Jacqui Smith should recall Lady Macbeth!

Although "kettling" by riot police goes back to 2001 and therefore culpability for allowing the technique must go back to Jack Straw, thereafter to David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid and would necessarily have to include the two Mayors of London Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnstone the actual blood spilled (in the abdominal cavity of the killed Mr Ian Tomlinson) must mainly be put at the door of the present incumbent Jacqui Smith. The latter, who clearly lacks both conscience and common sense (personally I would not leave her in charge of a small group of five-year olds) maybe presently feels like Lady Macbeth in Act Two Scene II of Shakespeare's play when she boldly asserts: "A little water clears us of this deed" Only to lose her mind and by Act Five Scene I we see her dementedly wandering and bemoaning: "Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!" With Smith gone demands can be made to discover the guidance provided to earlier Home Office ministers on the potential consequences of "kettling" and whether Smith's predecessors and the Mayors of London mentioned above carry any share of the culpability. Charges against the Police Officers involved in a clearly authorised and condoned operation of "kettling", whose risks appear to have been well known not least from the fact that the police appear to have had a house-trained Coroner on hand to rush out with a now clearly erroneous post-mortem result, do not even begin to get to the nub of this matter. The fact that this is a National problem and therefore most likely a Home Office concern is borne out by the events from Nottingham last week as explained in my earlier posting of today. One other consideration is if Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister is such a control freak and knowingly aware of Jacqui Smith's complete incompetence that he might have made himself ultimately responsible for the policing tactics used during the G20 meetings?