Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We are going to pay dearly for the loss of Sir Ian Blair

I feel stinging pangs of remorse; my conscience nags me. In a recent column I commented on the noisy clash between Ian Blair and his once protégé, Assistant Commissioner Tariq Ghaffur. This was more than a bonfire of the vanities, I wrote, it was a catastrophe for London. I was even-handed and defended Blair, but not enough. Then I didn't realise there was a Tory conspiracy afoot to humiliate and oust the Met chief, to be executed by Mayor Boris Johnson, that wit, our national treasure, cuddly as a cushion – a cushion with hidden pins dipped in ricin.

In the end many were appalled by the unconstitutional, political coup. Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, a possible replacement for Blair, spoke for many when he refused to play this dirty game: "I am not prepared to set aside my professional judgement and integrity to meet short-term political expediency." The deed is done. A remarkable Commissioner has been ignominiously pushed off by enemies he made when he swore to change the culture of racism in the Met after the sober findings of the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Just to remind those with short memories, Boris Johnson denounced the inquiry judge and the "PC brigade" for "punching a hole in the Metropolitan Police", for mounting a Ceausescu-style "witch hunt". Let's hope his own words rattle in his ears today, a curse of unremitting tinnitus. As for Ian Blair being too close to New Labour, it was under his command that John Yates investigated political corruption in New Labour and the Conservative Party, going right up to Downing Street. Crime came down during his watch and I am convinced terrorist attacks were prevented.

The erstwhile head of the Met made some serious mistakes, and was rightly held accountable for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes and for the armed raid in a house in Forest Hill when a young Muslim man was shot and the family terrorised. His support of 42 days' detention without charge was a serious misjudgement. Complaints by a number of non-white officers had grown and some were unjustly victimised. But those same people will one day realise and panic – sooner than they think – that they too became inadvertent allies of plotters, politicians and their media mates, who detested Blair because he championed race and religious equality measures. No other Commissioner matched his commitment. Those who are suing him for discrimination will miss him soon enough. Irony? No, a tragedy surely.

Recession approaches so Dusky Foreigner will face even more blame for the nation's ills; immigration is such a hot concern for Britons that Gordon Brown has appointed as minister in charge, hardliner Phil Woolas. The Tories are nervous during the financial crisis, so expect them to turn populist and feed the people's paranoia. Muslims terrorists and their supporters will cheer Ian Blair's departure as a jihadi victory. Gun and knife crime creates high anxiety, rightly so, and race is the lurking ghost as victims fall. All of this needs a modern, multiracial police force which reflects the population and is trusted.

After this, most forces will, in all likelihood, return to the old colour-blind and culture-dumb approach, resulting in the kind of rough and prejudiced force we had under Margaret Thatcher, when riots and conflagrations burnt across British cities and black men were killed in custody without mercy. Hardly anyone who wasn't white joined the force, and those who did left fast. Look at France today where such riots still flare up, and you see a police force as backward as our Met once was.

Play the saxophone – heart-rending, darkest blues. Hard times are coming, especially for citizens who are African, Caribbean, South Asian, Arab, or Far Eastern and their British-born children. We are sliding off the mountain of progress and into the pits again.

Joan's message rings out across the generations

Two close friends took me off to see Joan Baez at the Albert Hall last week. I have long been a devotee, ardently attached to her moral causes. I bought her albums when a penurious student and wanted desperately to be her. Oh those many tuneless sing-a-longs, drinking cheap wine and belting out lyrics printed on the back of covers, times that whooshed by too quickly.

And now it is 50 years – 50! – since Baez first sang at Boston's Club 47. She looked beautiful as ever, cropped grey hair, clear skin, dazzling eyes. After a shaky start, her divine voice filled the space, soared, reached the dome and back. Some numbers – "Amazing Grace" among them – were, incredibly, performed without backing.

Elation didn't quite overcome the sense of defeat some of us felt. The peace we longed for never came, turned into a joke, an irrelevance. Then, looking around, I noticed that at least a third of the audience was young and seemingly most inspired by the oldest protest songs.

Baez appears to have passed on her passion to the extraordinarily gifted, youthful Thea Gilmore, the support act with whom she later duetted. Maybe this generation will reject state violence, reclaim the world and soften it. Foolish optimism. The winking, huntress Sarah Palin, Baez's nemesis, all too soon dragged me back from that reverie to ugly reality.

A privilege-free life in the RAF will serve William well

Gawd bless the RAF. It will make a man of Prince William yet, perhaps even a King who doesn't embarrass and infuriate. Republicanism, alas, isn't likely to sweep through our country any time soon. All we can hope is that the monarchs of the future can be tamed and trained to be fit for purpose. Prince William wants to fly rescue missions and will need to sign up for seven years, like others who join. Excellent lessons both. He will have to defer gratification and learn that he has no automatic, special privileges. Let's hope Kate Middleton also moves on from her singularly pointless lifestyle and finds purpose.

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