Do the Tories really believe that the Police should be able to shoot first and never answer questions?

A big hat tip to Anthony Hook for drawing our attention to Dominic Grieve's speech to Tory conference.

What Grieve appears to say is that the Police should not have had to face a Health and Safety prosecution for the de Menezes case.

In a way, I agree. I think that the use of Health and Safety law appears a bit desperate when you are dealing with something as serious as the killing by the State of a completely innocent man. I would far rather see the prosecution of the officers who pulled the triggers if they are culpable or (as appears more the case here) the prosecution of Police Commanders personally for negligence.

The 'breach of Health and Safety' route was clearly not seen as a major failure by the Met as absolutely no-one has had to go as a result of their guilty verdict. It is quite clear that they see this matter as nothing serious.

(However, as they also appear to feel that burglary, theft, threats of rape, assault and arson are not serious enough to be worth investigating it's a wonder we bother with them at all.)

So I think that the Health and Safety prosecution route should be changed.

But I suspect that Mr Grieve has other reasons for wishing to see a change in the system. I imagine that his piece of populist rubbish was actually seeking to make the case for not subjecting the Police to any of the controls of the law where they can bring the word 'terrorism' into play.

After all, if you are innocent, you have nothing to worry about, have you?