Tom Utley follows up last week’s rather fine column with this:

I reckon Moss is no more a role model for the impressionable young than
Sir Ian is a role model for middle-aged men. After all, very few of us
go around in expensive, showy-off half-moon spectacles, demanding the
power to administer summary "justice" to our fellow citizens, just
because the Met Commissioner is so often on the telly.

And:

Perhaps this is one of the reasons he chose to intervene in her case,
knowing that invoking her name would guarantee him wide coverage in the
media. A shyer man would surely have thought twice about suggesting
publicly that the police should be allowed to bypass the courts,
imposing anti-social behaviour orders and confiscating people’s cars,
so soon after his men had shot and killed an innocent Brazilian
electrician, in the mistaken belief that he was an Islamic terrorist.
Sir Ian’s own role in that tragedy – allowing the falsehood to get
about, uncorrected, that the victim’s dress and behaviour had attracted
suspicion, and that he had jumped over the barriers at Stockwell
Underground station – hardly inspires confidence in the wisdom or
honesty of the police. If the top man behaves in this way, why should
we trust his underlings to show better judgment when they take it into
their heads to confiscate our cars?

Good stuff, eh?