Thursday 29 November 2007

World Turned Upside Down

You know it is when start agreeing with... Boris Johnson, the Tories' shambolic London Mayoral candidate!

In response to complaints from the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Commissioner-friendly Len Duvall, over the use of the words 'trigger-happy' to describe the police officers who executed Jean Charles de Menezes, Boris had the following to say:

You seem to want me to withdraw the use of the word "trigger happy" in respect of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes.

I have absolutely no intention of doing so. It is hard to think of any other description of a catastrophe in which a completely innocent man ends up with seven bullets in his head.

I have made it repeatedly clear that I believe the officers involved to have been personally extremely brave.

But I remain deeply dismayed that neither you nor the Mayor nor anyone else seems willing to address the fundamental question in the minds of the London public.

If this man was thought to be a potential suicide bomber, why the hell was he allowed on two buses, and then down the Tube? Why was he allowed to put the public at progressively greater risk?

Many people believe that common sense policing would have allowed his identity to be established at a much earlier stage.

Amen. Couldn't have put it better myself.

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