Met chief denies he is to be sacked
Sir Ian Blair denied rumours he will be axed as Metropolitan Police chief in a statement given yesterday outside Scotland Yard’s headquarters.
Newspaper reports said ministers and other police chiefs were secretly planning to remove Blair, who has been dogged by controversy since taking over as chief in February 2005.
The first action would be to tell Blair in writing this week that his contract, which has 18 months still to run, would not be renewed when it expires in 2010, the report claimed.
“The story in today’s Times has no basis in fact. Newspapers do not always get everything right,” Blair said and added that the Home Office had also rejected the suggestions.
“As Mark Twain said after reading an account of his own death in the New York Journal, the report of my death is an exaggeration. Same here, I have a job to do, I’m getting on with it, and will continue to do so.”
He said there had been no discussions about his contract or future, and that it was unlikely there would be any until his last year in office.
The media has often criticised Blair. Most recently he has become embroiled in an embarrassing high profile row with Britain’s highest ranking Muslim officer, Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who has accused him of racial discrimination.
Last November, he survived a no-confidence vote from his force’s presiding body, the Metropolitan Police Authority, over the fatal shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes who was mistaken by officers for a suicide bomber.
Blair insists he will stay in his job despite the criticism and pointed out his success in cutting crime and neighbourhood policing.