So now we know that no charges will be brought against either Damian Green or Christopher Galley. Here is the CPS statement explaining its decision.
The real point about this scandal is not the conduct of the police or their search of Damian Green’s parliamentary office – they were told by government that national security was at risk, and acted lawfully in their search. To focus on them is to miss the point.
The real issue here is that the police should never have been called in at all to investigate leaks which were merely embarrassing to the government. Jacqui Smith is responsible for that decision: she should be held accountable for it.
This morning Keith Vaz bizarrely claimed the referral to the police was entirely the work of civil servants, and that ministers had no involvement with it. That cannot be right, and indeed is not supported by the evidence given to his committee in January by Jacqui Smith and Sir David Normington, from which it is quite clear civil servants did not act on a frolic of their own. To be fair to Jacqui Smith, she herself has not sought to hide behind civil servants. In an interview with the BBC this morning I heard her make clear she shares responsibility for the decision to call in the police – a decision she still defends.
Damian Green was quite right this morning: the issue here is whether ministers acted in an authoritarian manner by calling in the police in order to protect themselves from political embarrassment. Jacqui Smith at the very least agreed to police involvement: that is the central fact in all this, and should not be lost sight of.
Smith must have known and agreed to Police involvement. The leaks embarrassed the government and, in particular, the Home Office.
Once the Police were called in they went about their task with relish: threatening Green with “life imprisonment”, examining his computer, trying to establish links with Shami Chakrabarti. It all smacks of a Police Force which constantly seeks to please its political masters.