METROPOLITAN Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is to quit.
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The trigger for his resignation is believed to be an allegation in the Daily Mail that he used public money to pay for his own personal PR advice, but the Met Chief has been under pressure for some time.
He is currently in the middle of a racial discrimination claim by one-time ally, Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, while also lambasted regularly by fellow officers for expending, as they see it, too much effort on race equality issues.
Meanwhile new London mayor Boris Johnson has been conspicuous in his lack of support for Blair, who was close to former mayor Ken Livingstone. Some reports say that Johnson has made it known he can no longer work with Blair.
Perhaps Blair’s darkest moment came in July 2005 when members of his force shot dead the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes, thinking he was a terrorist. Blair, only a few months into the job, was seen as slow to admit his officers’ mistakes.
