Call off the Bahrain Grand Prix

The former Met police assistant commissioner announced in 2009 that the force did not need to reopen its phone-hacking investigation, only for the case to blow up in his face when journalists did the job that we pay police to do.

He announced later that his decision, which he took without feeling the need to examine documentary evidence, had been "pretty crap."

Yates said that his officers' failure to detect the hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone had been "a source of great regret," which must rank among the greatest understatements of all time.

More trenchant criticism came from parliamentary terrier Tom Watson MP, who disputed the officer's interpretation of events.

Watson told the House of Commons: "John Yates's review of the (News of the World phone-hacker) Mulcaire evidence was not an oversight. Like (Met assistant commissioner) Andy Hayman, he chose not to act. He misled Parliament."

Many people, not least the repressed Shia majority of Bahrain, would take issue with Yates's description of the kingdom as "safer than London."

It wasn't safe for the Bahrainis shot dead by Saudi Arabian troops who intervened in March last year at the behest of the monarchy after massive pro-democracy protests involving a fifth of the population.

It certainly didn't provide safety for the 1,600 peaceful demonstrators, medical professionals, journalists and human rights campaigners arrested last year, 100 of whom were sentenced to long years in prison by special military tribunals.

Such repression is intended to guarantee the safety and security of part of society, the privileged minority, but it does nothing for the majority.

Yates, who was installed as security adviser to the Manama regime four months ago, following his resignation from the Met, serves his new masters' interests loyally by writing to the formula one motor sport body FIA president Jean Todt telling him that there is little to worry about.

Little, that is, apart from "nightly skirmishes" in many villages, which are often "overplayed" by social media.

Unluckily for him, Amnesty International has examined claims of human rights abuses in Bahrain and concludes: "Despite the authorities' claims to the contrary, state violence against those who oppose the al-Khalifa family rule continues, and in practice, not much has changed in the country since the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in February and March 2011."

Even the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, set up by the king, reported human rights violations, excessive use of force, widespread torture and unfair trials.

Its conclusions, published on November 23 2011, included a call to let human rights groups into the country to monitor the situation, but any applying since then have been denied entry.

To hold an F1 grand prix in such conditions would clearly be an affront to Bahrainis seeking democratic accountability and control of their own lives.

F1 billionaire boss Bernie Ecclestone prefers to leave the issue to the monarchy, drawing unflattering parallels with British cricket and rugby boards' collaboration with apartheid South Africa on the grounds that sport and politics were separate matters.

Sport is part of normal daily life, but there is nothing normal about a police state protecting a corrupt royal clique. The Bahrain grand prix should be cancelled without further ado.