EVER since Sir Ian Blair took on the top job at the Metropolitan police in February 2005, his leadership has been plagued by a succession of gaffes and rumours of infighting.

Unlike his predecessor, Lord Stevens, who was both feared and respected as a copper’s copper, the Oxford-educated Blair has failed to win over the rank and file.

Disclosure this weekend of the apparent breakdown in relations with his deputy, Paul Stephenson, over a dispute about bonus payments, suggests that his leadership difficulties reach higher up the Scotland Yard command structure.

Sources say that Blair confronted Stephenson in a blazing row this month and later sent his deputy a hand-written letter accusing him of disloyalty. One officer said: “For days they were barely on speaking terms.”

However, a spokesman for the Met said: “They have both made it clear that there has been no blazing row.”

Another officer said: “Paul Stephenson is a decent, sensible, straightforward guy and would recognise all the difficulties that would be involved around

[taking a bonus]. He would actually say, ‘Of course you f***ing can’t, stupid’.

“Sir Ian has alienated even those who are loyal to him.

He hasn’t got many friends left. He’s off his trolley. Whether it’s the stresses of the de Menezes trial . . . he has not been thinking straight.

“He is supposed to be the commissioner, the great leader who rises above all this. He is the most self-centred man I think I have ever met.”

Under nationally agreed guidelines, all senior police officers are eligible for bonuses each year if they meet performance targets such as cutting crime and recruiting more ethnic minorities. The bonuses are automatically distributed to those who are eligible unless senior officers write to the police authority waiving their entitlement.

One informed source said: “Sir Ian thinks the Met is performing well and that crime is coming down. He believes there is no reason why what happened on a single day of his commissionership should spoil the fact that he has a good track record.”

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