Damian Green (shadow immigration minister) arrested

[Filuwaúrdjan]

WTF

Edit: a not e...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

According to the BBC:

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What? Isn't that the purpose of parliamentary politics?

[afleitch]

According to the BBC:

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What? Isn't that the purpose of parliamentary politics?

Quite, indeed my first reaction was 'Phew, at least it's not our Treasury mole'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Seems to be about leaking. Strange that that sort of thing has been taken so seriously; generally the police don't go around hunting for people involved in the leaking process. Someone, somewhere, is very upset at something.

According to the BBC:

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What? Isn't that the purpose of parliamentary politics?

lol

[afleitch]

Seems to be about leaking. Strange that that sort of thing has been taken so seriously; generally the police don't go around hunting for people involved in the leaking process. Someone, somewhere, is very upset at something.

According to the BBC:

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What? Isn't that the purpose of parliamentary politics?

lol

Well it is Sir Ian Blair's last day

[afleitch]

I've been following this since the rumour that something was happening began. It seemed to be our side that stoked the rumour. When it was announced, the Tories were quick to his defense.  It appears the police have had fun with their new counter terrorism powers and sent counter-terrorism police officers round to his home and office this lunchtime. He was arrested but not charged.

If you trawl through recent news stories; about the effects of the recession on community cohesion and immigration etc it's pretty obvious what's been leaked.

Now it could easily be argued that a) leaking is what people do and b) it was in the public interest (and for me ( c) arrest Robert Peston... ). I don't think this that this will be damaging as a result.

[Joe Republic]

The best insurance policy for Gordon Brown is to orchestrate for the Shadow Cabinet to be arrested one by one.  It's a great strategy, you have to admit.

[afleitch]

The best insurance policy for Gordon Brown is to orchestrate for the Shadow Cabinet to be arrested one by one.  It's a great strategy, you have to admit.

I'm sure that will be met with approval from some folks over at LabourMoanDroneHome

EDIT: I take that back..some voices of dissaproval actually.

[afleitch]

Whether this pans out as something legit or not we know this much.

Damien Green was arrested at his home at 2pm. He was taken to London and detained. He has since been bailed until February. The police were granted permission to raid his Common's offices. Permission for this, traditionally would come from the Sarjeant at Arms and the Speaker.

Boris Johnson was told of the planned arrest and warned against it, Again, procedure allows us to deduce that if Boris was told, so too was the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Boris does not have the authority to pull the police back. If Smith was told, it would appear she okay-ed it.

And as for Gordon. His office were quick to deny knowledge of this, but Labour MP Diane Abbot a short while ago said it would be ''inconceivable'' for a PM not to have knowledge. She added that the police would not dare make an arrest of an MP without making sure they had political cover.

If Jacqui okayed the use of anti-terror legislation to arrest a sitting MP for leaking government information she is finished. I won't speculate about Brown.

Question is, if true, what would they want to do that?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Irrespective of whatever happens next, I think that Tories might begin to understand now how Labourites felt about the police investigations into the Party's finances not so very long ago at all. Maybe not as far as specifics go*, but the general feelings of outrage (either knowingly futile or angry, sometimes both), powerlessness, paranoia (which may well have been, may well be, entirely, or at least partially, justified) and a nagging, awful fear of what might happen if any charges are brought.

I remember what that felt like, and can sympathise even though I don't share those feelings over this and even though my opinion of Green has been extremely low for years.

Btw, from what I've read (very, very little) counter-terrorism powers don't see to have been used; can't find any mention of them anyway.

*Police coup!!!!!111 as opposed to Stalinism!!!!!!111

[Filuwaúrdjan]

EDIT: I take that back..some voices of dissaproval actually.

Last time I checked there (weeks, maybe even over a month ago actually) there were still a fair number of hard-lefties and Tories posting there, so it's not that odd. I would see who's saying what, but that site is such a pain to use...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7753557.stm

[Silent Hunter]

Well, that was unexpected.

Green has been bailed to return in February, BTW.

This is an unusual step, that's for sure. I suspect it's something fairly serious that was leaked- I doubt Labour or the Tories would do this for party political advantage.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Robert Gordon Mugabe

[afleitch]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QIrweIqqsOc&eurl=http://www.order-order.com/

SEIZE HIM!!!11111

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This whole thing may be about to lurch ever closer to crossing the line into parody; the leaking civil servant at the centre of it all is apparently to hold a press conference in about an hour. 24hournews is eating itself, people...

[afleitch]

This whole thing may be about to lurch ever closer to crossing the line into parody; the leaking civil servant at the centre of it all is apparently to hold a press conference in about an hour. 24hournews is eating itself, people...

Possibly, but this story isn't going to dissapear. It will keep rolling on, possibly in two waves - now and in again in February when Green's bail ends or further steps are taken.

If Galley had thrown Green into it today the story would have changed direction. He didn't and he hasn't.

We now know that leks were regular, they were not sensitive and there were bo  “inducements” by way of Green to persuade Galley to leak.

After yesterday, no one quite believes Jacqui Smith and no one quite trusts the Speaker. I expect one or both heads to roll. Some Labour bigwigs understand the potential severity of this affair (Blunkett and Harman for example) The best the government can hope for is for the Police to take most of the damage and to a lesser extent, the Speaker.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not especially interested in the whoknewwhatwhenandwhy row*; I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be interested in that side of politics; each and every time the patterns seem to be too alike. Which is probably a dreadfully jaded thing to write, haha.

I'm worried about something though;

We now know that leks were regular, they were not sensitive and there were bo  “inducements” by way of Green to persuade Galley to leak.

No, we don't know all of that. We know that this will, presumably, be Galley's defense if "nothing" changes and this gets to court, but that's all. There's no more reason to treat what his lawyer said as fact than a statement by a lawyer defending someone in an ordinary job of a more, aha, conventional form of theft (though no less reason either).
In any case (and thinking entirely of what people were arrested under and some of the things that were allegedly leaked), I'm not entirely sure if the issue of things being "sensitive" in a security sense is the main problem (for want of a better word) here; it may instead be what would technically be a minor former of corruption rather than breaching the Official Secrets Act or anything like that. Which may be why the lawyer was so insistent that everything had been done in the public interest (which, going off on a slight tangent, is actually a difficult claim to make for some of the things allegedly leaked IMO).

We'll see, I guess. Though, and I'm saying this in case what I wrote above gets read in the wrong way, I would rather nothing much comes out of the investigation; the possibility of serious damage to the political system could (stress "could") be dangerously real. Hopefully I'm just getting spooked by a shadow.

*Even if some of the issues cast up by it are interesting; sovereignty of Parliament v equality before the Law, the extent to which policing should be controlled by elected officials, the extent to which policing should be politically sensitive... etc.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Welcome to the world of the sane.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

I hope it isn't the speaker that gets the axe for this, I like him, even if he's not very good at his job.