REMEMBER when the Tories described themselves as “the party of law and order”?

Alas, no more. The Shadow Home Secretary, “the lawyer’s lawyer”, Dominic Grieve, has written to the government asking 50 questions about – what else? – the Damien Green affair. All well and good. Except you would have thoight that a lawyer of Dominic’s experience would have known that at least some of the questions cannot be answered by the government and should have been directed at the police instead.

So what’s his game? Simple: if the government doesn’t answer all his questions (which it won’t, I hope), he’ll put on his faux indignation look (does he have any other?) and claim the government isn’t being transparent or accountable. And if it does answer his questions, he will claim that this is proof that the government was pulling the police’s strings all along.

Here’s an example from his nice long list: 

21. The guidance on the offence of misconduct in public office states: “A charge of misconduct in public office should be reserved for cases of serious misconduct or deliberate failure to perform a duty which is likely to injure the public interest”. In what respect was it suspected that Damian Green might have done this?

Why would any experienced lawyer expect a government minister to know the answer to this? More worryingly, if Dominic ever becomes Home Secretary (and even in a Conservative government, I think this is unlikely), he will clearly take the view that he, not the police, should decide on the remit of an investigation and decide whether or not individuals should be arrested.
Or how about this one:
22. Who in the police approved the decision to inform the mayor about the proposed arrest of Damian Green?
The clue’s in the question, Dominic. Good grief.
Or how about this:
23. Who in the police decided not to inform any government minister about the proposed arrest of Damian Green?
Or this:

24. Why was it decided to inform the mayor but no minister?

But this one is the doozy:
26. Why were counter-terrorist officers involved in the arrest?
Now, as some of the more observant readers of this blog will have noticed, I am not the Shadow Home Secretary. Neither am I a lawyer. However, unlike Dominic, I have an attention span longer than your average goldfish, and I am also able to read the comments of Sir Paul Stephenson, acting head of the Met, who has pointed out something that was publicly known at the time of Damien Green’s arrest, namely that the reason counter-terrorism officers were used was because special branch and the anti-terrorist branch had been merged. 
And Dominic Grieve, the man who thinks he should be Home Secretary, the man who reckons he’s got what it takes to hold the government to account, didn’t know this?

As the right-hand man to Shami Chakrabarti the then Shadow Home Secretary, David “Remember him?” Davis, Dominic did a sterling job in defending the rights of terrorist suspects because he thought the government was being too, too beastly to the little darlings.