Looking in at Scotland Yard from the outside, one is forced to wonder what on earth is going on.

The official line is that crime is falling. Yet the rate at which teenagers are being murdered on London's streets is alarming — higher than last year, when Sir Ian Blair declared it to be “unacceptable”. Meanwhile, senior officers engage in rows about promotion that are presented as principled concerns but look like clashes between sizeable egos.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner spent much of yesterday in a small room above a shopping precinct in East London arguing before an employment tribunal that he was not a racist. His deputy, Sir Paul Stephenson, had been there the day before, as had Sir Ian's predecessor Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington. Senior police officers around the country have been served with papers or asked for statements in relation to the allegations made by Commander Shabir Hussain.

The commander may well have a case, but at a time when youth violence in London appears to be out of control the public parade of his grievances — at considerable cost in legal fees — casts the police in a poor light. “I despair about what kind of message we are sending to the public,” one senior officer told The Times. “Senior public servants indulging in petty squabbles and infighting while kids are being stabbed on the streets.”

Sir Ian's contract as commissioner has about 18 months to run. It is likely to be marked by more scandal. In September there will be the inquest into the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22, 2005 — at which officers will give conflicting evidence about what happened and who was to blame.

That same month, the first officer to be convicted for fraudulent spending on his Scotland Yard credit card will be sentenced at the Old Bailey. He is one of hundreds involved in a corruption inquiry that has seen 1,400 officers stripped of their corporate Amex cards.

By then Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur may have decided whether to take his claims of race discrimination to a full employment tribunal. It would be an explosive affair, with Mr Ghaffur revealing the contents of the secret diary about events at the Yard that he has allegedly been keeping for two years.

Amid all this, Boris Johnson, who before he became Mayor of London called for Sir Ian to step down, will become chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Whether any of this spells the end for Sir Ian remains to be seen. He has stayed doggedly at his task. But the succession is being openly discussed. Sir Paul is in pole position and Assistant Commissioner John Yates is highly regarded.

Others say that the Yard needs a new broom. When the Home Secretary took questions at a recent police chiefs' conference the first three came from men touted as potential commissioners: Bernard Hogan-Howe, of Merseyside; Sir Norman Bettison, from West Yorkshire; and Northern Ireland's Sir Hugh Orde. The jockeying for position has begun.

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