The furore over the arrest of Conservative shadow immigration secretary Damian Green for leaking government documents has reached such a pitch that there is talk of MPs disrupting Wednesday’s state opening of parliament.
Editorials over the weekend were full of reminders that Winston Churchill had leaked evidence that Britain was not prepared for the Nazi threat and that Gordon Brown himself has been happy in the past to disclose confidential information. It is part of an opposition MP’s job to hold the government to account, they argued, and no part of the police’s job to act in such a heavy handed way.
Some have even drawn parallels with the infamous “birds have flown” episode in the run-up to the English civil war when Charles I tried — and failed — to arrest five prominent MPs who had been consistently opposing his plans.
Now, though, newspapers are reporting that Green had been cultivating a junior Home Office civil servant with a view to regularly obtaining confidential government documents.
What’s your view? Have police have overstepped the mark here or has Green? And should a government have the right to plug information leaks in this way?
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18 comments so far
An anti-terrorist police squad used to arrest a person involved in receiving leaked immigration documents? This is like using six police cars to catch a person speeding on a bicycle. Yes, they stepped well over the mark. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sinister.
The Man Of Straw has said that Britain could only be called a police state if the police had been acting on the instructions of Government Ministers. This is the typical slippery response of a politician because he knows very well that Ministers need to do no such thing. Labour has installed so many of its placemen into all public agencies over the past 11 years that the agencies can safely be left alone to do Labour’s work without the need for specific “instructions” from Ministers.
It is the classic tactic of a police state and a clear sign of how the country has been corrupted by these people over the past decade.
- Posted by AndyThe Police State is here and now.
- Posted by Jimmer XXXThis is just more evidence of the slip into a police state under ZANU-LABOUR thanks to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Jacqui Smith. Not forgetting Michael Martin.
From signing the EU constitution with out a referendum, Tax and spend, 42 days, to loss of presumed innocence, this arrest of the opposition was inevitable under the New Labour’s haltered at being criticized.
Out Brown. Out NuLabour. Out Micheal Martin.
- Posted by Robert BurnwingTHIS IS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE THAT NEW LABOUR ARE SETTING UP A TOALITARIAN STATE WITH BIG BROTHER POWERS & A DNA DATABASE (AND ID CARDS) TO ENSURE THEY CAN REACH EVEN THE MOST DISTANT OF UK CITIZENS
- Posted by PETER RICHARDSI don’t understand all the fuss. “Leaking confidential documents” says it all. Let’s not confuse the validity of state secrets with the validity of laws that make leaking state secrets an act of treason. Whether you support the current government or not, leaking official secrets is espionage, regardless of who or why it is done. Anti-terrorist squads are nothing more or less than anti-spy squads of 10 years ago. Essentially the properly trained officers to deal with any breach to national security.
- Posted by StarblazerJack Straw is splitting hairs and clutching at straws (no pun intended). Once again we see how low this Government can stoop to try to justify their own pathetic existence. The police have stepped well beyond their constitutional limit and if the Labour party truly cares about the rights of MPs to speak out and for freedom of speech generally then they will take positive action to ensure the end of these bullying tactics. The days of Labour are well and truly dead.
- Posted by Skez MageeThe British people need to see this as a wake up call to the way that this once great and free country has been turned into a police state with constant surveillance and oppression of those who are considered to “not fit” the ruling powers vision of a perfect citizen.
Sadly I have a feeling that it will not be taken on board and we will continue down the slippery slope.
Roll on retirement and the opportunity to get out of this corrupt and insane administration (assuming we are allower to leave by then).
- Posted by Richard ElmsCould Starblazer be a Labour spin merchant? Or just naive?
If “leaking confidential documents” is the same as “leaking state secrets” then practically all Ministers and ex-Ministers, including the current Prime Minister, would have to be locked up.
Using the contents of “leaked confidential documents” within the restraints of parliamentary privilege is one of the accepted methods by which the opposition parties in a democracy can keep the elected government honest and on its toes. Anyone who thinks that this should be subject to police action is already on his way to the Gulag.
