Goodbye Ian, hello Mandy

The departure of Sir Ian Blair as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is no great surprise. But, more importantly, it's actually a good thing - despite what Jacqui Smith might say in her whining about Boris.

Ian Blair has, since the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, become increasingly divorced from reality. Most importantly, he has become untrustworthy. I, as a Londoner, don't trust him. His fellow senior police officers don't trust him. He was unwilling to take responsibility for massive blunders (see earlier post about the Menezes debacle - incidentally, he was Mr Menezes, not Mr de Menezes). Ian Blair was a political creature - that is, a mendacious, self-serving, self aggrandising man in a job which should be about helping other people. Boris did the right thing - if only it had happened sooner.

The return of Peter Mandelson to the cabinet is simply extraordinary. Not because he's already resigned twice over misdemeanours, but because it is well known that he and Gordon Brown have hated each other for the last fourteen years. Gordon has nevertheless dragged him back from Europe, where he was being cheerfully ineffectual, for no good reason I can see. He hasn't removed David Miliband, who has been setting out his stall as a future leader, or Alistair Darling, who has been monumentally useless. This is a pathetic reshuffle.

I should also point out this excellent article, the import of which is that the credit crunch is Bill Clinton's fault. It is a better explanation of the current problems than anything we've heard from the congenital Bush-haters, who will blame the current Republican administration regardless. It's worth thinking a little about the current orthodoxy - it may be wrong.