Good policing is about leadership. Good leadership is about decision-making. Good decisions are, well, decisive. Aren’t they?

So when the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police says that he is going to rebut a report and leading article in The Thunderer, one expects a defining moment.

The venue for this important pronouncement was to be this month’s meeting of the Coordination and Policing Committee of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Committee members and officers who had gathered to discuss routine personnel issues were somewhat inconvenienced by the media gaggle awaiting the commissioner’s arrival.

They were even more put out when BlackBerrys buzzed to announce that Sir Ian Blair would not be attending the meeting after all, and the reporters and cameramen duly made hurried exits. Instead, the Met chief would be saying his piece outside Scotland Yard, standing in front of the famous revolving sign.

The problem was that it was now raining. Cue a flurry of phone calls. Should it be done inside the building? Wouldn’t the commissioner look wet and bedraggled?

No matter. This was about leading from the front, so outside in the rain it would be.

And out he came in full uniform, Sir Ian, flanked by his aides, statement in hand. There would, he asserted, be no questions. The Times report had no basis in fact. It was without foundation.

“Most people are pleased to get a couple of letters published in The Times in their lifetime. To have two leaders written about oneself in a matter of weeks would normally be very flattering,” he said.

“However, newspapers do not always get everything right. As Mark Twain said after reading an account of his own death in the New York Journal, ‘The report of my death is an exaggeration’. ”

Hang on a minute. One point of clarification, if we may. Whatever The Times reported yesterday, at no point did we say that the Commissioner had died.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Donor organ allowed child’s own heart to heal
• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating