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Comment: publish and risk being damned
Evening Standard17.04.08
The police killing of an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, as a suspected terrorist happened back in July 2005. A report on the findings of a key inquiry into the tragedy for the Metropolitan Police Authority has yet to be published and is now being postponed further. The reason? "Political sensitivities", for which read the impending Mayoral election. The report, which was expected last month, dealt with fundamental questions about the killing, including the key issue of why it took so long to confirm Mr de Menezes's identity. It also dealt with the lesser but interesting question of why it took so long for Sir Ian Blair's subordinates to tell their boss that police had shot an innocent man.
These are questions which bear directly on the competence of the Met and its highest ranking officers, including Sir Ian. They should be made public. No doubt, if the findings are damning, this will embarrass not only Sir Ian but also his chief patron, Ken Livingstone. But "the possibility of people making political capital out of it", as the MPA puts it, is no reason to shelve the report.
The idea of "purdah" for three weeks before an election is to ensure that government ministers and officials should not abuse their position for party political ends by, for instance, timing announcements to bolster their own party. According to the Electoral Commission, it is designed to ensure as level a playing field as the system allows. But this reasonable convention risks being abused if it is used to keep out of the public domain information that would, in the normal course of things, have come into it. The suppression of such a report can be seen as partisan. The MPA should have stuck to its timetable rather than risk looking as if it is guarding the back of one candidate: Ken Livingstone.
