The story continues...

This Andrew Mitchell business (see last Saturday's post) won't go away, will it?  As is so often the case, I think the most pertinent question is not being asked (or if it is, I've missed it) and that is, why did the police refuse to allow him to ride his bike out of the main gates, as apparently he was used to doing?  An approach I find useful when trying to get to the bottom of something, is to think in terms of a domino race - you know, where each domino knocks the next in line down.  And what you look for is the first domino - the one that starts the whole thing off - and here, that clearly was the decision of the police to not allow him to use the main gate.  Everything followed from that.  So why?  After all, the Chief Whip is one of only three members of the government to have offices in Downing Street, and I hardly think they would have refused to let the Prime Minister or the Chancellor (if in fact he rides a bike) go through the main gate.  So was this in fact just a matter of mistaken identity?  After all, he's only been in post a week or two and maybe he wasn't recognised?  In which case, I would think apologies are due from both sides.