What might really be behind the arrest of Damian Green

David

I hope bigger and more embarrassing leaks do emerge. Providing the OSA hasn't been broken without good cause, I'd welcome it. It would show once and for all that this thing was politically motivated; if the police moved now to prevent something politically deadly from coming out and destroying Labour.

James J

Time for the Conservatives to state that if they form a government they will not necessarily keep in post key public sector appointments they don’t have confidence in.
The days when the public sector could be relied upon to be neutral are over ,we might as well move openly to the US system.

steve

The other major development would be if Damian Green was found to have offered cash, jobs or favours in return for the leaks. That would be a serious criminal offence

Pat

"this risks the appearance of a posible conflict of interest"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David Lindsay

Somebody should be sacked over the Damian Green affair, of course.

Most obviously, and I write this as a very strong supporter of the Police, that needs to be somebody inside the Met, which has clearly decided to go after the party of the politician who has driven its Commissioner (however ill-liked, he was one of their own) from his job, and to avenge its own self-humiliation when it failed to have charges brought over the flagrant sale of seats in our very legislature.

It must not be Mr Speaker Martin.

Yes, he is everything that New Labourites of all parties disdain: economically left-wing, morally and socially conservative, orthodox Catholic, working-class, from the Heartland (the Midlands, the North, the Scottish Lowlands, Wales in general and South Wales in particular) that is now infuriating them even further by returning to economic pre-eminence, committed to traditional parliamentary procedures and to the purposes behind them, undoubtedly very sceptical about European federalism (within American hegemony and globalisation) on the one hand and the break-up of the United Kingdom (into bits all the more easily handed over to the European superstate, the American hyperpower and global capital) on the other.

And yes, he has probably been put at a disadvantage in this case.

But if he goes, then that is the end for everyone who is any one or more of economically left-wing, morally and socially conservative, orthodox Catholic, working-class, from the Heartland, committed to traditional parliamentary procedures and to the purposes behind them, and sceptical about European federalism on the one hand and the break-up of the United Kingdom on the other.

Save Michael Martin.

mac

David Lindsay

You need to rest. Seriously, you do.

Tankus

Tony Benn for speaker

Verity

Tankus - No. IDS.

Wilhelm

David Lindsay

Its a word salad, son.

Fergus Pickering

I don't think either of them would want the job. But the next speajer CAN'T be a Labourite. The convention was that it went back and forth but the Blair/Brown axis trampled on that as it trampled on everything else. I suggest the red-haired git, if he's amenable. Everybody trusts him, if he truly has forsworn the bottle that is.

Archie

Nail on the head, Verity! Perfect choice!
David Lindsay: you cannot be serious!

strapworld

I think Mr Lindsay is saying something important. I disagree with him but I respect his views.

I have this feeling that this scandal is going to be seismic.

'They' will be doing everything to try and pin something on Green. But they also will want to avoid prosecution or else, as David Davis wrote yesterday, Green will be able to subpeona everyone he believes will assist him in his defence - and that includes Brown! who will have to be dealt with as an hostile witness!. WHAT a case that would be.

But there are so many balls in the air in this scandal. The new commissioner's job!, the attack on parliament! the involvement, or not, of politicians!

It has certainly blown Brown well and truly off course, and I, for one, hope he can never recover!

Dennis Skinner for Speaker!

(I thought I would end on a funny!)

Ken Johns

Oh yes Strapworld, it would be indeed worth witnessing Brown actually answering a question for a change.

Note: I deliberately didn't add "truthfully", of course.

BrianSJ

The theory is very sound. The leaks to date have been embarrassing for the Home Office but nothing new there.There has to be something of a different order being concealed.

C Powell

"The latest rumour doing the rounds about the Damian Green affair is that the Home Office is worried about a much bigger, more embarrassing leak that might soon emerge."

Oh for heaven's sake: that much was obvious to anyone with any knowledge of investigative procedures. Indeed I told you so myself over the weekend.

If you are investigating PAST events, you do not need to disable someone's email account, especially when you have identified the leaker and have him in a safe house. You would only do this in order to stop that person doing his/her job. Why is it necessary to stop Damien Green doing the job he was elected to do i.e. represent his constituents and deal with their concerns and hold the Government to account on the portfolio he was shadowing? There is no such good reason - other than intimidation or to stop future leaks. But neither of these are proper uses of police powers.

What the police have done is akin to what internal investigators in firms do when an employee is suspected of breaching internal policies/regulatory rules i.e. suspension while the investigation is carried out. But the reality here is that the police have suspended an MP from carrying out his elected duties and that is a very sinister development.

I hope that Jonathan Caplan QC and others will take all legal and Parliamentary routes to ensuring that Green is allowed to continue working as an MP - by having his email account reinstated or setting up a new one, otherwise the essential basis of our constituency-based Parliamentary democracy is being seriously harmed. I also hope that serious legal challenges will be made to the basis for the police actions.

As for Stephenson, the Tories should make it clear that he does not have their confidence as a future Metropolitan Police Commissioner and that Normington should not be on the Panel - for obvious reasons. If their objections are not met they should say that they consider themselves free to reopen the whole question when they are in power, regardless of what decisions are taken now.

Finally, now that even Harman is expressing queasiness about this and talking of inquiries the Tories should publicly say that they will have a full inquiry into this, including into the whole question of bugging of offices, Blackberries, etc so that Smith and others know that they will be held to account on this in due course. This needs to rumble on like the "Arms to Iraq" rumbled on for the Major government.

And at PMQ's DC needs to keep his questions short and to the point: What did Brown know about the investigation (not the arrest) and when did he know it?

The longer he's known about it the more the impression will be created in the public's mind that this was the Government trying to stifle opposition and this fits in with the picture they have of Brown and this government as bullies.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

No, the real reason for the Green arrest, in my view, can be hinted at in Harriet Harman's response.

Expect to see new legislation to "protect" MPs from a police state, but it will be so written as to protect them from the law in general, just as the EU has in mind for all its 'representatives'.

It is ironic that MPs bleat about wanting protection from a police state, yet do not seem to be so keen about protecting US from it, or even remotely aware that they voted in all the enabling legislation.

Ross Burns

Jacqui Smith ( real surname or hotel name?) is in danger of becoming one of the boys, more so than Mag Thatch was prepared to go. I see her getting a skinhead soon, being interviewed in a flak jacket and caressing a loaded Heckler and Koch.