And another thing…

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?

22. Who in the police approved the decision to inform the mayor about the proposed arrest of Damian Green?

23. Who in the police decided not to inform any government minister about the proposed arrest of Damian Green?

26. Why were counter-terrorist officers involved in the arrest?

THE BBC have just reported that “Do-Nothing” Dave and Nick “The Claw” Clegg are having their own meeting because they’re in a huff at not being invited to Harriet’s much more interesting party along the corridor.

I can just imagine it:

Nick: Gosh, Dave, this is awfully good of you. Is there anything to drink?

Dave: Not at all, Vince. I’m glad you could make-

Nick: It’s Nick.

Dave: Pardon?

Nick: It’s Nick. Nick Clegg. You called me Vince.

Dave: Did I? Oh, I’m so sorry. George! Make yourself useful and Get Vi-… Nick a drink will you? Tap water all round.

George: Yes, David. Sorry, David.

Nick: You don’t have anything stronger? Wine, maybe?

Dave: Wine? Good heavens, no! Don’t want to be seen enjoying ourselves in these difficult economic times that weren’t created in America, now, do we? And anyway, Harriet’s lot bought all the good stuff for their little… thing.

Nick: Well, then…

Dave: (smiles)

PROLONGED SILENCE

George: Another water, anyone?

Dave: Oh, you’ve got to go? Well, thanks for coming in, Ming. I’ll let you know what’s happening tomorrow.

Nick: It’s Nick- (DOOR SLAMS)

OK, I lost the thread of what I was going to say, there. Where was I? Oh yes, Dave and Nick have decided to call for a full debate into the Green affair tomorrow. I’m just surprised that the Shadow Home Secretary. Dominic Grieve, that doughty defender of lawyers’ rights, has capitualted to this. Discussing a live legal case? At any other time the lawyers’ party would never risk perverting the course of justice with such a debate.

And normally the Speaker wouldn’t allow it. But perhaps the bullying and threats against him by Tory MPs will mean he feels less able to stand up to them. Who knows?

I almost wish I was going to be in Westminster tomorrow, but I decided last week my time might be better spent in the constituency.

SO MUCH for those who “fear” the onset of the police state.

As far as I know, police states are not known for instigating investigations into their own police forces’ investigations. But that’s what has happened, with British Transport Police Chief Constable, Ian Johnston, expected to deliver his report into the way the Damien Green inquiry has been handled some time in the next fortnight.

No doubt, those who insist we’re heading towards totalitarianism will dismiss this new inquiry as a whitewash: Ian Johnston is, after all, a former assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. But having had the good fortune to work with Ian in the past two years, I know he is a principled and professional individual who has been an outstanding leader of the BTP and will bring an entirely objective eye to this task.

I said, a couple of days ago: “It seems, at the very least, somewhat heavy-handed of the police to treat any MP in this way.” So it seems entirely right that the way in which Damien was investigated should itself be the subject of a brief inquiry.

However, that still leaves us with the substance of the original inquiry itself. It will be difficult for police officers to continue their investigation while Her Majesty’s Opposition is shouting “political persecution” from the sidelines. And even if not a single one of them believes it to be true, it does make it more difficult for the police to do their job.

I’M A BIT suspicious of the spin the Tories have managed to attach to the so-called “leaked” email sent by mistake to Philip Hammond MP’s office by Harriet Harman.

According to Iain Dale, Harriet says in the memo: “the meeting will discuss considerations in advance of the Speakers (sic) statement on Police action and Parliament.”

The duplicitous bastards! How dare they discuss considerations in advance of the Speakers (sic) statement? They might as well be ordering the tanks into New Palace Yard…
And from this, Iain concludes: “What is improper is for Harriet Harman to call a meeting seeking to influence the content of that Statement by the Speaker…”

Why hasn’t the part of the memo declaring the government’s intent to “influence” the Speaker’s statement been revealed? I agree that such an attempt would be wrong, although I would expect the Speaker’s office to seek advice from the Leader of the House in any event.

