Sir Ian Blair’s successor? Oh dear
After the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and the subsequent investigation, there was huge pressure on Sir Ian Blair to go. It was widely felt that he kept his job because of his closeness to his political masters. People should not be too keen to see him leave anytime soon however, as his potential successor does not inspire much confidence either:
“A chief constable has told his staff to monitor online encyclopedia Wikipedia – to stop its users posting rude comments about him. Sir Norman Bettison took exception to being described as a “greedy, vain moron” on the online encyclopaedia, according to Police Review magazine. The 52-year-old chief constable of West Yorkshire – favourite to succeed Sir Ian Blair as head of the Met – has ordered employees to check for changes often.”
Now, there is nothing wrong with removing libellous or just plain unpleasant entries. However, as Sir Norman Bettison is happy for sentences like “a pioneer of neighbourhood policing” to remain, it is a bit rich of him to complain about negative comments. More seriously, it appears that taxpayers funded this Wikipedia defence of Bettison:
“A source at the force’s headquarters said that Sir Norman ordered the monitoring after the entry was changed 100 times in the past few months. “He called a meeting and said he was sick and tired of people changing his Wikipedia page. “He insisted staff regularly log on to see if the entry has been changed – and make sure the words he wants are put back on as soon as possible.”"
Is Bettison a good policeman? I don’t know. But it is worrying that the next Met chief might think it a good use of police time to defend senior offices on Wikipedia. Perhaps there is not enough crime about.
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When you are being cyber-teased, the thing to do is to let them know that it really bothers you. That’ll stop ‘em.
What an appalling waste of public time and money. I’m quite certain that if I spent my day at work buggering about on the internet and telling other people to do so on my behalf I’d be out on my arse. I see no reason for this greedy, vain moron to be treated any better. His record as a policeman is irrelevant, it doesn’t follow that a good policeman does not necessarily make a good leader.
gah!
‘it doesn’t follow that a good policeman does not necessarily make a good leader.’
should read
it doesn’t follow that a good policeman makes a good leader.
I can offer no explanation for the nonsense sentence from hell.
Clairwil: What an appalling waste of public time and money. I’m quite certain that if I spent my day at work buggering about on the internet and telling other people to do so on my behalf I’d be out on my arse.
LOL
Incidently, if Sir Norman tries to do the same thing on Includipedia, my inclusionist fork of Wikipedia, he might find himself in prison.
hah how ridiculous perhaps he does not understand how wikipedia works…! funny that he would be bothered what wikipedia says about him..
There’s never been any shortage of prats in high places in this country, though this one is particularly amusing, I must admit.