I suppose it depends how you look at it. The Telegraph reports this morning that "High-profile but uncontroversial figures... receive awards today in a deliberately low-key Queen's Birthday Honours list." Almost as an afterthought, the final paragraph of their piece adds that "The country's most senior anti-terrorist police officer, the Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, Andy Hayman, 46, receives a CBE."
The Times front page headline, on the other hand, shouts "Honours row over shooting blunder policeman", which seems closer to the mark, if you'll pardon the pun. This recipient of the Government's largesse is "facing a disciplinary investigation over his involvement in the aftermath of the shooting dead of an innocent man after the July 7 bombings... [He] was also in command of a disastrous raid in East London two weeks ago in which a man was shot and injured, but later released without charge."
Whether or not Hayman deserves the honour for services to the police is not at question. What is doubtful is this Government's outrageously insensitive timing of the award, close to the anniversary of the shooting of Menezes last year, and only days after the trauma of the upheaval of the community in Forest Gate. It's typical of NuLab's indifference to anyone's feelings but their own and their cronies'.
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