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Leadership is a dirty word

Not long ago at a dinner party I met a fellow guest whose conversation and bearing - or lack of bearing - suggested that he was a lecturer in sociology. His cleverness was a kind of cleverness that is more frustrating than stupidity. Only later was I told that he was Ian Blair, the about-to-be-appointed Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

I could not believe it, so totally did he seem and sound lacking in any of the qualities required to be an authoritative chief of police. The next time I saw him, of course, was on television after the London terrorist outrages, and my first impressions were confirmed, as they have gone on being ever since.

How can it be that so unsuitable a man was ever given this enormously important job? The answer, I believe, is simple. So determined were the powers that be to appoint a
Peregrine Worsthorne

There is no longer an officer class; those in charge lack the authority to do the job

commissioner able to transcend the limitations of a reactionary police canteen culture that the only available solution - in today's classless society - was to find a man who gives every impression of being mired in the progressive culture of a redbrick university senior common room.

That is the problem today; leadership has become a dirty word. There is no longer an officer class or a non-commissioned officer class; neither gentlemen nor foremen. As a result, across the board - from Whitehall and Westminster down to the local hospital or railway station - those in charge lack the authority required to do the job, increasingly even in the armed forces.

David Cameron may be a sign that things are changing: a return of class. Fingers crossed.

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 7, 2006

Ian Blair: Just another copper