Afternoon:
11°c
In 25 years as a journalist, I have never come across a scandal like the Metropolitan Police losing £30 million of Londoners' money in the Icelandic banking collapse.
I have walked away from private and public bureaucracies wondering if anyone will take responsibility for various misdeeds. But the unnamed officials in the Metropolitan Police Authority who threw away the millions were not trying to escape accountability to the public or Parliament but to their own superiors' orders. Not because they were fraudsters interested in personal gain but because they could not resist the lure of easy money for their organisation.
Consider the facts. In April 2008, the authority's treasurer, Ken Hunt, realised that the implausibly high interest rates Icelandic banks were offering were probably fools' gold. Perhaps he also grasped that an island with a population not much bigger than that of the average London borough had a huge banking sector it could never bail out. So Hunt ordered Met funds to be pulled out of Landsbanki, one of the most reckless banks on the island.
He appeared a cautious and far-sighted civil servant. But he clearly was not in control of the Met's Byzantine bureaucracy. Other finance officers, acting without his approval, according to the official report, sent £30 million back to Landsbanki. They made the last deposit a mere fortnight before the Icelandic banking system collapsed last October. By now, even the indolent credit reference agencies everyone has condemned for failing to spot the dangers of sub-prime mortgages were warning that Iceland was an accident waiting to happen. Even so, no one in the Met could to stop rogue accountants operating as freelancers.
David Cameron and George Osborne are promising a crackdown on waste. It ought to be to their profound embarrassment that the MPA continues to flounder under a Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, even though he had not taken the chair at the MPA at the time when the losses happened.
John McFall, the Labour chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, was right to call on Johnson to make amends for a “massive breakdown in corporate governance”.
The Mayor must now identify the officials responsible and punish them if they deserve it. More seriously, he must get a grip of this sprawling, obese organisation, which trundles on like a juggernaut with no one at the wheel.
Reader views (10)
The comments all made above are obviously why the met is in such a bad shape, as long as the met is used as a political football and the senior officers of the met play up to the game, it will never function as the independent law enforcement agency for the citizens of london it is supposed to. The met is symptomatic of the demise of law and order in Britain. The law is meant to be upheld and enforced by the police never interpreted as they see fit or as politicians can manipulate according to selfish design. What has Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnston got to do with a mugger being arrested, a burglary being investigated or a murder ignored? The police have a very defined job, if they cannot do it or do not wish to do it then they should be dealt with like any other service provider or employee that does not or refuses t perform. The law is in place, the prisons are built and the courts are available...politics is the domain of excuses...
- Neil, England
I do wish the Labour critics of Boris would get their act together. When Boris does intervene on Police matters they rant and rave (the demise of Ian Blair for example). Now they want to take the other tack when it suits. Please grow up. Boris may irritate you because he is a Conservative, but he was elected in preference to Livingstone - live with it and get on with your lives.
- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK
The most telling line in the whole article is
"Boris Johnson, even though he had not taken the chair at the MPA at the time when the losses happened."
So the loss is down to KEN's administration. Just what is Mayor Johnson supposed to do? Perhaps invent a time machine and go back and stop the money being deposited in the first place
- Neil, Darlington
H Morgan, London
Its about time you stopped blaming Livingstone for this bumbling buffoon Johnson's mistakes. It seems no matter what cock up he makes you will come out with an excuse to defend him. It seems its always someone elses fault. Grow up for heavens sake and stop trying to defend the indefensible. Boris has been in power long enough now to have sorted out these so called mistakes Livingstone is still being held to account for.
- James Hennessy, london england
What was the Met doing with £30M in it's kitty? This is an outrageous amount of money for so-called civil servants to have available to play with. I realise the met must be bankrolled, but shouldn't that be done from the public purse, and anything left over should go back into the public purse. The UK has a ridiculous number of pseudo-government organisations which behave like feudal empires. They must be shorn of their powers to raise and waste funds.
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK
It's not the Met - it's the Met Police Authority, a seperate "pc brigade" body of right on types hired by Red Ken. The Met Police and Met Police Authority are seperate organisations entirely.
- H Morgan, London
Jon - you would want one or two them there wouldn't you though if you got mugged, your house burgled or one of your children attacked? My sister works long hours for low pay dealing with the worst people and the worst situations that London has to offer but gets up everyday and carries on doing it because she wants to, and feels an obligation, to protect and give something back. The worst part of her job? The indiscrimate stereotyping adn attacks by people like yourself. Is everyone in the Met Police the same? Of course not, just like not every Asian is a terrorist. Shame on you. Try doing something constructive to make it better if you really care, words are cheap and anyone can rant and rave.
- Mikki, London
Could someone kindly remind me of Boris Johnson's powers to take remedial action?
- Gerald Elvidge, Guildford
The service given to Londoners by our metropolitan police is nothing short of abysmal - they are without doubt the most incompetent administrators in the entire public sector. It also appears that they are staffed by a significant number of thieves and liars.
- Jon, London, England
If Boris get's called to another Select Committee it would be nice if he didn't behave like a spoiled brat. He is just like Cameron, good at pointing out other people's mistakes but not accepting responsibility for his own mistakes.
- Stan Lawlrel, Acton England
