Remember Jean Charles de Menezes

Adverse weather has kept me away from the office today and therefore also from the unveiling of the memorial mosiac for Jean Charles de Menezes. Happily a full report is available online at the admirable HarpyMarx blog.

I'm sorry to have lost two uncles over the past week or so. Though one died younger than he should both had lived full lives, worked hard, contributed to society and seen their children grow up. Both were also, in their time, public servants.

Jean Charles, on the other hand, died as a young man thousands of miles from home and did so at the hands of police officers whose job it was to protect him.

While the Government may have felt it right to honour the officer responsible for this tragic outrage, the mosaic provides a lasting opportunity for local people to remember, and honour the memory of, a young man cruelly killed by the police.