Blurring The Lines

This morning my best friend Sir Ian Blair has returned once more to give everyone something new to make them sleep uneasily in their beds every night.

Yes. Him. The government's favourite police chief and loyal sheep. Every week or so he likes to pop his head above the parapet and let everyone know he supports this government, he loves ID cards, he wants more power for the police and he wants more anti-terror legislation. But then again, what police officer doesn't want to be feared and "respected" by the loyal Citizens? It's hardly surprising he wants more power.

What's more worrying is the fact that he has not long took up this post and yet he is becoming a regular media commentator and mouthpiece for the government. It is inevitable that next time someone tries to tell Blair why ID cards won't work, he will tell everyone that the Chief of the Met wants ID cards, and who is better qualified than a Police Chief to tell us what we do or don't need.

Therein lies the problem. Sir Ian Blair has become a political figure. Remember the separation of powers? The good old principle that one arm of the state is not supposed to be able to ride roughshod over the others? Sure, we don't have an official separation of powers in this country, and in some cases it's hard to tell the difference between the legislature and the executive, but the principle is there and there are ways of exercising it.

The police force are a sub-branch of the Executive. The Home Office is an Executive department. The police force are an Executive agency - they are the agents of the Home Office and execute the laws in place.

Therefore, what follows is simple. The Police chief is not a legislator. He has no powers to legislate. Thus, for the chief of the Met to get involved in promoting and arguing laws - and there is no doubt Tony Blair will use his public statements to back up his case - there is a breach of the separation of powers. The police are there to execute the law. They are intended to be independent of government; if they start making the law up as they go along, then it almost seals the deal of the police state Charles Clarke and Blunkett seem to want to push us towards.

This is becoming a problem in our political culture at the moment. We've already seen how Labour's obsession with spin has blurred the lines between the civil service and party officials. The politicisation of the senior civil service is often talked about. Then we already have the declining legislature in the face of the mighty Executive. And now this: the police telling us what laws we should and shouldn't have.

Just another uncomfortable development of authoritarian governments.