Astonishing news: the Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green has been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office – a doubly vague and, to policemen, useful charge, based as it is on a conspiracy to commit a common-law offence. Here are the CPS’s guidelines on misconduct in a public office. Iain Dale is unsurprisingly on to the story, as are Guido Fawkes and Fraser Nelson.
I don’t for one moment think the government knew of, ordered or connived in the arrest – if they did, it would be a British mini-Watergate – and part of the reason I take that view is that this is extremely unhelpful to them politically. The apparent involvement of counter-terrorist police seems massively over the top and the whole affair throws the David Davis approach to civil liberties into sharp relief.
I’m troubled by the arrest, and the police’s tendency to carry out daft stunt arrests, as in the cases of art picturing children, where they’ve made utter fools of themselves before. This affair may lead to quite a rumpus, and rightly so; it’s an extraordinary move, and seems contrary to the public interest in Parliament’s knowing the truth. The one argument that I’ll be unsympathetic to from Mr. Green’s supporters is that “civil servants and MPs have always done this”: that argument applied equally to ‘cash for honours’. Mind you, the suspicion there was of something clearly contrary to the public interest, so perhaps different considerations apply.
I hope they bail him soon, and that the Speaker takes a properly open attitude to allowing an emergency debate rather than one based on hidebound attitudes.
Speaking from direct and recent experience, the chances of my colleagues and I taking such action without direct political intervention is vanishingly small.
Leaking is now a common political tool and I believe generally unpunished or dealt with internally. Nobody calls the cops and the cops aren’t looking because if we started locking up leakers on our own initiative we would be busy for months if not years.
Perhaps I’m naive, Jack, but if there was political involvement here, and that comes out – then I think it’s the biggest political story for months. And could even be a fatal blow for Gordon Brown.
The anti-terrorist police thing is just a quirk of a 2006 police reorganisation.
OSA cases have always fallen to Special Branch, which was merged into the Counter Terrorism Command in 2006, hence you get a superannuated Plod on the case rather than the regular variety.
We should all be concerned about the heavy-handed Police methods used here and in the recent Redknapp case. I am afraid that heavy-handed Policing is far to commonplace these days. Just because the Police have been given a search warrant does not mean that they need to turn out an army to execute it.
I understand that the Redknapp case has caused some Magistrates’ Courts to review its processes for issuing warrants. That is a good thing.
Mr Speaker knows who his master is. And it is certainly not Parliament.
What possible justification can there be for the Speaker allowing the Anti-terrorist Police to raid MP’s offices in the Houses of Parliament? Does this not call into question the whole concept of Parliamentary Privilege?
The Speaker should have refused entry, instead of aiding and abetting this gross affront to Parliament and its Members.