, has been stripped of everything except the decorative gold braid. Personally I think Blair should have left him with the uniform as well, for our sakes.
Pat Hewitt has survived at Health, possibly because she serves so excellently well as a lightening rod for a variety of tensions within the civil and public service ranks.
Ruth Kelly has been given more free time to spend with her Opus Dei chums and freed from responsibility for tampering with the minds and futures of the young of this country.
Poor old Jack Straw (the only card in this pack of Jokers I’ve actually met and had a lengthy conversation with) has been shuffled into a non-Job, for the crime of not making a big enough blunder for all anyone could possibly tell.
The fun and games aren’t over. Blair’s essentially promoted loyalists in so far as that was possible to the evident exasperation of his next door neighbour. Blair’s also done his level best to advance the interests of those who might at least give Gordon Brown a run for his money when the time comes for a leadership election to decide who replaces Blair.
In quiet moments pundits will return to what for them is the Great Vexed Question arising from this reshuffle which is How The Hell Did Margaret Becket End Up As Foreign Secretary?
One might as well ask How The Hell Did John Howard End Up As Prime Minister Of Australia?
I suspect the answers to these two questions might be similar.
PS the above is all very well but Sir Bufton Tufton’s just been on the radio spluttering that the very idea of Margaret Beckett as Foreign Secretary is “preposterous” and perversely I see merit in her appointment. Lock me up!
posted by Enyo @ 10:42 pm
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