Most of the time I have every sympathy for the police who are often doing a dangerous and thankless job (especially in these “leafy” parts of SW London) but the De Menezes shooting has always made me angry especially the implication that in dangerous times the normal rulebook should be chucked out. So I am “pleased” with the verdict that the police endangered the public. Obviously this is not a “pleasing” result for anyone and will have implications for the Met in particular but the police have to be held accountable when things go wrong and there were always things about the official account which did not sit straight. As no one person within the police would admit they got it wrong, they have to take collective responsibility for the tragic loss of an innocent life.
November 1, 2007
Dracula’s late visit
So the delightful doctor ordered a whole load of blood tests (for no apparent reason – how he expects pernicious anaemia to clear itself up I do not know). Went off to the lovely St Thomas’s this morning (fasting blood tests are obviously my favourite) and even the nurse said: “Gosh, they want a lot of blood don’t they?”.
Actually can’t complain. St Thomas’s system is really rather good – you turn up, take a ticket and then get seen by a nice nurse. These nurses are generally rather jolly and as they take blood all day every day, they’re good at it so you tend to avoid (my) usual problems of not being able to find a vein and then the little titchy vein they found collapses. My nice nurse today even went off to get a little needle because of my rather small and imperfectly formed veins. So we shall wait and see what all these tests show – the good thing is I’m feeling really rather well: hurrah!
