New Year Dishonours

When sad old aging rockers /variety acts - like Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi of Status Quo  - are included in the New Years' Honours List then it is easy to dismiss the whole thing as  farcical and comic. At worst yet another instance of our antiquated state - quaint if increasingly irrelevant.

But when Cressida Dick is included - the senior police officer in charge of the Charles De Menizes shooting scandal - there is something downright fucking outrageous going on. The inquiry may have exonerated her from criminal responsibility but it still found that the whole operation was mismanaged - so it is difficult to see in what possible sense an award could be merited.

In fact it is impossible to conclude that this is anything other than the state sticking two fingers up at its critics - in the most insensitive and offensive way it can.

It's ironic that the concept of 'honours' is involved at all: If 'honour' had played any part then Dick should have very publicly  fallen on her sword (or possibly truncheon ?) - even now she could have  quietly declined the award. The front-line CO19 officer  tasked with pulling the trigger at least had the decency to break down whilst giving evidence at the inquiry. Meanwhile Dick who directed the operation from the safety of a command room merely tried to worm her way out of  responsibility ... for which she now has the Queens Police Medal.