'Boris forced me out,' says Sir Ian Blair as he quits as head of Scotland Yard

By Liz Hazelton and Stephen Wright
Last updated at 5:52 PM on 02nd October 2008

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Sir Ian Blair today claimed Boris Johnson had forced him out as head of the Met.

Britain's most senior police officer announced his resignation after a crisis meeting with the Mayor of London yesterday afternoon.

The Met boss, who was been mired in controversy over recent months, said he would have been happy to continue in his post - but was given no choice.

Resignation: Sir Ian Blair announces he is quitting the Met today after new London Mayor Boris Johnson told him he was no longer wanted

'I would have wished to continue to serve Londoners until my term of office expired in February 2010,' Sir Ian said this afternoon.

'However, at a meeting with the new Mayor he made clear, in a very pleasant but determined way, that he wished there to be a change of leadership at the Met.

'I understand that to serve effectively the Commissioner must have the confidence of both the Mayor and the Home Secretary.

'Without the Mayor's backing, I do not consider that I can continue in the job.

'Personally I see no bar to working effectively with the new Mayor, but it is there that we differ and hence I am unable to continue.'

The Commissioner said he would step down on December 1, to provide opportunity for the search for his successor to get underway.

'I offer Boris Johnson and his team at City Hall and at the Police Authority the very best of fortune; he added.

The Mayor issued a statement shortly after Sir Ian's announcement, praising his service but adding the Met would benefit from new leadership.

'He can be very proud of his record in helping to keep millions of Londoners safe from harm,' he said.

'However, there comes a time in any organisation when it becomes clear that it would benefit from new leadership and new clarity of purpose.

'I believe that time is now.

'Following a meeting between myself, Sir Ian and (deputy mayor) Kit Malthouse yesterday he has agreed to give someone else the chance to offer new leadership for policing in London and I am sure he has done the right thing.

'He leaves with our gratitude and our best wishes.'

Prime Minister Gordon Brown also praised the Commissioner, saying he had made a 'huge personal contribution to the safety and security of our country.'

'I congratulate him and his officers, and of course I want to pay particular tribute to Sir Ian's leadership when London experienced the most serious terrorist attacks ever on British soil,' he said.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she accepted Sir Ian's decision to quit 'with regret'.

'Sir Ian has always had my support for the demanding and vital tasks that we expect of the Met,' she said.

'They go well beyond the effective policing of London - a tough enough job though that is - to the Commissioner's national role in policing and tackling terrorism.

'I pay tribute to Sir Ian for the massive reductions in crime which his leadership at the Met has overseen, and his continuing efforts to tackle gun, gang and knife crime.'

She added: 'Sir Ian can be proud of his contribution locally and nationally.'

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats welcomed Sir Ian's decision to leave.

Fraught relationship: London Mayor Boris Johnson (left) has already stated he is keen for Sir Ian (right) to go

Mr Johnson's crunch meeting with Sir Ian came just hours after he took control of the Metropolitan Police authority at midnight on Tuesday.

The Conservative mayor had apparently wanted to oust the police boss, who has been dubbed Labour's favourite copper, from his post for some time.

There had been reports that the Mayor was considering a vote of no confidence in his Commissioner.

Privately, City Hall sources made clear that the policeman's contract should not be renewed when it expires in February.

Sir Ian has faced a turbulent three-anda-half years since taking over as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in February 2005, culminating in today's unprecedented decision to stand down.

Some of the most damaging allegations have erupted in recent weeks with a Metropolitan Police Authority investigation launched into Sir Ian's role in awarding contracts to one of his friends and accusations by Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur of racial, religious and age discrimination.

The Met Commissioner is also facing renewed pressure over his handling of the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station in July 2005 with the start of the inquest into the killing.

Chaos: Jean-Charles de Menezes was shot dead after police mistook him for a suicide bomber. It was the biggest crisis of Sir Ian's reign at Scotland Yard

It is expected to raise fresh concerns about Sir Ian's management of the operation and its aftermath which has already led to the Met being convicted under health and safety laws.

Sir Ian's time as Britain's most senior policeman has also been blighted by a series of verbal gaffes.

They include comments claiming that 'nobody understood' why the Soham murders of schoolgirls Jessica Wells and Holly Chapman became a big story and a suggestion that falling crime in Haringey meant that residents now felt able to leave their doors unlocked.

Further pressure followed the Met Commissioner's admission that he had secretly tape recorded a number of telephone calls, including one with Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.

He was also accused of dragging the police into politics with his endorsement of the Government's 2005 bid to raise the pre-charge detention limit for terror suspects to 90 days.

Few would have predicted that so many allegations would hit Sir Ian, 55, when he took over at the Met after an impressive earlier career which had seen him hold senior posts in three forces.

Educated in Shropshire and Los Angeles, Sir Ian joined the Met as a graduate trainee in 1974 after finishing his degree at Oxford and started as a beat constable in Soho before rising rapidly through the ranks to become a detective chief inspector by 1985.

He subsequently led a major investigation into corruption within the force but then left to work for HM Inspectorate of Constabulary before taking up senior posts with Thames Valley and Surrey Police, where he served as the force's Chief Constable, and finally returning to the Met in 2000 as Deputy Commissioner.

He became Commissioner with apparently rosy prospects, having been knighted two years earlier for services to the police, and dubbed the 'thinking man's policeman'.

Among the successes that his supporters will point to are steady falls in crime in London during his tenure, with the most recent figures showing a five per cent drop in the number of offences in the capital during the last 12 months.

Sir Ian Blair at a Sikh Gurdwara: The Met's relationship with some community groups had been riddled with problems

Ethnic minority recruitment has also risen sharply during Sir Ian's time as Commissioner, despite a recent spate of race discrimination cases launched by senior Asians within the force, while another plus has been his introduction of neighbourhood policing which has significantly increased the police presence on the streets.

Despite such positive developments, Sir Ian has rarely been popular either within the Met or outside the force and has regularly attracted criticism from all sides of the political spectrum.

Some have seen him as a 'politically correct' government stooge, while on the Left his handling of incidents such as the Forest Gate arrests, when one man was accidentally shot and hundreds of police deployed during an unsuccessful anti-terror raid, has raised doubts about his ability to deal effectively with the issues of Islamic extremism and counterterrorism.

Last November's conviction of the Met over the de Menezes killing led to fresh calls for Sir Ian to quit.

The publication soon after of a damning Independent Police Complaints Commission report into the shooting dented his support even further.

The head of the watchdog body later went on to say that Sir Ian's conduct had been responsible for much of the 'avoidable difficulty' which had hit the force in the wake of the shooting.

Although Met officials tried to keep him out of the limelight, aware of his propensity to stir controversy with rash comments, he managed to anger the Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald - and embarrass senior officers within his own force - with inaccurate comments criticising the failure to charge supermodel Kate Moss over pictures showing her apparently taking cocaine.

This succession of incidents, combined with frosty personal relations with some of his most senior colleagues, left support for the Met Commissioner ebbing away.

The arrival at City Hall of Boris Johnson, an avowed critic, coupled with the spate of recent allegations over contracts and racial discrimination today finally made his continuation in office untenable.

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