Via Ellis Sharp comes former ambassador Craig Murray’s report that the Commissioner of the Metropolitian Police, Ian Blair, has been having dinner with Lord Levy.
I’m sure as sure can be that Mr Ian Blair (no relation) is an absolute model of personal and professional probity, just like the PM and his cabinet. Oh yes.
Murray:
[…]
Meanwhile, I am stunned that last week Sir Ian Blair, head of the Metropolitan police, shared the top table at a Jewish community dinner with Lord Levy. Blair is the head of the police force that has arrested Levy, removed his passport and, from the actions of Lord Goldsmith this week in seeking to suppress information that may be used at the trial, is likely to charge him shortly with an imprisonable offence.
It cannot possibly be right for the head of the Metropolitan Police to be hobnobbing socially with a prominent alleged criminal. And this is the ultra-sensitive Ian Blair, whose concern for social form is so acute that he demanded an offical report when a female Muslim police officer refused to shake hands with him. The report presumably explained that many Muslim females do not shake hands with men.
Ian Blair and Levy are of course both close members of the Prime Minister’s social and political circle. It is by no means the first time that they have dined together. In July 2005 the two of them ran up a £140 ($270) bill at a London restaurant, which Sir Ian Blair charged to the taxpayer. There was no investigation into Levy at the time, but his being dead sleazy was hardly a secret.
Ian Blair’s explanation of that charge to the taxpayer was that Levy was a representative of the Jewish community. Now, there are many eminent and worthwhile people in London to whom that description applies, but I don’t think that Levy holds any community posts. He is no more a representative of the Jewish community than I am of the Scottish community. Besides, how many one to one £140 meals has Ian Blair had with a representative of the Muslim community? Or the Irish, Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, Polish, Palestinian or Greek communities? Other than ultra-rich New Labour supporters who happen to have that background?
So Ian Blair and Levy have form. In current circumstances it was a gross error of judgement for Ian Blair to sit at a top table with Lord Levy. Levy should have realised that himself and made his excuses, but nobody could mistake Lord Levy for a gentleman. Therefore Blair should have made an excuse and left. As it is, some of the smell has rubbed off. Ian Blair should resign.
Why would someone with such a sterling repuation, Britain’s most senior policeman, be hobnobbing socially with one of the chief suspects in a criminal investigation of government corruption by his own police force? Enquiring minds would like to know.
Lord Levy has been rounding up as many prominent Jewish people as possible, even his own rabbi, to bombard the media with accusations that any criticisms of his behaviour are unjustified and indeed antisemitic.
Anti-Semitism?
In an interview with Channel 4 television Tuesday, his rabbi, Yitzchack Schochet, was asked whether Levy, a high-profile member of London’s Jewish community, was facing anti-Semitic treatment.
“I know that the Jewish community is becoming increasingly more sensitive that there’s the one Jew seemingly being hung out to dry here,” he said.
I don’t doubt that No.10 is trying to stitch him up for the crime, but Levy’s hardly some political innocent led astray.
Bollocks. The man’s a crook and he’d be a crook if he were anabaptist.
As for Ian Blair – resign? he should be sacked and publicly cashiered, then banged up in one of his own stinking cells.
