MAIL COMMENT: Ian Blair and the REAL victims of anarchy at the Yard

Fear and loathing at Scotland Yard... links between a top commander and a bent lawyer... an attempt by that same officer to undermine a serious criminal prosecution...

For three days now, the Daily Mail has been uncovering the explosive truth about the anarchy at the heart of British policing.

By any standards, the story makes grim reading.

At the very least, it reflects a woeful lack of leadership at the Met.

But doesn't the real issue go much deeper, to the way poisonous racial politics is wreaking such havoc?

This week we reported how Commander Ali Dizaei worked hand in glove with the crooked lawyer Shahrokh Mireskandari to scupper a case against a woman accused of causing death by dangerous driving.

Dizaei has a chequered background. He is already under investigation for alleged misuse of the Yard credit card.

He has previously stood trial accused of expenses fraud and perverting the cause of justice.

He was acquitted in 2003 after an inquiry in which it emerged that he had made threatening calls to a former lover.

But the trauma at the Yard doesn't end there. Several Asian officers or senior officials are already suing Commissioner Sir Ian Blair - Britain's most politically correct policeman - for alleged racial discrimination.

They include the £180,000-a-year Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, and the Met's diversity chief Yasmin Rehman.

And the lawyer who so often represents these claimants?

Why, he's none other than Shahrokh Mireskandari, who, as the Mail revealed this week, is not only a convicted fraudster, but has decidedly dodgy legal qualifications.

Now Scotland Yard is up to its ears in litigation. Time and money are devoted to preposterous discrimination cases, instead of fighting crime.

And the public interest, of course, doesn't matter a hoot.

How did we come to this?

Much of the answer goes back 15 years, to the botched investigation into Stephen Lawrence's murder.

As a result of this paper's passionate campaign for justice - which included naming Stephen's killers - the Macpherson inquiry was set up, eventually coming to the conclusion that the police were 'institutionally racist'.

Harsh words, but they needed saying. As a result, police behaviour everywhere has improved.

The pity is that sensible reform has been turned into a cynical culture of victimhood, with its knee-jerk accusations of 'racism'.

And the officers who make such charges are treated as untouchable by police chiefs terrified of being thought 'racist'.

There could hardly be a greater betrayal of the original Macpherson report. Because of this anarchy, real crimes can't be properly investigated.

And the irony is that the real victims are the families living in fear, the teenagers - overwhelmingly black - who are being casually murdered in an orgy of stabbings, and the decent, honest, ethnic minority coppers who are tarnished by the greed and selfishness of their 'superiors'.

Yet what hope can they have of better things?

The Met under Sir Ian Blair is notable more for political correctness than proper policing.

Isn't his weak leadership largely responsible for this shambles?

The sooner he goes, the better.