Armed police patrols in London - but no-one told Boris

You'd think that a decision as important as putting armed police patrols into gun crime hotspots in London might have been discussed between the top brass at the Yard and the tiller-handlers at City Hall.

But when we contacted Bojo's office for a comment on the deployment yesterday neither the Mayor nor his staff had heard a word about it. Kit Malthouse, deputy mayor for policing, was away but it wasn't a case that he had forgot to tell the Mayor - no-one had bothered to mention it to him either.

Meanwhile there was flat-spin pandemonium at Scotland Yard as the story emerged in Police Review and a hasty response had to be put together. Of course, we thought, this is Sir Paul Stephenson making a major operational decision without talking to the Mayor and therefore putting on a display of police independence.

Er no. SPS (as he is apparently known at the Yard) wasn't around and neither was Tim Godwin, the Deputy Commissioner.

So if Boris and Kit haven't got their hands on the tiller, and neither the Commissioner nor his deputy are steering the ship - just who is making these decisions?