Tomlinson: it's videobloggers vs "Magnum Force" on the streets of 2009

Despite the attempted cover-up, it's looking more and more like the police 'officer' who killed Ian Tomlinson may be brought to justice.

This particular fascist bootboy has miscalculated badly... both individual video bloggers and the news TV camera crews got him "bang to rights" literally. Showing him whacking Tomlinson from behind, well before the poor guy collapsed and died.

The initial coroner's report on the death was garbage... just plain garbage. As another Tomlinson (Ricky - good left winger) might have said: "heart attack - my arse". It took a second postmortem to get the proper cause of death - internal bleeding.

Well done to both the TV camera guys and the individual videophone jocks for getting the vital footage. In future, the more cameras there are recording these kinds of incidents, the better. (Provided of course that the cameras are in the hands of the public and not the authorities.

As for the police... it's quite clear that there is an element within the Met (to be precise, within the territorial support group, or TSG) which is trying to run a "Magnum Force" style vigilante force. These people are wearing police uniforms (though without identifying insignia so you can't tell who they are, and often with balaclavas on as well) but they are really operating like some kind of fascist junta. I'm not going to launch into some tirade here about how all police are fascists, as I simply don't believe that. But, there is an element who are, certainly. Hopefully the 'officer' who appears to have killed Mr Tomlinson will face prosecution for manslaughter. In terms of the wider future of the police force - and of democracy in the UK - the key questions are:

• who (if anybody) authorised police officers to appear in public without identifying insignia, and to take this kind of action? 
• the police top brass always denies that this sort of thing goes on. Are they just lying to us, or is there a rogue element within the police operating as a law unto itself? 
• were Labour politicians involved in authorising these kinds of police tactics?

Getting the answer to these questions should be an absolute priority for the weeks ahead for all of us. Fail to get the answers and we move one step - at least - closer to a police state.