Television
Roger Graef's The Siege of Scotland Yard (Channel 4, Tuesday) showed Sir Paul Condon, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in a state of contortion, not contrition. On the day of the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report, Condon wanted it every way: to perform a mea culpa yet keep his job, defend his record yet accept blame, promise change yet keep his old-fangled coppers on side. Looking at his stiff-necked gait at the beginning of the week, you wouldn't have given him a chance of reaching the end of it without his back being broken in several places.
Sir William Macpherson's woolly new definition of "institutionalised racism" as "unwitting, through ignorance, thoughtlessness and stereotyping" caused Condon the most trouble. He told his inner circle that they were in a catch 22 situation. Unless they sought "definition and limitation", there would be "real grief on the streets" (presumably from his ignorant, thoughtless officers); but by querying Macpherson the Yard would look as if it was "into grudging acceptance".
But there is no circle that cannot be squared by the right sound-bite. The Yard was soon calling the non-definition "new and demanding". "We bow our heads to Sir William's judgement," said the new boss of the Racist and Violent Crime Task Force almost entirely without sarcasm. His PR was delighted.
As the tactical pow-wows with the spin-doctors went on, I wondered if Condon wouldn't have been better employed sitting in a room reading what Macpherson had to say - which was, you may remember, although the film did not remind us, that he had displayed a "lack of rigour" in investigating his own force and shown undue hostility to the work of the inquiry. Instead, he role-played Jeremy Paxman and listened to his henchmen offering weasel answers of increasing inventiveness. Dennis O'Connor, an assistant commissioner, was taken with a slogan he had heard from activists in Washington: "You can't lead from where you haven't been." Condon suggested only an Irishman could recommend him to repeat that.
Oh dear. An old judge had managed to get up to speed on the race relations speak, but with Condon you can never be sure the odd Irish joke won't slip out. Condon was best among his own. Addressing a hall of senior officers, he warned them not to argue the toss. "It's an unfair world - it doesn't begin to compare with the unfairness and the tragedy for Neville and Doreen Lawrence. So I don't want to hear whingeing . . ." There was a murmur of assent but, damningly, the camera could not find a black policeman anywhere in the room.
It was an inspired idea getting this perspective on the Lawrence affair, even if Graef only rarely penetrated Condon's facade. On the day itself, he did catch him in a sweaty, morose moment looking at portraits of his game-shooting predecessors. If Jack Straw had put Condon out of his misery right then it would have been a mercy sacking. Instead, Condon's PRs pulled off mission impossible. Without wishing to limit anyone's right to self-defence, was deploying an extra six of them to save his skin a proper use of public funds?
"It is easy," said the man at the top, "to be very critical and to be extremely destructive and leave everyone with a lot of negativism."
This was Richard Willis, who is charged with getting the Pierre Victoire restaurant chain back on its feet. Willis had his problems, too, even if they were nothing worse than pernicious and institutionalised bad cooking. (The nearest thing to racial prejudice in the Pierre Victoire empire was a shareholder complaining that one of the bistros has been spotted with curry on its menu.) The cheap and cheerful restaurants, as some of us had noticed, had become cheap and nasty some time back.
Too Many Cooks (BBC2, Wednesday) was the latest of the schadenfreude-rich Trouble at the Top series on business traumas, and showed the foodie multiple in the first weeks of recovery from bankruptcy. As in the Met, everyone "accepted the need for change". Willis's prime candidate for chief executive was less sure, especially when not a single shareholder turned up for the meeting that would have appointed him.
"This business still postpones too easily," he concluded reasonably. Still, by the time the cameras left, the original Edinburgh restaurant had been done up and the customers had returned. If only I could be certain that Graef had visited Scotland Yard in a similar moment of turnaround.
Andrew Billen is a staff writer on the London "Evening Standard"
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