We have a pyramid of authority in this country and parliament, not the police, stands at its apex. For as long as I can remember, Labour MPs have expressed scepticism and even outrage at some police actions, going back to the handling of the miners' strike, the use of sus laws, the pursuit of Whitehall moles in the Thatcher years, and scandals such as the Stephen Lawrence and Jean Charles de Menezes cases. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the particular cases, it was clearly the duty of politicians to express themselves forcibly.
You can't separate politics from policing, and you never have been able to: political judgments are so often behind what the police do. In this case, it is simply risible to push off the responsibility for the invasion of Green's home and offices by anti-terrorist officers on to the police and nameless "officials". If the home secretary did not know, she should have done. She knew there was a leak inquiry, that it was becoming a criminal investigation, and that one of her own officials had been arrested. Are we really to believe that she did not know he had been a Tory activist and had not wondered whether Tory MPs might be drawn in? Are we to accept that she looked the other way, and now feels proud of this strange incuriosity?
Her highest title is not, actually, home secretary. She is first a member of parliament. Her first duty is to the parliamentary democracy that sustains us all, and that means protecting the rights of elected members to carry out their democratic job.
Smith should have found out what was being contemplated by the police and then intervened to stop it. Far from being "Stalinist", that would have been the proportionate, liberal and sensible thing. Having failed to do that, she should then have apologised to Green.
Great stuff. The full column can be read HERE.
24 comments:
As I keep banging on about, there is a problem when MPs' loyalties are divided between parliament and government.
Labour have a lot of spinning to do to prevent all this sinking Gordon's next relaunch on Weds. (
I would expect a lot of feeling MPs pain type stuff and Brown announcing an inquiry lead by an 'independent' person whom he can trust. Combined with deniable Labour trolls hinting darkly that there's no smoke without fire etc.
PS Can someone please add a new Mobile phone to Gordon's Christmas list, you have to suspect he's needing a new one this week.
I can't help but wonder what idiot sign the search warrant for the raid on the MPs office.
It is a shame that Mrs Jackie Ashley (Andrew Marr) is too much of a NuLabour lickspittle to take such a stand...
Excellent article, and coming from such a Labour lovie I am sure it will have been read by Smith and her colleagues.
Will it make any difference? Of course not. This cabinet that can never apologise, can never do the right thing, are always 'upstairs collecting fares' when something happens blaming whatever on any hapless official who happens to be close to the action.
Man in a Shed, puts it right/ Brown will 'feel the pain' BUT he has to Steer the right course, not be deflected from the job of steering the whole wide world out of the economic mess the whole world, started in America and absolutely nothing, no no nothing to do with honest Gordon, the man you can trust. son of a churchman etc etc etc.
This is going to blow up in his face well and truly.
(word verification..sure genious Iain is CRYINGSD)
Even as we speak 'sources' from the Met have been leaking details (favourable details of course) of their enquiry to the BBC.
You could not make that up could you, and the BBC seem totally oblivious to the sick irony of their actions. They are also quite fawning in the questioning of their own reporter to make sure the best face is put on these leaks.
I see Straw is covering his back by saying he was "very suprised" by Damien Greens arrest.
She must be on the way out!
Note that the interest that Harriet Harman has displayed may be personal.
Harman was found guilty of contempt of court in 1983 and her sister Sarah Harman was found guilty of contempt of court in 2005 for passing confidential papers relating to the fmaily courts to Solicitor-General Harriet Harman and was fined £25K. Perhaps Harriet's interest is altruistic, perhaps she feels a little exposed....
On reflection, the arrest of the parliamentarian does seem rather Italian or even Russian.
It's surprising that Jackie Ashley's boilerplate piece can be described as a "cracker".
Has none of the MPocracy, Blogocracy and Commentocracy read any political theory?
It seems not, so the whole damn ignorant lot shoukld be sent for training.
They would then learn that Damien Green's arrest was an outrage to everyone in the country, because our MPs are being threatened by the police.
I repeat what I wrote here yesterday; Parliament should summon all of the policemen involved to the bar of the House of Commons and ask them what they think they are doing.
Then the MPs should imprison the policemen for contempt of the High Court of Parliament.
Parliament must establish its supremacy over PC Plod.
Tony.
Apparently the Home Secretary should be the arbiter of whether or not an opposition MP gets arrested.
Be careful what you wish for.
Let us always give credit where it's due. Much as I disagree with left-wing politics & ideology, I have been hugely impressed by how many Labour politicians have proved themselves to be good Parliamentarians first & foremost, and how many left-wing journalists/bloggers have similarly distinguished themselves.
One has to feel for Damian Green, but maybe it took this kind of rucus to provoke a debate about the supremacy of Parliament and its steady erosion.
Kudos to Harriet Harman (and I NEVER thought I would say that!) A real shame that other Labour leaders are so sickenly ambivalent. I caught Jack Straw on Today this morning... what a weasel! And have we yet heard from the Supreme Leader/Saviour of the world?
"Parliament must establish its supremacy over PC Plod"- FAUSTUS
How exactly? As the majority of MP's are NuLab drones they will side with the Executive and its 'operatives'.
"there is a problem when MPs' loyalties are divided between parliament and government" - BLUE EYES
Exactly. Which means we must, at some point, devise options for constitutional reforms of a kind which remove such conflicts of interest, and other anomalies.
Some talk elsewhere of a demonstration in Parliament Sq at Queens Speech time on Wednesday...any firm news on this?
The Clunking Fist pushed Harman out into the cross fire to draw flack.
The arrest of a senior opposition MP, inter alia, for being in receipt of confidential Government documents, raises several questions in respect of the efficacy of the use of leaked documents.
