A self-inflicted injury

Tuesday, 26th February 2008

When the great controversy erupted over the ‘bugging’ of MP Sadiq Khan when he visited his friend and constituent Babar Ahmad in Woodhill prison, where he is fighting extradition to the US on charges that he ran a website raising funds for Taliban and Chechen terrorists, I wrote here and here that this was an artificially whipped-up storm. The claims that the bugging breached the Wilson doctrine that MPs should not be bugged and that Sadiq Khan MP had been targeted because he was both a Muslim and a thorn in the official side were wide of the mark because a) the Wilson Doctrine didn’t apply in this case since it only applies to surveillance requiring a Home Secretary’s warrant which is not needed for bugging; and b) it seemed that it was not Sadiq Khan who was the target of the bugging but Babar Ahmad.

Yesterday, the Home Secretary made a statement to the Commons on the inquiry into this affair by the surveillance commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose. Sir Christopher had concluded that a) the Wilson doctrine did not apply to the bugging, only to surveillance which required a ministerial warrant, and b):

It is absolutely clear from Sir Christopher’s report that my hon. Friend was not the target of that surveillance.

Moreover, the police didn’t even know that Sadiq Khan was an MP. Can there be any greater ignominy?

However, having squashed every accusation flat the Home Secretary then put her gears into screaming reverse and said that, as Sir Christopher had pointed to a degree of unclarity in this area she would be issuing revised guidance that any conversations between MPs and their constituents would be treated as ‘confidential information’ and protected from covert surveillance.

This is yet another bad capitulation on the security front. Hallowed as the relationship between MPs and their constituents may be, we are living in a time of unprecedented threat to this nation. If any MPs have been consorting with members of jihadi networks, the security service jolly well should be listening to what they are saying. The extent to which this government is going to undermine its ability to defend this country against the threat that it faces is simply astounding.