Liadnan

The Guardian writes that:

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, last night ordered an urgent review of a policy that allows officers to refuse certain duties on moral grounds after a decision to excuse a Muslim policeman from guarding the Israeli embassy.

PC Alexander Omar Basha, who is attached to the force's Diplomatic Protection Group, objected to being posted to protect Israel's embassy in central London from possible terrorist attack because he disagreed with the country's bombing of Lebanon. The officer had reportedly attended a recent anti-war protest.

For once in my life I find myself thinking "good for Ian Blair". If personal opinions, on politics, social mores, or whatever, cause a police officer to pick and choose who they will and will not protect, then they are not capable of being a police officer. And god knows the last thing we need right now, at a time when fracturing between socio-cultural/religious/ethnic groups, particularly Jews and Muslims, is a particularly serious issue in this country, is the factionalisation of the police. And yes, I personally think it's good he went on an anti-war protest, and he should certainly be able to do so. But he has to be able to turn up to protect the Israeli Embassy the next day, or the job isn't for him. Incidentally, yesterday was, as many pointed out, the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street: a great moment in the opposition against fascism in this country. And hurrah to the protestors and boo to Moseley (even though, as I understand it, the practical significance of the event at the time may have been rather less than that of the myth, many marches etc happily took place in the following weeks in the area). But what of the police ordered to protect the march? If any one of them had refused to obey orders they would have been sacked forthwith. And I think that would have been right. (The usual point about "only following orders" not being a defence doesn't apply because they weren't taking an active role, merely a defensive one to a legal march. Equally, any action by those police outside their proper duties on the march -such as beating protestors up- is a separate point from them being there.)

(ETA: it appears that the real story here is somewhat more complicated, several different versions of events have come out, particularly that he merely requested a different duty because he feared for his family in Lebanon if seen guarding the Israeli embassy. That certainly does, to my mind, put a different spin on this incident.)

I don't actually have much more to say about that, but it reminded me of a disciplinary case concerning my own profession I saw recently. I have a habit of occasionally reading the disciplinaries: most of them are about failure to do enough CPD hours (oops) or be insured, etc, but sometimes they have a certain black humour, or at least mild interest (like the irritated barrister who appears to have shouted at the poor paralegal attending him (who was probably inexperienced and well out of her depth) in terms involving the words "complete twat", outside court but unfortunately in the hearing of a judge who promptly wrote to the Bar Council: counsel was, I'm glad to say, heavily bollocked, bullying is never pleasant and nor does making an arse of yourself in public do wonders for the profession). This one was rather more significant than most. One of the fundamental rules of the Bar, rule 1 (well, actually, rules 601 and following and see also rule 303, but never mind the trivialities) runs as follows: