Sir Ian Blair: no shame at the top

The De Menezes hearing finds the Met guilty. But the boss still won’t go, says robert chesshyre

How much longer can Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, remain the nation's 'top cop'?

The Met was found guilty today of endangering the public over the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician whom officers mistook for a suicide bomber in July 2005. The force broke health and safety laws and was fined £175,000.

Afterwards, standing outside the Old Bailey, Blair said he would not stand down.

His performance ever since he took office two-and-a-half years ago has been weak and vacillating, never more so than when - as he claimed - he went home on the night of the de Menezes shooting unaware that an innocent man had been gunned down. A member of the police authority described his action as 'the absence of an enquiring mind' - normally the first requisite of a rookie cop.

Ian Blair has a reputation as a loner at Scotland Yard, sitting in his ivory tower

By police standards Blair, educated at Christ Church, Oxford, is an intellectual toff, a 'handicap' in the force that a more self-aware man might have done his best to negate by engaging himself - as did his predecessor, Lord Stevens - with the rank-and-file.

Instead, he has a reputation as a loner, sitting in an ivory tower at Scotland Yard.

In this, he is symptomatic of other recent 'leaders' in the public services - Lord Birt, the former BBC Director General, comes to mind. Number-crunching and target-setting take priority over front-line functions.

Reports last month that he was seeking a £25,000 'performance bonus' on top of his £228,000 salary - at a time when his force was in the dock - again raised questions about his judgment.

A senior (anonymous) colleague was quoted as saying Blair was 'off his trolley' for making such a demand. Not just politicians but men in his own force now want him to go - and without an extra £25,000 in his back pocket.