The arrest of Damian Green, accompanied by the police invasion of the House of Commons, must be the most overt and shameless assault on our constitution since – well, I can’t think. Do I have to go back to the 1640’s?
So who has committed this breach of Parliamentary privilege; who is in contempt of Parliament; who should be the subject of an Act of Attainder here? And I’m only half joking when I ask that, so angry am I about the Executive’s cavalier – I choose that word deliberately - attitude to our supreme democratic body.
Who are the suspects?
Sir Ian Blair? A couple of days before he leaves office, sticking it to the Tories who forced him out? Or the acting head of the Met? Whoever it was, he waited until Parliament was in recess before tramping in with their size twelves and trampling underfoot our liberties. The arrogance is beyond belief.
Maybe, being policemen, they were ignorant, just keen to bang up chummy and get a quick result. So who was there to stop them?
The Serjeant-at-Arms is supposed to be in charge of security at the Commons, but simply allowed these people to waltz in and leave with confidential data without even drawing a sword or waving a mace.
The Speaker, the guardian of the Commons, who has to be dragged to the Chair because of the mortal danger of representing them to the Executive, lays it all on the Serjeant and hides behind gobbledygook about ‘procedures’. Where is the courage of the man who faced Charles the Second with the immortal words about having neither eyes to see nor ears to hear ‘except as this House gives me leave’.
So, let’s move to Whitehall, where we find the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office admitting he invited the police in. Obviously, to a civil servant, Parliament is just a nuisance, constantly raising objections and asking questions about matters that people like him know far more about. What’s he called – Normington? It doesn’t matter. And as a faithful servant of his minister he didn’t mention it to her. So Jacqui Smith is protected, because it’s deniable.
Jacqui Smith. She’s a Member of Parliament, in fact a ‘Right Honourable’ member of that body, but does she have any respect for it. Does she ****. She too skulks behind cant about the operational independence of the police, declares that she doesn't think they did anything wrong, and in any case knew nothing about it.
And yet this is the woman who not long ago was insisting that she was the one who had the authority to hire and fire the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and not the Mayor of London.
This drama was going on for nine hours last Thursday. Did she not hear about it? Did she not realise the constitutional implications? Could she not, like the Speaker or the Serjeant-at-Arms, have put a stop to it with a word?
My last suspect is the Prime Minister.
Maybe the police were just over-zealous; maybe the Serjeant-at-Arms thinks she’s just in some nominal sinecure; maybe the Speaker is a silly old duffer enjoying a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of time-serving on the backbenches; maybe the Permanent Secretary was overcome by loyalty; maybe the Home Secretary came to government so soon she never learned what being an MP meant.
But Gordon Brown has no excuse. He must have known. He has the authority. If he didn’t know he is incompetent.
If he knew and chose not to exercise that authority he is a tyrant.
So who has committed this breach of Parliamentary privilege; who is in contempt of Parliament; who should be the subject of an Act of Attainder here? And I’m only half joking when I ask that, so angry am I about the Executive’s cavalier – I choose that word deliberately - attitude to our supreme democratic body.
Who are the suspects?
Sir Ian Blair? A couple of days before he leaves office, sticking it to the Tories who forced him out? Or the acting head of the Met? Whoever it was, he waited until Parliament was in recess before tramping in with their size twelves and trampling underfoot our liberties. The arrogance is beyond belief.
Maybe, being policemen, they were ignorant, just keen to bang up chummy and get a quick result. So who was there to stop them?
The Serjeant-at-Arms is supposed to be in charge of security at the Commons, but simply allowed these people to waltz in and leave with confidential data without even drawing a sword or waving a mace.
The Speaker, the guardian of the Commons, who has to be dragged to the Chair because of the mortal danger of representing them to the Executive, lays it all on the Serjeant and hides behind gobbledygook about ‘procedures’. Where is the courage of the man who faced Charles the Second with the immortal words about having neither eyes to see nor ears to hear ‘except as this House gives me leave’.
So, let’s move to Whitehall, where we find the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office admitting he invited the police in. Obviously, to a civil servant, Parliament is just a nuisance, constantly raising objections and asking questions about matters that people like him know far more about. What’s he called – Normington? It doesn’t matter. And as a faithful servant of his minister he didn’t mention it to her. So Jacqui Smith is protected, because it’s deniable.
Jacqui Smith. She’s a Member of Parliament, in fact a ‘Right Honourable’ member of that body, but does she have any respect for it. Does she ****. She too skulks behind cant about the operational independence of the police, declares that she doesn't think they did anything wrong, and in any case knew nothing about it.
And yet this is the woman who not long ago was insisting that she was the one who had the authority to hire and fire the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and not the Mayor of London.
This drama was going on for nine hours last Thursday. Did she not hear about it? Did she not realise the constitutional implications? Could she not, like the Speaker or the Serjeant-at-Arms, have put a stop to it with a word?
My last suspect is the Prime Minister.
Maybe the police were just over-zealous; maybe the Serjeant-at-Arms thinks she’s just in some nominal sinecure; maybe the Speaker is a silly old duffer enjoying a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of time-serving on the backbenches; maybe the Permanent Secretary was overcome by loyalty; maybe the Home Secretary came to government so soon she never learned what being an MP meant.
But Gordon Brown has no excuse. He must have known. He has the authority. If he didn’t know he is incompetent.
If he knew and chose not to exercise that authority he is a tyrant.
I'd better conclude with a word about Harriet Harman, the only member of the Cabinet to express concern. I won't say that all is forgiven, Harriet, but it's a start.