Thank God we will have the opportunity in May 2010 to send these dangerous people on their way. Unless they change the rules before then ……
- Posted by Peter Hit seems perfectly OK for the government to leak what they want when they want but apparently this is not welcome from the opposition - ridiculous
- Posted by sam quickAttempts to muzzle legitimate opposition is as abhorent and equally worrying is the abuse of anti terrorism law and enforcement agencies to accomplish this. Hopefully parliament will not only challenge the action of the police but will also challenge the widespread abuse of anti terrorism legislation by the Government.
- Posted by Edward Wilsondictators do protect themselves in exactly the same way as gordon brown did
- Posted by PAMWARNING!
Ms Smith is the worst Home secretary we have ever had and her remorseless attack on civil liberties including the wholesale assault on habeas corpus, is proof of this.
An incompetent control freak who has brought her post into disprepute should be fired, asap, and never allowed a public role ever again!
She knew about the pending arrest of Mr Green - I am certain of that - and she has deliberately misled everyone including the body of parliament and its hallowed hostorical standing.
Big brother world is Ms Smith’s world, where STASI type informers and spies are recruited within society which, if not stopped, will allow the malicious persecutors amongst us the freedom and power they need to victimise and assault the liberties of their victims. Innocent people will be slandered and libelled and their lives blighted and destroyed. And this is NOT an exaggeration.
Ms Smith is a very dangerous person who is a threat to democracy itself.
We must confront this kind of abuse of power and make sure Mr Brown gets rid of this inept and dishonest despot.
This is serious - we must not put up with it!
- Posted by TheTruthIs...One major link of potential corruption, the right of the Home Secretary to solely appoint the head of the met police must be removed, this is asking for political control of our main police force and in conjunction with Jacki (boots) Smith is asking for trouble. We’ve only just got rid of Ian Blair and look how long that took and how much it has cost us.
Entaxei
- Posted by EntaxeiDidn’t Gordon Brown when in opposition declare that it was the duty of the opposition to leak information to keep a check on the government!!
- Posted by maggieWasn’t it Labour that brought in the “whistle-blower” protection law to encourage people to inform on each other?
Obviously it’s another case of one law for the Party and something different for everybody else.
Like their “No reward for failure” policy. No reward except a trough full of expenses and a gold-plated pension paid for by “the people”, that is.
- Posted by JasonMore Brown and Co double standards. None of this mob of a control freak religious mafia should be allowed to govern.
As we descend into a totalitarian state which will invade our lives I wonder what has happened to our democracy.
Brown, Smith, and Martin are plain and simply incompetent.
- Posted by Stephen BowersThese people don’t behave like normal people and they are certainly not a normal government. Their sole aim is to cling to power and they are rapidly running beyond control. Vote them out while there is still time to do it.
- Posted by PeterAs far as I see it, leaks to the opposition and ‘free’ media are practically the ONLY way to get important information out on where our taxes go, any other official information would only come from ..duh, the Government. So in my view, this is the single most important building block of a Democracy, anything else, and we’re 100% resolved to witnessing solely what the government shows us and when to implement it for a perfect smokescreen on other issues they want to divert our attention away from.
That IMHO that constitutes a police state. The Terrorism Act 2000 has already set the foundations for public restriction on supporting opposition parties that the government deem ‘terrorist’ that can be amended by decree, with the added provision that the MOD (that’s Government) police can now assume all police powers over the entire UK, whenever they like, in my view making them a kind of sinister ‘open rank and file’ Gestapo.
If this is surely all in the name of Terrorism, and there is a list as long as my arm on the liberties that have been taken from us since 9/11, since 1980 even, then the need to ensure our own personal freedoms are secured before we’re all sporting the latest nike RFID chips, still worrying if were stepping towards a police state by when, it wont be knocking on the door it would have smashed the muther down.
- Posted by Steve Martin