You couldn't make it up but the police did

If the intelligence mistakes and gun-crazy policing over Forest Green were not bad enough, it now emerges (with considerably less coverage than the original allegations) that the police have tried to blacken the name of the man they shot in the chest. And the police, as the saying goes, have previous. The poor victim of Forest Green was said to have child pornography images on his second-hand computer (which he used to learn English and maths), but it turns out it was a complete fabrication. As it was when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot numerous times in the head after boarding the Tube train at Stockwell. The police were happy to let out witness reports that saw a man dressed in bulky vault the ticket barriers - subsequently revealed as a plain-clothes policeman and that he ran away from the police - subsequently revealed as the vanguard of the pursuing cops. The truth is (as all the witness reports are compiled) de Menezes gave out no indication of suspicion and the whole besmirching operation was designed to cover up the monumental incompetence and following cowardice of the Metropolitan Police. One of those officers who blew away the unsuspecting de Menezes is at it again, acting as judge, jury and executioner as a suspect at an armed robbery situation was killed instead of being incapacitated. Dom Joly should do an adaptation of his past work and call it Trigger-Happy PC. It was Stephen Lawrence's murder and the appalling, deliberately-botched investigation that followed that got the Metropolitan Police the tag 'institutionally racist', such as trying to say that Lawrence's friend and witness to the murder was involved in rape cases and was caught driving a stolen car (in fact, his own). Teh tag though merely confirmed the obvious and if the Met has taken steps to clean itself up, it is fallen victim to 'institutional Islamophobia' to the point where clean-shaven Brazilians are at risk, let alone men with beards. Meanwhile, there is no anonymous internal sources talking about heads rolling at MI5 or the Met, because, in the War on Terror, incompetence and malfeasance are rewarded. Politicians indulging in dangerous, millenial talk of the West facing a 'generation of war' (or at least war until the current generation of politicians are out of office), and with the police shabbily trying to protect themselves rather than the public after cock-up upon cock-up against Muslims (whatever happened to those ricin poison plotters; once more, charges dropped), radical imams have a goldmine to expolit. Or maybe, MI5 and the Met are trying to cut out the middleman and are directly trying to be recruiting sergeants for extremist Islamists themselves.

As England crumble in the first test at the 'Gabba-toir' (just like at Lords when we reclaimed the Ashes in the successful series last year), Steve Harmison is coming under intense criticism. Radio Five Live put up a suggestion about what breakfast to feed Harmison to boost his spirits. I say feed him to the sharks.