AND THAT WILL BRING US BACK TO "DOH"

Perhaps the most bizarre of all the stories in today’s news is that the Metropolitan Police in London are investigating whether an officer, giving evidence at the inquest into the death of London Solicitor Mark Saunders spoke his way through a list of songs.

When I heard it this morning, I rubbed my eyes and wondered if it was April 1. The officer known only as AZ8, has been suspended from firearms duties.

It seems that someone listening to the evidence, and a bit of a musician with pretty eclectic tastes, worked out that in his hour of evidence AZ8 had used eight song titles. This was reported to the officer’s management and the man was given a reprimand.

However, somehow it got to the attention of senior officers who decided that a reprimand was not enough. So they decided to refer the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m looking at this list of song titles, and I’m thinking that many of them...actually all of them, would have been perfectly appropriate phrases to use in the situation that the officer found himself in. I mean, he wasn’t saying things like “A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine go Down”, or “I Don't Know How to Love Him" or “Well Here it is Merry Christmas”.

See what you think of the phrases/titles used... 'Point Of No Return'; 'Enough's Enough'; 'Self Preservation'; 'Blinding Light'; 'Quiet Moments'; 'I'm Kicking Myself'; 'Any Other Way'. All of them could quite innocently have been said in an hour long testimony.

I’m a bit dubious about how he managed to get this one in though: 'F*** My Old Boots' (I wonder what that could be about actually.)

I’m just wondering, given the lamentable quality of management at the Met (remember Cressida Dick?) if this isn’t a huge mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, to poke fun at an inquest is an horrific thing to do if it is done by a member of the public. If it is done by a member of the firearms squad that shot the man, it is bad beyond belief and the guy should be sacked.

But it would be incredibly difficult to get eight song titles into evidence unless you had rehearsed it carefully, and I think it’s possible that it’s coincidence and some sad sack is making trouble.

As an afterthought I hope that the Met don’t employ people to go to inquests to check up on things like this....

Prizes for anyone who can give the artistes (or the show/film from which the pieces were taken). And remember prizes mean points!

OK IT WASN'T THAT FUNNY, BUT IT WAS A JOKE

The “plot” against the life of the Pope turned out to be a bit of a damp squib... The men who were arrested and kept in prison over the weekend were allowed to go free Sunday morning as not a shred of evidence could be found against them.

No weapons were found in their homes; no explosive materials, no plans or recipes for bombs. Nothing.

It appears that they were working men having a joke in the canteen about the Pope and his expensive visit to the UK and someone suggested something that went a bit too far and everyone laughed. You know how it gets in the canteen...

Frankly given the record of the Church on the child abuse scandal and the fact that the Pope was the guy in charge of priests' discipline for years when it was happening, and that he allowed people to get away with it, I’m surprised that the visit went as well as it did.

Normally the one thing guaranteed to get people REALLY angry is child abuse. It can even get the normally apathetic to stir their stumps and take action. But apart from a few muted protests, nothing much was said about it. The Pope said he was sorry and it seems that that is enough for people. It wouldn’t be for me, but there you go.

So anyway, the plot was a joke in bad taste that got 6 blokes a weekend at Her Majesty's pleasure for nothing much more than I've heard around Dundee over the last few weeks. You’d have thought that London’s finest would have been able to distinguish between a joke in the canteen and a serious terrorist threat. Tessie May really should be looking at how effective these people are.

Mrs Cressida Dick wasn't in charge of the operation was she?

Pictures: The Home Secretary dressed for the office... surely not? Cressida the incompetent moron that organised or rather didn't organise the operation that led to the death of an innocent man because she couldn't find the room she was supposed to be in (and who was promoted as a result of it) Dick. And a small instruction manual which you may find useful if you travel to the English capital and are likely to come into contact with plod.

Don't you just wonder what planet some of these people live on?

TAXPAYER SUBSIDY TO BLAIR & WIFE LIMITED

It’s another one of these “I just don’t believe it” moments.

It has been revealed in the Daily Telegraph that it costs the taxpayer around £6 million a year to protect Tony Blair from the vast array of enemies he has managed to collect over the years. Since leaving Downing Street Blair has taken a number of posts, for which he has to travel abroad regularly. He also is involved in 'charity' (or profile-raising) work in Africa, and of course the hugely lucrative 'personal appearance' work which he undertakes regularly. He is said to have earned in the region of £18 million in the last 2 years from this work.

Each time he goes abroad Scotland Yard has to send an advance team to carry out risk assessment, and he has to be accompanied by teams of police officers for round the clock protection. Apparently there is a team of some 20 officers assigned to Blair at a cost of £115,000 a week. Additionally members of his family receive protection. (The current Prime Minister has only 10 protection officers.)

Most of the foreign travel is undertaken for personal commercial gain. Apparently, like the bottom rungs of royalty, he rents himself out to open things and say a few words. It seems that Scotland Yard is not allowed to advise Mr Blair on what he should and should not do on the basis of cost; they are obliged to suck it up and pay out regardless of the bill to the British taxpayer. The only criteria for advice on whether to travel or not must be security based.

Not unreasonably the Metropolitan Police Authority have issues with how much this drains their budgets, particularly as Blair is out there making a vast amount of money, all for himself. The feeling is that he should be making a contribution to his security costs. It is feared that, after he has given evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry next year, the costs will rise again. When people discover more about how this man sent people to their deaths with little protection on the basis that God had told Mr Bush that it was the right thing to do, the hatred for Blair which makes him such a target, may well increase.

My view is that, when the ex-Prime Minster travels for the UK, or when he is operating on state business within the UK, he should be afforded the standard protection at our expense. However, if he decides to feather his own nest by travelling all over the world, he should be paying for that protection at commercial rates and from commercial protection organisations. We are not here to subsidise his family business.

In these hard times for our broke country, wished upon us largely by the likes of Blair, we all have to learn to live with less. Why is it that the people at the top seem to avoid any of the pain? The bankers, the other great cause of our misery, have us over a barrel. Pay us obscenely, or we leave and you’ll be even more broke. What’s Blair’s bargaining chip?