Home Secretary attacks Boris Johnson for ousting Met Police Chief » Local Government » 24dash.com

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith attacked London mayor Boris Johnson for ousting Britain's most senior police officer.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said yesterday he could not continue without the support of the mayor, who used his first day in power as Metropolitan Police Authority chairman on Wednesday to force his resignation.

Speaking on BBC's Question Time, Ms Smith said: "There's a process in place that the mayor chose not to respect.

"What is important when you are both choosing and when you're supporting somebody that you're asking to do a job like that is that you keep party politics out of it. You need to work alongside people and, frankly, you should put some time and effort into that.

"The mayor said on the first day in his job he didn't feel he had confidence in Sir Ian and that's why he took the decision to resign."

But Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, said today that Ms Smith was also instrumental in Sir Ian's departure.

He told the BBC this morning: "On the day the mayor becomes the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority he says boo and the Commissioner jumps.

"Not only that, it is actually only the Home Secretary that could force the commissioner to leave and therefore the Home Secretary could have turned round and said to Ian Blair and to the mayor 'I'm sorry, you don't have the power, mayor, to do that. I want the commissioner to stay'. But she didn't, she allowed the Commissioner to go."

Ms Smith told Question Time yesterday that she did not feel "it would be right to persuade him against what he had decided to do to stay".

Sir Ian announced his resignation yesterday with a measured statement.

He said: "I am resigning not because of any failures of my service and not because the pressures of the office and the many stories that surround it are too much.

"I am resigning in the best interests of the people of London and of the Metropolitan Police Service.

"However, at a meeting on Wednesday the new mayor made clear, in a very pleasant and determined way, that he wished there to be a change of leadership at the Met."

Mr Johnson will chair his first meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the Met's board of governors, at City Hall on Monday.

He paid tribute to Sir Ian but said it was time for "new leadership".

He said: "He can be very proud of his record in helping to keep millions of Londoners safe from harm.

"However, there comes a time in any organisation when it becomes clear that it would benefit from new leadership and new clarity of purpose.

"I believe that time is now."

Ms Smith said deputy commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson would take over as acting head when Sir Ian stands down on December 1.

Former home secretary David Blunkett defended Sir Ian, who he said had been successful in introducing neighbourhood policing and reducing crime in what had been an underperforming force.

He said: "If the judgment about a commissioner is his effectiveness as a senior police officer in leading the force, on that and on counter-terrorism, then Ian Blair stands, I would consider, as a success.

"If there are other accusations to be made then people should be upfront and make them and allow Ian Blair to defend himself."

Criticising the way Sir Ian was forced out, Mr Blunkett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "My contention...is that the authority weren't involved, the Home Secretary wasn't involved, there was only one man involved in making that decision...that was Boris Johnson.

"We need to know when the new commissioner is appointed that if there was a change of Government there wouldn't be a change of commissioner on the back of that, purely on the back of that, and we need to know that procedures in future will be followed."

He added: "You can't have jury and judge by media innuendo."

Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "I am absolutely determined that the next commissioner, he or she is allowed to operate according to his or her judgment and ultimately the accountability will be to the law.

"On a day to day sense, the police authority clearly have a very strong role...but ultimately he or she needs to be able to stand aside from them."

Mr Jones said Sir Ian was a reformer and a liberal who changed the culture of the Metropolitan Police.

"I think Ian's record over a distinguished career is quite enviable frankly."

Asked on the Today programme if he was worried about the politicisation of the police, he said: "Yes, we are concerned, particularly at the senior level.

"My view is chiefs and commissioners are not in a dissimilar position to judges.

"They need to balance constantly vested interests, populism, various pressures and ultimately they are accountable to law.

"We need politicians of all persuasions to recognise the dilemmas they face and to give them their support."

He added: "We do need to avoid the politicisation, even by implication, that we see in some American forces where law and order and politics are bound together in a toxic way. We can't ever get to a position in this country where that happens."

He also refused to rule himself out of running for the post when asked.

He said: "I think it is not the day to be talking about who is going to succeed because there are some fundamental issues being opened up by what happened yesterday.

"I don't think today is the day to be talking about that."

Mr Johnson dismissed accusations of party political interference today.

He said: "I think some of the analysis I have read this morning has been absolutely outlandish. There is not and has not been any kind of party political plot by the agents of the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems.

"There is no party political element to this. I simply thought after long reflection and widespread consultation that it was a good opportunity for someone else to offer new leadership, stability and increased operational effectiveness, let me put it like that, increased operational effectiveness for the Metropolitan Police and that was not an opportunity that I could let go by."

He added: "I have given a fairly long and detailed explanation of the time of my consultations which were about the recent resignation of the commissioner for the Metropolitan Police.

"I don't really intend to elaborate except to say that they were widespread consultations.

"The decision that we came to - and I stress that it was his decision following a conversation with me - the decision that he came to very much reflected the flavour of conversation that I had with a great number of people with responsibility for London policing and it was my view that I could not shirk the advice I was being given."

Mr Johnson said he believed Sir Ian had made the right decision.

"Let me be absolutely clear, there is no change to the constitutional position. There is no constitutional precedent that has been set.

"I simply think that Sir Ian has taken the right decision that he himself has said is in the interest of policing in London, in the interest of increased stability, new leadership and, I believe, greater operational effectiveness for policing in London."

Mr Johnson was speaking at City Hall at the launch of the mayor's Black History season, which this year marks the 60th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush on British shores.