That's not news!

i read the story on BBC News Online and it says he didn't refuse, he just asked if it was possible and continued to work while it was considered. The boss then decided that it was a good idea for "safety".

The idea that is being implied, AFAI can see, is that as a Lebonese person, he might be a target for muslim loonies or those silly anti-isreal groups with "oh look what the evil brits do, forcing muslims to guard the zionists" type ideas.

Something that appears to be being largely ignored is the fact he is still on the backup responce team for the embassy

To me though the real story is that the police are being dictated too by the media and are now wasting time on yet another pointless inquiry on the back of a press campaign.


Of course the police need to be accountable, but they just can't seem to do right by the media. It's a classic case of damned if they do, damned if they don't!


And the ultimate irony is after all this in a few months time they'll probably be criticised for spending millions of pounds on internal inquiries!

It's a reasonable story and is worth following up. As previously stated in this thread you can't have the police dictating what they guard. Otherwise left-wing police may refuse to guard nuclear bases, or take action in certain demonstrations.

The devil is in the detail with this one. If he has simply refused point blank to do it, then he should be fired. But there may be mitigating circumstances we don't know about. Sounds to me like the police need to be a bit more public about why this has happened, and it may even serve the officer well if they could put out a statement on his behalf with his co-operation. Otherwise they leave themselves open to ... well the charges we've been hearing all day.

He made a request to be moved on moral reasons. His employer obliged.

Precisely.

Let's take a fantastic example here... a politician's protection officers. All Cabinet politicians - past and present - are entitled to protection officers from Special Branch. Do the Special Branch officers agree with everything the politician advocates? No, of course not... but it is still their duty to prevent harm coming to them.

The point is not who or what you are guarding but why you are guarding it. In this case it seemed that the officer in charge didn't want to guard the Embassy because his family in the Lebanon might see him on the telly and get upset, but the way it has been handled has suggested that had he been stationed outside the Embassy he wouldn't have given two hoots if someone with a mortar wandered up and took a shot at one of the windows. Not true, I'm sure, but that's the potential situation you have if you have police saying they'll only intervene if it personally offends them.

They are there to uphold the law, not their morals.

On the other hand though there is the whole "conflict of interests" argument. He's declared a conflict of interests and his employer has recognised it.


Trying to keep on the TV topic a bit more, I have certainly noticed over the last couple of years especially how TV news programmes, specifically ITV News, take a clearer stance on issues rather than a completly neutral position.

There is a chance that this officer might, for whatever reason, have been unable to be completely objective in his duties in this particular case.

He makes a request not to have to be put in the position, and his boss was quite right to rearrange things if it was reasonably possible.

At the end of the day what matters here is the safety of the Israeli embassy. I'm sure the Israelis themselves would rather a neutral officer was there without prejudice than someone who was there under protest because he was forced into doing it.

No-one is completely neutral. The decision was right, and the officer was right to voice concern.

No news story here. Move on.

I suppose you have all seen this back in the UK press (if it is indeed as big a story there as it is here), but several of the local big daily papers here in the UAE contain a story about some controversy at the BBC because of Fiona Bruce's crucifix necklace that she regularly wears on screen, or something to that effect..........

Seems like a big fuss over nothing to me, but quite concerning that the press here are even giving it column space!

Is it really a world gone mad.....................?

Edit: Forgot to mention, the issue being that Muslim viewers of the BBC Ten Oçlock News may find this item of jewelry offensive!!!

BBC WORLD, I'm interested to know about the UAE's take on this story. Are they agreeing with the banning of the necklace, or do they consider it silly like most level-headed people would?

They don't particularly care, Jason, as they DON'T have access to the Ten and they DON'T have any iota of a clue who Fiona Bruce is! She is not known outside of the UK.

In many respects, it was quite a bizarre thing to pop up in the press down here. One really has to wonder why..............