THE INDEPENDENT: We could call it the "Bonfire of the Vanities", but that literary cliché feels glib for what is happening in the Metropolitan Police today. Two responsible, mature men, holding the most critical jobs in the capital, upon whose judgements and actions millions depend, bust up in public. We are witnessing scenes more poisonous than the McCartney/Mills divorce as the men get sucked up in a vortex of fury.
This confrontation is calamitous for Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur (a fellow Ugandan Asian) and for the Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, who both endeavoured to transform and modernise the Met. Ghaffur is now receiving death threats, some from insiders he fears. The Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson orders him to "shut up" as if he is some coolie punkhawallah.
The fallout shatters the hopes of many of us who want to believe that inspirational leaders can make workplaces and institutions truly equal for all. However, the most catastrophic consequence is still to come. The collapse of trust between the two will cause fresh and wider fractures. This Confrontation Is a Calamity for the Capital >>> By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
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