We know that the current Labour prime minister justified his use of official documents, leaked to him when in opposition in the 1990s, on the grounds that it helped the then Labour opposition keep Conservative ministers to account.
In the 1990s I worked as a researcher for a Labour backbencher, Llew Smith, then MP for Blaenau Gwent, and who, like his predecessor as MP for the constituency, Michael Foot, an inveterate and high profile peace campaigner.
It was probably because of his well known public stance towards the first war with Iraq in 1991, that Mr Smith was anonymously sent in 1993 what were apparently private papers from the Ministry of Defence outlining health concerns over the use of organophosphates (OPs) - known to be toxic chemicals - to line tents pitched by the British armed forces, to keep way dangerous desert insects.
Mr Smith submitted a series of parliamentary questions to defence ministers seeking to clarify the knowledge the MOD had of the potential health hazards, at a time when serious concerns were being raised by returning soldiers and medical auxilaries over a debilitating illness dubbed 'Gulf War Syndrome.'
In a series of subsequent written answers, defence ministers denied MOD knowledge of OP use in the Gulf conflict. Cross-bench peer, The Countess of Mar, meanwhile, had been pursuing a similar line of enquiry in the Lords. (see House of Lords debates, 4 December 1996, columns 663-666,
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/vo961204/text/61204-01.htm)
Mr Smith persisted for 18 months Parliament in pressing ministers, and eventually, in December 1996, the then Conservative Minister of State for the Armed Forces, (now Sir) Nicholas Soames, told Parliament in an oral statement :
"The House will recall that I made it public on 4 October that there had been wider use of organophosphate chemicals in the Gulf than had previously been thought, or than we had previously been advised. I have already apologised to the House for that, and expressed my profound regret and anger that that ran counter to earlier information given in utmost good faith by Ministers in answer to parliamentary questions. I unreservedly do so again. I subsequently told the House that a comprehensive investigation had been commissioned to discover the facts, and I promised to report the outcome as soon as it was known."
(Official Report, 10 December 1996, columns 119-23)
Current Labour Cabinet ministers who defend the effective intimidation of MPs - whether front benchers representing opposition parties, or their own backbenchers- should consider why public servants occasionally break their commitment to confidentiality and leak documents. It is very often when ministers, for reasons of policy or protection from embarrasment, persist in publicly repeating information they know to be false, or else they cannot justify.
Dr David Lowry
Stoneleigh
Jacqui says the police must be allowed to carry out their investigations without fear or favour. But she thinks MPs can not be allowed to carry out their jobs without fear or favour. Therefore that must mean the police are more important than MPs.
The police can now enter parliament to carry out searches without authorisation from the DPP. Therefore that must mean the police are more important than the DPP.
Boo ---
Ben Brogans piece give a timeline - but nowhere does it mention a search warrant. Maybe there was one, but the story seems to be that the Met came to the Speaker and said they would 'like' to search an MPs office. The S o fA was told - apparently - that the DPP 'approved' this.
No mention of a search warrant.
Amazing if there was none.
Gordon Brown's premiership is like the stench of death during the plague. It is a by product of this rotting, moribund odyssey called New Labour.
Under his watch, we have thrown away our national sovereignty, destroyed our economic foundations and most of all, so tragic and so glaringly predictable given the philosophical underpinnings of NuLabour, the erosion of civil liberties.
Now at least some on the left aren't going into hypocrite mode by acknowledging we now have a problem with the foundations of democracy. What we need in these times is a strong personality who can stand up and fight. I am afraid the chumps from the Bullingdon, with the possible exception of Boris, have less backbone than a jaffa cake, without the instant appeal.
They need a big gesture, a hindenburg sized gesture, one that will be written about and one that can become the catalyst for action all over the country.
Instead what we will get is Cameron appearing on the few media outlets who will have him on, saying things like "a lot of questions have to be asked." No shit? Dave? You have certainly cornered the market in biting invective and cogent rebuttals.
I also have been wondering about whether there was a search warrant.
A big of Googling suggests the following: under s.18 of PACE the police can search any premises occupied or controlled by a person who has been arrested for an arrestable offence if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidence there. They do not need a warrant. The search must be authorised by an officer of inspector rank or higher.
One of the main reasons for arresting Green (rather than just interviewing him) may have been to obtain the right to exercise this power of search.
I haven't seen any reference to a warrant in any of the reporting, so it seems to me pretty likely that they were operating under s. 18 of PACE.
So, there you have it. The Home Secretary didn't know what was happeneing! Plausable deniability as our American cousins would say or sheer incompetence?
Either way this dreadful old trout is not fit for purpose - but like all of ZANU Labour's comrades she a) won't fall on her sword and b) Brother Brown won't sack her.
Ace Reporter said...
"Parliament must establish its supremacy over PC Plod"- FAUSTUS
How exactly? As the majority of MP's are NuLab drones they will side with the Executive and its 'operatives'."
The answer, Ace Reporter, is for Parliament to commit the policemen to gaol until they have purged their contempt.
If the police won't come before the bar of the House, or refuse to be arrested by the sergeant-at-arms, then Parliament can call in the army to put the police in the military glasshouse at Parliament's pleasure.
If Parliament, however, in the shape of Gorbals Mick, invited the police inside, then the police have a valid excuse and MPs should impeach the Speaker.
If Parliament won't stand up for its rights, then we the people need to find MPs who will.
This matter is far bigger than MPs. They probably cannot, as Ace Reporter suggests, be trusted with maintaining Parliament's supremacy, which is the real problem.
Tony
The raid was an act of 'Stanlinism' - had Brown disapproved of the orders given to the police, Jacqui Smith would have been instantly dismissed.
A piece by Craig Murray on Jack Straw's denial of foreknowledge of Damien Green's arrest:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/11/jack_straw_is_a.html#comments
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