09/10/2013 00:00
TW
0

by RAY FLEMING
IF Boris Johnson's mayoralty of London is the future of Conservatism in Britain - as he has implied - then David Cameron needs to give some urgent thought to ways of reining Mr Johnson in. It is not that the mayor's policies are necessarily wrong, it is just that he seems to have no respect for due administrative process. He hires senior staff without proper competition for the jobs and then dismisses them just as arbitrarily. Now he is in trouble for enforcing the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, the most senior police officer in Britain, and for setting up an enquiry into racism in the Metropolitan Police without adequate consultation.

Yesterday the Mayor was rapped over the knuckles on both counts by the elected members of the Metropolitan Police Commission to which he reports. They said he should not have taken action on either matter before consulting with them and they questioned especially the proposed racial enquiry given that others have been held in the past without any noticeable result. Mr Johnson's impatience and reluctance to take advice is particularly unfortunate at a time that the Metropolitan Police is going through an especially difficult time. The Menezes shooting inquiry is opening up worrying errors and the Black Police Association has begun a boycott on black and ethnic minority recruitment to the force. During such a period the Mayor should be doing all he can to calm things down -- instead he is like a bull in a china shop.