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. It is this, so word has it, which explains both why Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, called in the police and why the police were prepared to go to such extreme lengths. This theory was bolstered this morning by Jacqui Smith’s declaration on Andrew Marr:
One other thing we can expect to hear more about in the coming days is that Normington will, as The Sunday Times notes, “chair the panel that will interview and vet applicants for the job of Met commissioner.” Normington—the man who called the police in to investigate the leaks—is now set to interview and vet a candidate, Sir Paul Stephenson, who is deeply involved in this controversy. This risks the appearance of a possible conflict of interest.“There are four leaks that are in the public arena. The point is that this started as an investigation into a systematic series of leaks about which, of course, it was not clear what had been leaked and what may not have been leaked.”
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