Cause of death? What do you want?

I know, let's get Freddy on it

How immune to criticism do the Metropolitan Police imagine they are? Can you picture the conversation?

Ian Tomlinson is dead. Things have not gone well. Policing of the G20 protests, the peaceful G20 protests has been at least heavy-handed, and arguably brutal. A wheelchair user has been dragged and beaten. There is CCTV and cellphone video footage of Tomlinson being pushed to the ground and hit with a batton. Tomlinson was on his way home from work at the news stand near the Monument underground station. He was not in any way involved in the protest. He didn't understand the obscene and (I think) illegal practise of 'kettling'. He just wanted to get home from work.

“Guv, guv. This is going from bad to worse.”

“You 'aint kiddin'”

“This is going to be high profile.”

“Get Freddy onto it.”

“Guv, you are joking...”

“Nah. Get Freddy onto it. Heart attack, tell him.”

“This 'aint going to work guv.”

“Just do it son. Give it to Freddy. He'll know what to do.”

Freddy Patel made 68 errors in the autopsy. That's staggering. He'd already been suspended for four months. He said Tomlinson had died from arterial disease. No other pathologist agreed with his findings. In a world where twisted, evil, authority-serving lies are described as errors of judgement (see nuclear waste, global warming, all that stuff), Freddy Patel's peers have called him dishonest and liable to bring the profession into disrepute. The fact that this guy was given this case and reached these conclusions, working unsupervised despite his track record, suggests an unbelievable level of arrogance and a total lack of acceptance of any accountability.

I walked past that news stand every morning between London Bridge and the office, for three or four years, and I used the Monument station to travel around London. Anyone armed with a pair of eyes would instantly realise that Ian Tomlinson was not any threat.

The policeman who killed him has previous for brutality. He's been let off. The pathologist who happened to be assigned to the case has previous and a suspension on his record. Isn't anyone going to step in and start picking things apart? Is there no internal affairs department in the Met? Are we back to miners' strike days and Westminster's private army of boot boys in blue handing out beatings to anyone who disagrees with their view?

Fowlers End, Kindle

I love books, and I love the Kindle too (as in e-book reader, not necessarily of the Kindle brand, I'm not an Amazon fanboy or anything). There's too much one-or-t'other. Both is good, both is better. Fowlers End is a grubby, lawless, down-at-heel fictitious London suburb all residents and ex-residents of London suburbs will recognise.