Speaker's 'regret' leaves Brown isolated
James Forsyth 4:43pm
Michael Martin came close to apologising to the House when he said that he “regrets” that police entered Parliament and searched Damian Green’s office without a warrant. Tory grandees including Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith pressed the Prime Minister on whether he too regretted that all this had happened without a warrant. Brown was left looking rather lonely as he repeated his pre-packaged line that he respects the police’s operational independence. It’ll be interesting to see if Jacqui Smith will go further than this when she addresses the Commons tomorrow.
During Cameron’s speech, the interventions of several Labour MPs show that they wanted to pull Cameron into this affair; clearly believing that the Tories will not want to take any risks if their leader is involved. But so far, today has broken in the Tories’ favour. Although, it does seem odd that David Davis doesn’t seem to have spoken yet—but I did pop out to answer the phone a few times so I might have missed him.
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Comments
C Powell
December 3rd, 2008 5:41pmPlease could we have a link to Cameron's speech.
strapworld
December 3rd, 2008 5:46pmOne cannot see from the television. BUT Mr Davis may have stood and the speaker may not have called him!
However, I feel that he decided to hold his fire to Monday because that will be quite a fight.
Not a debate. The Labour Government have decided that Mr green is guilty.
No court could possibly convict Green after the Speaker told the house that no warrant was held. They have, in effect, acted outside the law and in another blog, a highly respected QC, says that Mr green should sue the Metropolitan Police. I hope his solicitors so advise and I hope he takes them to the cleaners....of course they will settle outside court!
adrian drummond
December 3rd, 2008 7:18pmSettle out of court? Guess who picks up the bill?
Athesius the Facilitator
December 3rd, 2008 7:27pmI have a question and maybe one of you enlightened ones can help me.
Is Damian Greens so called crime retrospective? If it is then all leaks that are known to have happened must be investigated especially if new evidence has come into the domain.
Maybe this so called crime has a different status! Not!
Nicholas
December 3rd, 2008 8:19pmAfter following this story and particularly Labour's vicious but panic stricken response I have become convinced that the whole affair was indeed an elaborate Labour sponsored Home Office/Police conspiracy (once the mole had been identified and his Tory contact revealed) to smear the Tories with a new 'sleaze' label for the next GE. I think they messed it up, not foreseeing that outrage would settle on the constitutional crisis they provoked rather than on the supposed Tory wrongdoing. It is classic New Labour modus operandi, to point the finger at someone else in order to conceal their own mistakes.
The warrants inconsistency highlighted by Melanie Phillips is very disturbing but the aggressive Labour response is also highly suspicious. Methinks they doth protest too much.
Investigative journalists should have a field day with this - if there are any left. Most seem content just to parrot New Labour's jackanories.
Susan Hill
December 3rd, 2008 8:57pmTake a close look at that picture. Give it a bubble. I think Brown is saying he found his Christmas present, wrapped and hidden in the back of the wardrobe by Sarah - it`s this shape and this big... what can it be ? Cameron is putting his whole mind to the matter.
Andy Leeds
December 3rd, 2008 9:06pmBut the Police said in their initial statement that they had obtained 4 warrants. So why did they obtain only 3 ? Was the 4th refused ? And suppose they had only 3 warrants this begs a question: why did they not feel the need to obtain a warrant to search the office within the Palace ??
David Parker
December 3rd, 2008 10:42pmThe official police response (from an officer who, I understand, hopes to be a candidate to succeed Blair) was evasive, unsatisfactory, incomplete and, to my mind, insincere. It may well be true that there was no direct communication with Ms Smith, I have no doubt that she organised matters very carefully in this respect so that there was no paper (or even voicemail) trail leading to her. Nevertheless, I find it inconceivable that Brown and all his senior ministers could have been unaware of what was going on.
This is hardly news, so far as the Brownshirt Brigade are concerned, but, when it also involves senior ranks of the police we should become very worried.
wrinkled weasel
December 4th, 2008 1:43amNicholas says : "Investigative journalists should have a field day with this - if there are any left"
Quite. Most of them are cut and paste clerks, with a poor grasp of spelling and grammar. Woodstein they are not.
These days the Fourth Estate is an estate full of clapped out Cortinas on bricks, yapping dogs called "Satan",a perpetual smell of sicked up burgers and illiterates.
The New Statesman was in bed with the Smith Institute, The Times was declared by the Guardian to be "Their Master's (Murdoch's) Voice", revealing, before the war in Iraq, that the editors of his 175 titles supported it to a man. And the BBC has gone a bit lefty of late, I notice. You know the rest.
At least the Speccie argues with itself. Perhaps there is a bloke or blokette among you whose got one of those mightier pens they all go on about.
Ivy Eileen
December 4th, 2008 4:26pmSlightly off topic, but I am concerned at the public effect of pictures of the Opposition Cabinet meeting... and the way it is being portrayed at the moment - important as that may be. Also, for most of the public this scenario could be judged as MPs concerned only for their own (and unique) privileges etc etc.
What would surely resonate with the public is if the Tories (and, O.K., the Lib Dems) focussed more on the effect of all this on constituents and the damage to privacy and confidentiality following investigation, review, taking away for inspection etc of an MP's files, records, computer disks etc.