Met With Difficulties

The Metropolitan Police's former head of international counter-terrorism, Steve Swain, has testified before the de Menezes inquest. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on America, when America was attacked by terrorists, Swain "travelled around the world, including to Israel, to gather information for Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism strategy". The armed police of the Righteous State, of course, have been doing a splendid job under difficult circumstances for quite some time; and the instant, utter and former head of the Metropolitan Police evidently took their advice to heart. Sir Ian Blair's recommendation, made on the day after de Menezes' execution, was that the Government should make it even less difficult for officers who kill the wrong people to remain where they can repeat their errors. "In due course I believe we need a document similar to the military rules of engagement," Blair wrote, presumably under the impression that an urban police force should be free to treat those who pay its wages in approximately the same way as an army of occupation treats those who live under its benevolent gaze.

Nevertheless, Swain said today that he does not know how the police in Britain can emulate those in the Righteous State and confine their protective detrimentations to the evil and terroristic. Since the de Menezes affair has thrown into sharp relief the difficulty the Metropolitan Police has in distinguishing between light jackets and bulky ones, between suspicious haste and a leisurely walk, between jumping a barrier and walking through a barrier, between between 21 July and 22 July, and between protecting the public and endangering the public, I imagine many of us will share his perplexity.