Brian Paddick came to my house for a fundraising dinner this weekend. What a star! The (would-be) donors were all won over by him. I think it is actually his genuine sincerity and absolute determination to deliver to London. As he says – that is his track record. In the Met he delivered. In both his commands crime dropped more than anywhere else in London.

If he can translate that sort of record of delivering results in a key public service – the police – to transport and so on in London, it would be phenomenal.

That’s really the key to this job: a vision of a safer, greener, happier London – and the track record to deliver and inspire. He is not all talk. He is not prone to political spin. He is doing this because he believes he can really change London for the better. And you know what – I reckon he can too!

P.S. You can sign up for news from Brian’s campaign here.

Got an email through this morning from the Brian Paddick campaign team drawing my eyes to an interview he has given to The Telegraph. The very fact that he’s got such a large piece there is a good sign about how credible Brian’s candidacy will be with the media – and he also gives an excellent account of why he’s the best choice for London Mayor.

His comments about Ian Blair’s records at the Met is one of the most interesting parts of the piece:

The problem, according to Mr Paddick, is that Sir Ian has politicised the Met. “When Labour were the only party who wanted ID cards, Ian Blair came out in support of ID cards. When Labour wanted to extend the 90 days detention he sent one of the assistant commissioners into the House of Commons to persuade rebel Labour MPs to vote with the Government. When during the last general election the threat assessment for Tony Blair was that he should travel around in an armour proofed police Range Rover, Number 10 phoned the commissioner’s office and said we want ‘Vote Labour’ on the side of the police car, and Ian Blair did it. The decisions Ian Blair has made, the things that Ian Blair has said, have been very helpful to Labour. He has allowed himself to be seen as too aligned with Labour.”

Mr Paddick claims that Sir Ian forced him to put his name to a press release supporting Government proposals to allow terrorist suspects to be detained for 90 days without trial – even though he had made clear that he opposed the plan. “His office said ‘you are a deputy assistant commissioner in the metropolitan police and as such you will support 90 days’. It felt as if I had a gun to my head,” he said.

The political independence of the Met is, in his view, being compromised. “Police officers want the public to be proud of them, if there’s a perception that their chief is aligned to a political party that undermines rank and file officers.”

You can read the rest of the interivew here.

This is going to be an interesting contest! On Thursday evening I spoke alongside Brian at the Finchley & Golders Green Liberal Democrats AGM – I briefly began my political life there before moving to Hornsey & Wood Green – and he was, as I’d expect! – very impressive. Having this man who knows and cares passionately about London, and was a very senior police officer for years, will change this contest completely. So go and sign up to support him on his website if you haven’t yet!

Well – it looks from this morning’s papers (Mail and Times) that Brian Paddick is a serious runner to be our (Lib Dem) Mayor candidate. Good thing I’ve said nice things about him on this blog!

I chair the Stop and Search Scrutiny Implementation Panel at the Metropolitan Police Authority. This session is about training and so the head of training and various other Met officers are present to give evidence. I suppose the argument of the day was a continuation of where stop and search policy and implementation will sit in the Met.

Commander Brian Paddick is now heading their working group and hopefully he can ensure the issue is dealt with properly. If it doesn’t find a home and isn’t led by someone with clout – it will go the way of all Met good intentions

The other interest of the morning was on training. I bring up a recent occasion when several of us went to the Commons and passed through the new security scan and body search. One of our number was extremely roughly treated – curt and unpleasant.

I ask whether there is any central emphasis on not being friendly, keeping a formal distance and a sort of roughness and authoritarian manner being a requirement? Oh no – said a very, very senior officer – but you know (and I paraphrase) some of the people going into the Commons behave extremely arrogantly when we have to search them – and after you have had a few of those, well – the people doing the searches are only human…

There was a kind of shock amongst the panel members. For though quite possibly the case the implication was there were lots of rude toffs and we were dismayed that such minor encounters could bring forth such unprofessional behaviour. The implication for how police would behave in a more confrontational stop and search situation was pretty poor.

I point out that we are trying to get to a standard of training where the professional behaviour mitigates against natural instinct – otherwise we will never eradicate discrimination in stop and search.

Also, my personal view is that what goes around comes around, and until the police learn to be a bit better at all their encounters the problems will not get better. It is frustrating at this stage to see how superficial some of the warm words are.

Evening of paperwork and email. Election correspondence is building – and flooding in!