Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Dominic Grieve on the Damian Green Arrest


Dominic Grieve, Shadow Home Secretary discusses Damian Green's arrest and the search of his offices. He states that the Conservative MPs will be doing nothing to disrupt the Queen's Speech tomorrow. I suspect he won't need to. Rumour is that the red carpet is already being prepared to roll out in front of Black Rod rather than the more traditional slamming of the door in his face. The Speaker has got some explaining to do in his statement tomorrow.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the news Wednesday morning:

"Police officers made the decision to arrest Tory MP Damian Green, not ministers, the acting head of the Metropolitan Police has said. . . He said written authority to search the Tory frontbencher's Westminster office was obtained from the serjeant at arms."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7762005.stm

Unknown said...

Bob

Jill Pay, the Serjeant At Arms claims that she gave permission because the DPP had requested it. The DPP claims that they were informed of the impending arrest but were not consulted.

The role of the Serjeant At Arms changed when the last serjeant left. It seems to be more administrative rather than security orientated, with the salary reduced by half. The Speaker should have had the final say-so on this matters.

Sir Paul Stephenson's comments protect a politician whilst hanging an officer of the House out to dry. He'll go far.

Anonymous said...

Paul,

"He'll go far"

Of course, the interesting context is that he is presently "acting" Commissioner of the Met and has applied, with others, to be appointed to fill the vacant post of Commissioner by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. By the news, bookmakers have recently shortened the odds on Sir Hugh Ord, presently the chief constable of Northern Ireland, getting the job but we shall have to wait and see.

Also in the news, it seems that the Police searched Damian Green's offices in Parliament with the approval of the Sergeant at Arms but without a search warrant.

What seems to have motivated the DPP to approve (or direct) the Police search was that Damian Green was reportedly seeking access to politically sensitive information - not secret information - held by the Home Office.

So much for all government claims about Transparency and Accountability.