London Mayor Forces Resignation of Scotland Yard Chief

"I have today offered my resignation as commissioner to the Home Secretary which she has reluctantly but graciously accepted,” says Ian Blair. (ATR)(ATR) Britain’s top police officer – closely involved with planning security for the London Olympics -- has resigned after failing to win the support of London’s new mayor.

Thursday’s shock resignation of Ian Blair has exposed the fault lines that lie between the U.K.’s Labour Government and London’s Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson. The rupture shows the potential for tensions that could last until the 2012 Olympics.

Blair blamed his resignation as the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police on the lack of confidence in his leadership shown by Johnson.

"Without the mayor's backing I do not consider that I can continue in the job," Blair said.

Johnson, elected as London Mayor in May, takes over as chairman of London’s police authority next Wednesday.

Blair’s announcement followed a meeting between the two yesterday. Johnson described Blair’s resignation as “a clean break and the opportunity for a fresh start for policing in London”.

Historically, the Met’s Commissioner has always been appointed and answerable solely to central government’s Home Office. But since 2000, when the first mayor for London was elected, the city’s police service has also had to answer to City Hall.

As long as Labour-supporting Ken Livingstone was mayor, that division was not an issue. But Johnson has never disguised his unease with the often controversial Blair.

Auditors are looking into Met contracts awarded to a personal friend of Blair, who is also subject of an official complaint from the country’s leading Muslim police officer, who has accused the Commissioner of racism.

In the wake of the resignation, the government of Gordon Brown’s government did not disguise its disgust at Johnson’s efforts to oust Blair.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wrote to Blair and accepted the resignation “with great regret”.

Appointed in 2005, Blair’s Met police force is subject to an on-going enquiry over the shooting that summer of the Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes.

In the febrile tension in London following the 7/7 bombings, Blair’s officers have already been shown not to have taken due care in determining that de Menezes was not, in fact, a bomb-carrying terrorist.

“I do think it is very, very weird that you have a guy who is shot in Stockwell Tube and the whole Metropolitan Police is blamed, it’s said there are systemic failures, and yet no one actually in the end carries the can,” Johnson said six months before election.

Since May, Johnson has refused to voice any confidence in Blair. The conclusion of yesterday’s meeting was that the relationship between the two was unworkable.

Johnson reacted to the resignationNot getting along: London Mayor Boris Johnson and Ian Blair at a July press conference. (Getty)by saying: "There comes a time in any organization when it becomes clear it would benefit from new leadership and clarity of purpose. I believe that time is now."

In his statement, Blair said: “The new Mayor made clear, in a very pleasant but determined way, that he wished there to be a change of leadership at the Met.

“I’m resigning in the best interests of the people of London and the Metropolitan police service.”

Blair, 55, leaves Scotland Yard on Dec 1.

Educated in England and at Harvard High School in Los Angeles, Blair joined the police force as a graduate trainee in 1974 after being a contemporary of Tony Blair at Oxford University.

One of the biggest issues to be resolved by his successor will be the appointment of a head of 2012 Olympic security. Blair has placed Tarique Ghaffur, the assistant commissioner with Olympic security responsibilities, on “gardening leave”, after he launched a public complaint against his boss over racism.

As well as policing within the Greater London area, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, through the Home Office, has national duties for anti-terrorism and security. Concerns were raised last month over the rising security budget for the 2012 Games.

Written by Steven Downes

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