Ex-Met Head Blair hails rebels
phish | 13.03.2011 10:08
Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Ian Blair has said that rebelling against the status quo is "triumphantly admirable"
We'll quote you on that on the 26th then....
We'll quote you on that on the 26th then....
Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Ian Blair has said that rebelling against the status quo is "triumphantly admirable" in a speech for Lent to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4.** He apparantly made the remarks whilst talking on the subject of the need for conflict as an "essential part of natural and human progress".
In the talk, he talks about how received and complacent wisdom always needs to be challenged, saying without it, mankind stagnates and loses sight of its highest purposes. He referenced in this context Martin Luther, Nelson Mandela, William Wilberforce and Rosa Parks - all rebels against the status quo in their time.
At a time when families of victims of 7th July 2005 have been attending the inquest into the tube and bus bombing on that day, Blair's remarks will be seen as completely insensitive considering Blair was Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time of the blasts. However, it is certainly not the first time Blair has made controversial public statements that have offended and bewildered at the same time. Among his most notable gaffes are:
- On the day of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell, Blair said the shooting was "directly linked" to anti-terrorist operations even after his assistant commissioner was briefing journalists that the man may have been innocent. He went on to block an independent inquiry into the shooting, which he was subsequently criticised over by the IPCC
- when he said in Jan 2006 that "almost nobody" could understand why the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham became the "biggest story in Britain"
- When emerged that his claim to have been shot at by a gang of IRA terrorists during a pursuit in 1975, which he described as the most dramatic experience of his career, wasn't true. He admitted he had not been "in the thick of" the incident.
[**The Lent Talks on BBC Radio 4, which begin with Lord Blair on Wednesday March 16 at 8.45pm, will run for six weeks and be repeated on Sundays at 12.30am. Other speakers include the Imam of the Ground Zero Islamic Centre, Imam Feisel.]
In the talk, he talks about how received and complacent wisdom always needs to be challenged, saying without it, mankind stagnates and loses sight of its highest purposes. He referenced in this context Martin Luther, Nelson Mandela, William Wilberforce and Rosa Parks - all rebels against the status quo in their time.
At a time when families of victims of 7th July 2005 have been attending the inquest into the tube and bus bombing on that day, Blair's remarks will be seen as completely insensitive considering Blair was Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time of the blasts. However, it is certainly not the first time Blair has made controversial public statements that have offended and bewildered at the same time. Among his most notable gaffes are:
- On the day of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell, Blair said the shooting was "directly linked" to anti-terrorist operations even after his assistant commissioner was briefing journalists that the man may have been innocent. He went on to block an independent inquiry into the shooting, which he was subsequently criticised over by the IPCC
- when he said in Jan 2006 that "almost nobody" could understand why the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham became the "biggest story in Britain"
- When emerged that his claim to have been shot at by a gang of IRA terrorists during a pursuit in 1975, which he described as the most dramatic experience of his career, wasn't true. He admitted he had not been "in the thick of" the incident.
[**The Lent Talks on BBC Radio 4, which begin with Lord Blair on Wednesday March 16 at 8.45pm, will run for six weeks and be repeated on Sundays at 12.30am. Other speakers include the Imam of the Ground Zero Islamic Centre, Imam Feisel.]
phish