Episode 2

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw tells the inside story of Sir Ian Blair's tenure as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

This liberal Oxford-educated 'Blairite' was once seen as the ideal candidate to modernise British policing and, in particular, to eliminate the taint of 'institutional racism' from the Met. But his tenure became increasingly controversial and he was forced to step aside, dogged by the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, accused of racial discrimination by one of his most senior officers and facing allegations of cronyism.

Shaw talks to those who have known Sir Ian throughout his career and examines how Britain's highest-flying officer came to be embroiled in a bitter dispute at the top of Britain's biggest police force. Was Blair a victim of politicisation or could he simply not do the job as he had promised?