Some shocking quotes have come out of the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest as police chiefs attempted to pass the blame for his shooting from themselves to the victim.

There were two particularly worrying comments mentioned in the BBC’s coverage. Firstly:

Last week Det Ch Supt Jon Boutcher told the inquest jury: “I cannot see anything we could have done that would have changed the course of the tragedy of Mr de Menezes.”

He also admitted he could not rule out someone being killed in a similar situation again.

If one of the web applications I support at work went wrong, I’d be expected to find the cause and make sure the same problem didn’t arise again. Apparently in matters of life and death, no such corrective action is considered necessary by the Metropolitan Police. It’s lazy, complacent and worrying.

Far more offensive, though, was the evidence from Deputy Assistant Comissioner Cressida Dick:

“He was extremely unfortunate to live in the same block as Hussain Osman, desperately unfortunate to look very like Hussain Osman, and the things he did in all innocence, the way he behaved getting on and off the bus, contributed to our assessment – my assessment – of him as a bomber.

“But if you are asking me did we do anything wrong or unreasonable, then I don’t think we did.”

To summarise her comments:

People who deserve no blame for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: The police

People who deserve some blame for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: Jean Charles de Menezes

So what can we extrapolate from these two testimonies? That the Metropolitan Police accept no culpability for the shooting and therefore see no need to take any action to stop a similar horrific cock-up from happening again, and that changing your travel plans on the London transport system is considered evidence of being a terrorist.

We should all be afraid.

I see from the Beeb that Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the Leader of the Lords, is to replace the repatriated Peter Mandelson as the UK’s member of the European Commission.

There was speculation previously that Geoff Hoon could have been the nominee, which would have prompted a by-election in his parliamentary seat because you can’t be an MP and an EU Commissioner.

But can you be a Lord and an EU Commissioner?

Section 1.1.1 of the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct (PDF) states:

Commissioners may not hold any public office of whatever kind.

Now that sounds fairly unambiguous. Being a member of a legislature, however that position is obtained, must surely count?

Baroness Ludford, the Liberal Democrats’ London MEP, has a similar problem: MEPs are no longer allowed to sit in national legislatures, so in order to continue in the post after the European elections in 2009, Sarah Ludford will either need to get the rules changed, or resign her peerage – something the law doesn’t currently allow her to do.

Until now, it’s not been in the Government’s interest to help out by introducing a law that would give “life” peers the ability to give up their peerage – a change similar to that made to hereditary peerages following pressure brought by Tony Benn in the 1960s when he became Viscount Stansgate.

Will Baroness Ashton’s new post prompt Labour to act so that she can avoid a conflict of interest? Or will they try to fudge the issue by claiming that a voluntary “leave of absence” from the upper house – during which she could effectively return to and vote in the Lords whenever she wanted – would be enough to meet the European Commissioners’ Code of Conduct?

Long time readers of this blog will be aware of an awesomely popular, semi-regular feature, written when I used to be involved in classification of library resources, where I highlighted some of the latest additions to the Dewey Decimal System.

So I was delighted to be alerted by a former library colleague to this month’s changes which are all about the classification of political parties.

For example, should you find yourself needing to classify a book on the French Communist Party in Paris, 324.2440750944361 – leaning towards being mistaken for pi by the inattentive – is the number for you.

And now, added to 324.24106 (Liberal Party and its successors) is the entry:

Class here Liberal Democrats

Result.

I couldn’t resist flicking through other recent months’ updates for old times’ sake, so here are some highlights:

• Management of household finances moves from 640.42 to 332.024
• 364.16: “Class here looting, pillage, plundering”
• 364.4: “Prevention of crime and delinquency – including curfew, eugenic measures”
• 133.539 changes from “Trans-uranian planets, and asteroids” (remember, transuranic planets may not be used where there is life) to “Neptune, Pluto, asteroids, related bodies”
• To reflect its recent demotion out of the planetary premiership, Pluto itself is moved from 523.482 to 523.4922

The shortlists for the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards are now up on Liberal Democrat Voice. Meanwhile, the judges are beavering away to decide the winners, which will be announced at party conference on Saturday.