If Caught Bang To Rights Doing Something Naughty...

...go on the attack!

It works whether you're a local council caught misdirecting the public:

Our story begins in May 2010 with Andrew Boff, a Conservative politician seeking election as Mayor of Hackney.

It would be fair to say Mr Boff did not have an easy relationship with Hackney Council.

For reasons which are not compelling, his election address was not included by the Council in the booklet sent to voters before the mayoral election. There was then a decision to list him as a candidate in that booklet but still exclude his election address.

Read the rest at Jack of Kent's blog. It's long, but well worth it...

And it works if you are a CS in the police and someone in the press has had the nerve to criticise you:

A triple stabbing on the Phipps Bridge estate last month has triggered a war of words between the commander of Merton police and Mitcham and Morden’s MP.

Chief Superintendent Dick Wolfenden labelled Siobhain McDonagh, and this newspaper’s coverage of a heated public reassurance meeting on the estate two weeks ago, as “irresponsible and sensationalist” in an open letter posted on Merton police’s Communitysafe website.

Well, that's not likely to get you favourable press, now is it?

In response, Ms McDonagh said: “I was at that public meeting and Mr Wolfenden wasn’t. I was concerned the police gave the impression they weren’t going to take a significant interest in what had been identified as a long-term [gang] problem.”

Ms McDonagh said she wrote to Chief Supt Wolfenden but had not received a reply.

Her letter must have fallen down the cell steps...

An incident in which officers are alleged to have filmed and pinned to the ground an innocent Phipps Bridge student, who was mauled by police dogs hours after the stabbing, is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Professional Standards.

/facepalm