A letter in the Sun (4 July 2005) reads: “Arrogant Sir Ian Blair is unrepentant about the racism case, saying the Met can’t expect to win the confidence of the Muslim community if they ignored issues like this. Doesn’t he care about losing the confidence of the white community if he is blatantly pro-Muslim and anti-white?”

In a letter to the Guardian, Glen Smyth of the Metropolitan Police Federation complains that: “The commissioner continues to assert that the comments of one of the officers involved in the recent high-profile employment-tribunal race-discrimination case taken against the service by three white officers were ‘Islamophobic’: ‘That language was gratuitous, offensive and deliberate’.”

Which of course is exactly what it was. Smyth’s claim that he and his colleagues in the Police Federation “understand and endorse the need to understand and respect all of London’s communities” rings a little hollow.