Ian Warwick Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton, (born 19 March 1953) is a British retired policeman who held the position of Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 2005 to 2008 and was the highest-ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service. He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1974 under a graduate scheme, and served 10 years in London. As deputy chief constable of Thames Valley Police, he handled the protests over the construction of the Newbury bypass, and then became chief constable of Surrey Police, before being appointed deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and then commissioner in January 2005. His term of office saw the mistaken shooting of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, which resulted in contradictory police reports, and his comments on race caused some controversy among ethnic-minority police officers. In October 2008 he announced that he would step down from the post in December after disagreements with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. Blair was appointed as a crossbench life peer in July 2010. Early life Ian Blair was born in Chester to Jim and Sheila Blair in 1953. His father spent most of his career working for Lever Brothers, eventually rising to manage the dock at Port Sunlight in Merseyside. His mother was from Sheffield and her father had made a living as a steel merchant until he suffered major losses in the Great Depression in the 1930s. Both Blair and his brother, six years his senior, were sent to independent school at the expense of one of their father's brothers, who was a successful doctor. Blair's brother, Sandy, left school early to work for a solicitors' firm. Blair was sent to Wrekin College in Wellington, Shropshire. Jim Blair had been determined that his son would become a doctor—as his father (Ian's grandfather) had been, but Ian rebelled, refusing to take O-Level biology, knowing it would disqualify him from a potential medical career. He initially had no aspiration to go to university, as neither of his parents nor his brother had had a university education. However, he was inspired by a teacher at Wrekin to apply to Christ Church, Oxford. After a gap year, he went on to study English at the University of Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1974. Early police career Blair joined the Metropolitan Police in 1974, under the High Potential Development Scheme for Graduates. He