The appointment of Bernard Hogan-Howe as the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is a political appointment, and all the poorer for it.

I don’t mean Mr Hogan-Howe is a Tory, although he has been publicly cosying up to their law and order agenda. I mean that the decision to appointment him, as opposed to Hugh Orde, was clearly politically motivated.

With public concern about the Met at a high level, and especially worries about relationships between the police, politicians and press after the phone hacking scandal led to the departure of the last Commissioner, it seems extraordinary that such a clearly politically motivated appointment should be made.

Most informed insiders thought Hugh Orde was the best qualified candidate, as did the two panels who looked in detail. But they have been overruled by the political concerns of the Tory Home Secretary and Tory London Mayor. This is bad news for the future of policing.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with Whitehall or Public Management, but I got this extraordinary Press Release this morning and was so taken aback I just thought I needed to share it.

Maybe it should be relevant to public management – should government provide an e-death service along with all the other e-gov services?

“A long-needed service for our digital age, being unveiled today at the DEMO technology conference in Silicon Valley, now allows people to easily manage their “virtual” presence after death.

The company I-Postmortem today launched the websites I-Memorial (www.i-memorial.com) and I-Tomb (www.i-tomb.net). I-Memorial is a dynamic, secure, private site that chronicles milestones and thoughts, and allows people to prepare personal multimedia messages to be shared posthumously with loved ones. Additionally, I-Memorial is designed as a storehouse for a person’s digital life (account info, usernames, passwords, instructions, etc.), and allows that info to be shared after death so the deceased’s “virtual” existence can be managed

I-Tomb is The World Virtual Cemetery where I-Memorial entries are posted after death. Anyone anywhere can visit I-Tomb to learn about and honor a departed’s time on earth. People can create I-Tomb pages for loved ones and store cherished narratives, videos, audio recordings and photos there.”