Wednesday 21 September 2011

The Guardian: "The new Met chief ... had made a gross misjudgement"

Link to The Guardian

"The new commissioner of the Metropolitan police is barely in his post, and already he has been forced into a screaming, rubber-burning U-turn of an order that takes most holders of public office years to achieve. If he had been in the job much longer, he would probably now be fending off demands that he leave it. For the Met's pursuit – halted dramatically this evening – of a Guardian reporter for the crime of revealing the truth about the phone-hacking scandal, coupled with its abuse of a law designed to safeguard national security, represented a misjudgment so gross, it should have counted as a sacking offence.

"... The Met should realise the damage it has inflicted on itself. Morale at Scotland Yard is said to be lower than at any time since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry; apparently the force feels humiliated. Perhaps this fed a desire for revenge against the newspaper that dragged its failings into daylight. But the attempt to hound reporters in this way will have only weakened the Met's reputation further, entrenching its image as the outsourced security department of News International, jealously guarding that company's secrets and lashing out at those who break them."


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