Enough Already

You know when you are having a row with your partner or relative and you allow yourself to take the heat of the argument way beyond its origins? All you can then achieve is causing infinitely more aggravation and antipathy out of all proportion to the rights and wrongs of the dispute.

So it is with Andrew Mitchell's bitter confrontation with the Met Police about what was and wasn't said when he lost his temper with Protection Officers outside No.10 gates several weeks ago. It has escalated to the point where the former Secretary of State and short-lived Chief Whip has declared unilaterally and rather pompously, given his status as an ordinary MP, that he has "no confidence" in the head of the Met, Bernard Hogan-Howe.

If he wanted to get himself re-instated to frontbench politics then I would suggest picking a losing battle with the nation's top copper is not the way to go about it. Of course, the latest reports would suggest the 'evidence' around this case has been constructed to put Mitchell in a worse light than was originally merited. The PC who posed as a member of the public and appeared to corroborate the other officers' testimony was mischievous and perhaps motivated by swingeing cuts in police numbers and pension entitlements.

But Mitchell admits he f-worded these officers and so the public are never going to percieve a great injustice has been done. We are like neighbours witnessing a terrible row through a thin separating wall. We do not consider the merits, we just want the cacophony to stop.