In fact, all this hysteria looks completely unjustified when you consider this agenda attached to the memo, which, to Iain’s credit, he has published himself:

I wonder which parts of this the Tories disagree with?

This is all part of a very dangerous Tory strategy to persuade the public that Damien Green was arrested because he was the recipient of government leaks – in other words, for political reasons. Iain repeats this tonight. Do-Nothing did the same yesterday.

It’s a clever strategy, though lacking in all principle. It is utterly cynical and dishonest, and therefore entirely expected of the Tory Party.

Incidentally, Hammond has form when it comes to deliberately misinterpreting and misrepresenting what Labour MPs say for his political advantage.

DO-NOTHNG continues to spread smear and innuendo, this time through a slot in the News of the World.

Writing about Damien Green’s arrest, he says:

Why is it so important that the Prime Minister tells us what he thinks?

Because people want to know what their political leaders think about the right to vigorous opposition in politics, the right to publish information which is in the public interest, the rights of MPs holding the government to account, and the rights of Parliament itself.

In other words, it is out of the question that Green could have been arrested for anything other than opposing the government. By implication, therefore, we live in the Brave New World of 1984, police state, blah, blah…

It is an outrageous assertion. It is also unworthy for the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. But it is entirely to be expected of David Cameron.

And why has there not been a chorus of outrage about Do-Nothing’s assertion that opposition MPs should have unique immunity from the process of law (but only when the opposition is the Conservative Party, presumably)?

His central argument seems to be found in this sentence:

The question is, does he think it is right for an MP who has apparently done nothing to breach our national security to have his home and office searched by a dozen counter-terrorist police officers, his phone, BlackBerry and computers confiscated, and to be arrested and held for nine hours?

That’s a curious turn of phrase, is it not? “… an MP who has apparently done nothing to breach our national security…”?

Why “apparently”? Why didn’t Dave write that Green had “undoubtedly” done nothing to breach national security? By inserting “apparently”, Do-Nothing is deliberately allowing himself a get-out, just in case the police investigation comes up with something.

Which is the point I’ve been making for days now: only following a police investigation can anyone know whether Damien has a case to answer or not.

PS: Interestingly, in his News of the World article, Cameron describes Green not as the Tory Party’s spokesman on immigration, but as “my spokesman on immigration”. So the shadow team are no longer speaking for their party but for their leader. The ego has landed!

DO-NOTHING Dave has been quick to make as much political capital out of Damien Green’s arrest as possible.

He is reported as saying: “[The police] have got questions to answer, frankly, I think government ministers have got questions to answer as well. If they didn’t know, why weren’t they told?”

So, what exactly is the allegation, Dave? That ministers knew and colluded with the police? Or that they knew nothing about it? In Dave’s book, either scenario points to wrong-doing.

Talk about clutching at straws…

UPDATE at 1.24 pm: It’s a relief to see, among the vitriol and paranoia of the various libertarians, cybertories and other assorted moonhowlers, the occasional thoughtful and intelligent comment. Check out this one from Ani.

UPDATE at 5.46 pm: And yet another excellent comment. My goodness, this has been a good day…

PICTURE the scene: the Home Secretary is furious that Damien Green keeps asking difficult questions about immigration. How to respond? Well, have him arrested, of course.

Now, obviously there are difficulties here. First, she doesn’t have any authority to order the police to arrest someone. Second, even if she did, it would have no effect either on Green or any other MP who wanted to bash the government; if anything it would just make them more determined, and the Home Secretary realises this.

Third, what about the media outcry? At a time when Labour have managed to narrow the gap between themselves and the Tories, is now the right time deliberately to create a media storm in which the government will inevitably be seen as the bad guys and which will have the effect of making a martyr out of Damien?

But such arguments have no effect on her, so she orders her secret police into action…

Meanwhile, back in the real world, there is outrage at the above sequence of events – you know, the events that never happened, and couldn’t have happened, for all the reasons listed above.

Everyone who made comments in the previous thread, warning of the arrival of their beloved and much-heralded police state, were already convinced that such a state arrived in May 1997.

