Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 4 June, 2006 10:00
Sky News’ ‘Sunday Live with Adam Boulton’

Boulton:          A very serious matter this terror raid.  Have you got a feeling yet as to whether it is a very serious issue or possibly a ghastly mistake?

 

Davis:             No because all the indications say it is somewhere is that spectrum but it could be as far across as somebody being shot in a raid which was a mistake to the other end where they have actually pre-empted something serious.  I don’t think the police actually have any choice, however, if they get a piece of intelligence which says there’s a poison gas bomb or a poison bomb being planned and it is being planned soon they have to act so I don’t think they had any choice in that respect.  Whether it turns out it was an intelligence error well, we will have to wait and find out but some would say better safe than sorry.

 

Boulton:          Do we have now the correct procedures in place for when someone is shot in these circumstances, the immediate investigation by the independent police complaints authority, I mean, is that the right way to proceed?

 

Davis:             I am sure the immediate investigation is the right thing.  You have got to do that, indeed I actually think there are some aspects of the IPCC enquiries that will need to be tightened up, the rule where by the policemen have twenty four hours to make their statements, there are things like that.  But I think we are going to get a lot of insight into that when the Menezes enquiry comes out I guess in the next month and I think one of the things that will come out of that will be the way we address both these sorts of operations.  I think there will be implications for real changes in that but also I think the way we follow up on them.

 

Boulton:          Some people might say, as you were saying yourself, this is a very serious matter; a real threat believed to be to life and limb.  The police have got to act and inevitably mistakes will be made and to immediately get into an investigation into police conduct while their own investigation is going is a bit premature.

 

Davis:             You have got to know exactly what happened.  In this raid there are disputes ranging from a suggestion in one of the newspapers that they shot each other through to suggestions in other newspapers that the shot was fired without warning.  Now, with those issues the immediate memory is very, very important, you can’t leave that for days so I actually think that the procedure of going in quickly and finding out what happened is important in the interest, incidentally, of the policemen themselves, of protecting them.  One of the worst things I have seen in terms of natural justice over the past few years have been policemen kept waiting for a year whilst the investigation process comes to a conclusion.  They’re suspended, they’re off duty, they can’t do anything, they’re already traumatised because they have been involved in a shooting and someone has died.  Those things have to be done quickly so I don’t think there is any doubt that that is the way to do it but I actually think there will be suggestions coming out, suggestions from the IPCC, I shall be making them, as to tightening up the procedure, making it even more rigorous not less.

 

Boulton:          How serious does this continue to be for Sir Ian Blair?  You mentioned the Menezes report which his coming out, suggestions in some newspapers he’s going to be exonerated and in others suggestions that he is very much going to be named and in the firing line.

 

Davis:             It is hard to tell until you can see the IPCC report but I don’t believe, and I may be proved to be entirely wrong, but I don’t believe in the suggestions that he going to be prosecuted like in one of the newspapers.  I can’t conceive of a circumstance in which that would occur but I could see circumstances arising where his judgment would be challenged, judgment in terms of his handling of the public presentation of it, whether he was on top of it, whether he knew soon enough that the person who died was actually a completely innocent Brazilian.  Those sorts of things you -

 

Boulton:          - Potentially career threatening issues.

 

Davis:             Absolutely. Understand the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is the most senior operational commander in terms of anti terrorism therefore what goes with that is a requirement from him that he has impeccable judgment under extreme circumstances, circumstances in which most of us would fall to bits.  He is requires to make very good judgments at those times and the standards are very high so if he has failed then it will be career threatening but I think what we will have to see is to wait and see what the facts are.

 

Boulton:          Speaking of career threatening situations I think you have now shadowed three Home Secretaries, you are onto your third now and I read that your estimate is on the average so far that John Reid will be sacked in May 2007.  Do you feel that he is now dealing with the issues that you want to be dealt with –

 

Davis:             - Not really.  Let me correct the estimate, somebody had actually took the average time that he had spent in office which is 11.9 months and put it down on my scoring average which is not really the way it is.  But no, when he got it, when he first arrived I said this is a job which will only be dealt with properly if he focuses on the management of  the system, not on bluster, not on spin management and media management.  I am afraid what we have seen over the last few weeks has been media management ranging from completely bogus stories about involving victims in the release of prisoners or non release of prisoners, the now infamous way he dealt with five illegal immigrants who were involved in cleaning up the home office, the way he has talked about his own civil servants.  They might be great for headlines but these are not a very smart way to focus on running – everybody admits it is a difficult department -    

 

Boulton:          - He said that the department was not fit for purpose and needs a radical overhaul.

 

Davis:             Well, I have to say, they have been in government for nine years and much of the problem in this department has happened because it has become overwhelmed by the consequences of their own policies whether it is immigration and asylum policies, whether they have left control of it, whether it‘s the way they have run their prison policies.  I mean, all this stuff about the absconding prisoners started with a ministerial decision in 2002, not a civil servants decision, a ministerial decision.

 

Boulton:          A lot of these questions come down to keeping track of individuals and one does have to say that an obvious solution would have to be identity cards, at least if someone was on the criminal justice system or the immigration system or indeed in a Labour exchange you would actually know if they were legitimate or not.

 

Davis:             In an obvious way they would make it worse; they can’t even manage national insurance numbers.  National insurance numbers are dead simple, very easy, known problems, known weaknesses but easy to manage and they don’t even have two departments talk to each other when they are almost certain that they have got an illegal immigrant or someone with a bogus document in front of them, they still give them a national insurance number.  Now, if they can’t even do that, if they can’t handle people coming in with bought and false passports from some of the weaker European countries in terms of this kind of management, if they can’t control that they’re not going to be able to control the way in which people are going to get into the identity cards system.  So, what is going to happen is if I am a, I don’t know, an eastern European criminal and I turn up with bogus papers and I get into the system I am instantly validated.  It is ridiculous, it is a silly response to it and it is going to cost 20 billion.  I can think of a dozen ways of spending that 20 billion and getting a decent outcome, Identity cards are not one of them.

 

Boulton:          Fresh allegations today against the immigration service in terms of giving right to remain in exchange for favours.  How serious do you think that is?

 

Davis:             Actually very serious.  It follows on allegations two weeks a go of sex for visas, now it is bribes for visas, same part of the system as well and bear in mind that this issue was raised by The Sun newspaper, I think it was last December or January this year and there was an investigation.  That investigation exonerated the system and now we find we have got the problem again, it only demonstrates only too clearly that what we are seeing is a system which looks for cleaning up headlines rather than cleaning up the system and we have got to put it right.

 

Boulton:          Finally, I have got to ask you, six months a go you could have been leader of the Conservative Party but David Cameron won so how do you rate his performance?

 

Davis:             He’s doing pretty well, I rather agree with the eleven out of ten that you got earlier.

 

Boulton:          Really?

 

Davis:                         I do!  I think he has got on very well.

 

Boulton:          And do you still wish it was you?

 

Davis:             I don’t really think about it to be honest.  What we do think about everyday, he and I, is how are we going to get rid of this government and replace it with a decent Tory government – that’s the important thing.