Due process will have to take its course, much as the government’s critics hate such an idea. If it turns out that the police have over-reached themselves, that will become apparent and there will be consequences. Parliament will have its say on the question of whether or not the police should have had access to Damien’s House of Commons office.

Due to the exciteable nature of the media, there’s no doubt this affair has caused Labour some serious political damage. This prospect would have been obvious to the Home Secretary had she been told of Green’s imminent arrest. She would have known that such damage to the government and her party could be avoided by interfering in police operations and insisting that no arrest takes place. But would such a politically partisan  motive have been justification enough for this action?

No.

But that’s not a view shared by most of those commenting on this site, by Iain Dale or by the Conservative Party. The real threat to political freedoms in this country doesn’t come from a government unwilling to influence the outcome of a police investigation. It comes from a party which thinks ministers should try to persuade the police who to arrest – and who not to arrest – as part of their investigations.

I SHARE some of the concerns that have been expressed elsewhere about the arrest and detention of the Tories’ immigration spokesman, Damien Green.

It seems, at the very least, somewhat heavy-handed of the police to treat any MP in this way. And when I say “any MP”, yes, I am suggesting that MPs should be treated differently from other members of the public. Let me explain.

In the aftermath of the Falklands war, civil servant Clive Ponting was arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act for leaking information about the sinking of the Argentinian ship, the Belgrano. He was acquitted, mainly because the person to whom he had leaked the information was not a journalist but an MP,  Labour’s Tam Dalyell, who subsequently used the information to attack the government.

So, as I understand the law, there is already some precedent for trusting MPs with sensitive information which, in others’ hands, would provoke more serious action. Having said that, MPs, of course, cannot be entirely immune from investigation.

Certainly, Damien has simply been doing his job, rather effectively, in using information given to him to raise valid concerns about immigration policy. I cannot, in all honesty, say that in opposition, I would not have done eactly the same as Damien did.

But some of the reaction has been pretty over the top. Even the usually sensible Iain Dale has invoked the arrival of the police state: “There is no way that this arrest could have happened without the involvement of Government ministers. We need to know who instigated it and if the Prime Minister, Home Secretary or Justice Secretary authorised it.” I trust Iain will follow this claim up with evidence, rather than conjecture.

Phil Woolas, who I suspect knows a bit more about this than Iain, insists there was no ministerial involvement. I would be surprised if there were. As Phil rightly says, the police are independent of government and are obliged to act when they believe a law has been broken. Having said that, it will no doubt emerge that a senior member of the government was informed that the arrest was going to take place. But if that senior member of the government had intervened in police operations to prevent the arrest, how would that have been any more justifiable than initiating it in the first place?

I understand where Iain’s and others’ concerns are coming from, but it is simply not justifiable to claim that there is a politically-motivated witch hunt against Damien Green, who I know as an honest and decent man. There is clearly a police investigation, but the last time I checked, that was a different thing.

It would be dangerous indeed if the Conservative Party were declaring now that under any future Tory government, police requests to arrest and detain any MP would be refused. I seem to recall a lot of people – including, I suspect, many of those who today are filling up various threads with condemnations of the government – demanding the arrest of Tony Blair during the so-called “loans for peerages” “scandal”.

UPDATE at 11.50 am: It has occurred to me, in the light of recent comments here about Labour’s alleged tendency towards secrecy, that remarkably few people give the government any credit for the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act. Hardly confirms the accusation that we’re secretive, does it? Oh, let me guess… the FOI Act isn’t strong enough, gets undermined, etc, etc…

UPDATE at 12.35 pm: Douglas Carswell says this on his blog: “If it turns out that the Speaker of the House of Commons gave the go-ahead for this raid, I will be demanding to his face, on every occasion that I can, that Mr Martin now quit.”

And that would be different from every other day he asks for the Speaker’s resignation in what way? DC’s “thing” is that he is campaigning to have the Speaker removed. So how can anyone tell if this time he feels he’s really got a strong case, or if this is just the latest in his long list of greivances against Michael Martin?

UPDATE at 12.39 pm: Hopi Sen has some typically sensible and measured comments to make on this.