Innocent until proven guilty?
Nine years ago, in November 2008 while Britain had a Labour government, an opposition politician was arrested because he was too effective at attacking the government, on bogus national security grounds based on the pretext that government documents had been leaked to him.
As the FT, a newspaper which had endorsed the Labour party at the previous election, wrote in an article calling on the then Home Secretary to resign, "it was clear that all he had done was reveal some of her department’s shortcomings."
I wrote at the time here and elsewhere that this arrest posed a disturbing threat to British democracy, not least because arresting opposition politicians for criticising the government is the sort of thing you expect from tin-pot banana republics rather than mature democracies.
Ironically almost every member of the cabinet in 2008, certainly including the Prime Minister of the day, could have been arrested during previous Conservative governments on exactly the same grounds - Gordon Brown had gone on television in the 1980's while an opposition spokesman himself and openly boasted about doing exactly what an opposition spokesman was arrested for under his premiership e.g. receiving leaked government documents.
I think possibly the only time in my life I have ever agreed with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott was when I published here the list of 29 Labour rebels, including those three, who defied the Labour whips by voting for a proper and more independent inquiry into that arrest.
An official review of the arrest did criticise it as "disproportionate" and found that "less intrusive methods could have been used." The police involved in the arrest do not by any means deserve all the blame for this as the inquiry also found that they were "misled about the national security implications of the leak" by someone who was at the time a senior official of the cabinet office.
No charges were ever brought against the opposition MP concerned and nobody involved with that police investigation has claimed - then or now - that the search of his office and home had found any evidence of illegal behaviour.
Time has turned and as a result of the swings and roundabouts of politics the opposition MP concerned, Damian Green, is now Deputy Prime Minister.
And I find it a worrying and disturbing precedent that the former police chief who had been in charge of the leak inquiry, former Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, has taken it apon himself to allege to a Whitehall Inquiry into sexual harrassment that pornography was found on one of the computers taken from Damian Green's parliamentary office in 2008.
Mr Quick has "form" in this area. While leading the investigation into Damian Green he made an attack on the Conservative party which was described by a future Attorney General as "intemperate and in truth completely deluded," could not substantiate his allegations, and withdrew them and made an unreserved apology the following day.
The acting head of the Met at the time of the arrest, Sir Paul Stephenson, (later Metropolitan Police Commissioner 2009-11), has told the BBC that he was made aware of the allegations but did not consider that it was appropriate either to take any further action or that the allegations have been published.
"I regret it's in the public domain," Sir Paul said.
"There was no criminality involved, there were no victims, there was no vulnerability and it was not a matter of extraordinary public interest."
Even if it were true that there was inappropriate material on one of the computers involved, it would almost certainly be impossible to prove nine years later who was responsible for putting it there.
Given that not one of the police officers who have discussed the matter say that it was actually illegal material, this simply is not a police matter. Nor does it appear to be any more relevant to the allegation that the present First Secretary of State "fleetingly" touched a young woman's knee and sent her an inappropriately suggestive text message than it was to the question of who leaked immigration documents to him a decade ago.
To anyone who is not concerned by what has happened to Damian Green I would ask this question.
Are you really happy with the principle that, next time you say something the government of the day does not like, a cabinet office official can tell the police that you may be a threat to national security, you can be arrested, your home and office searched, and even if no actual evidence suggesting that you had ever done anything illegal is found, a police officer or former police officer is entitled to publicly allege after the event that something embarrassing to you had been discovered?
And that this officer can make that allegation up to nearly a decade later, when it is unlikely that anyone could prove the truth, at a time picked when the allegation will do you the maximum possible damage?
If you are not frightened by that prospect, you probably should be.
As the FT, a newspaper which had endorsed the Labour party at the previous election, wrote in an article calling on the then Home Secretary to resign, "it was clear that all he had done was reveal some of her department’s shortcomings."
I wrote at the time here and elsewhere that this arrest posed a disturbing threat to British democracy, not least because arresting opposition politicians for criticising the government is the sort of thing you expect from tin-pot banana republics rather than mature democracies.
Ironically almost every member of the cabinet in 2008, certainly including the Prime Minister of the day, could have been arrested during previous Conservative governments on exactly the same grounds - Gordon Brown had gone on television in the 1980's while an opposition spokesman himself and openly boasted about doing exactly what an opposition spokesman was arrested for under his premiership e.g. receiving leaked government documents.
I think possibly the only time in my life I have ever agreed with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott was when I published here the list of 29 Labour rebels, including those three, who defied the Labour whips by voting for a proper and more independent inquiry into that arrest.
An official review of the arrest did criticise it as "disproportionate" and found that "less intrusive methods could have been used." The police involved in the arrest do not by any means deserve all the blame for this as the inquiry also found that they were "misled about the national security implications of the leak" by someone who was at the time a senior official of the cabinet office.
No charges were ever brought against the opposition MP concerned and nobody involved with that police investigation has claimed - then or now - that the search of his office and home had found any evidence of illegal behaviour.
Time has turned and as a result of the swings and roundabouts of politics the opposition MP concerned, Damian Green, is now Deputy Prime Minister.
And I find it a worrying and disturbing precedent that the former police chief who had been in charge of the leak inquiry, former Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, has taken it apon himself to allege to a Whitehall Inquiry into sexual harrassment that pornography was found on one of the computers taken from Damian Green's parliamentary office in 2008.
Mr Quick has "form" in this area. While leading the investigation into Damian Green he made an attack on the Conservative party which was described by a future Attorney General as "intemperate and in truth completely deluded," could not substantiate his allegations, and withdrew them and made an unreserved apology the following day.
The acting head of the Met at the time of the arrest, Sir Paul Stephenson, (later Metropolitan Police Commissioner 2009-11), has told the BBC that he was made aware of the allegations but did not consider that it was appropriate either to take any further action or that the allegations have been published.
"I regret it's in the public domain," Sir Paul said.
"There was no criminality involved, there were no victims, there was no vulnerability and it was not a matter of extraordinary public interest."
Even if it were true that there was inappropriate material on one of the computers involved, it would almost certainly be impossible to prove nine years later who was responsible for putting it there.
Given that not one of the police officers who have discussed the matter say that it was actually illegal material, this simply is not a police matter. Nor does it appear to be any more relevant to the allegation that the present First Secretary of State "fleetingly" touched a young woman's knee and sent her an inappropriately suggestive text message than it was to the question of who leaked immigration documents to him a decade ago.
To anyone who is not concerned by what has happened to Damian Green I would ask this question.
Are you really happy with the principle that, next time you say something the government of the day does not like, a cabinet office official can tell the police that you may be a threat to national security, you can be arrested, your home and office searched, and even if no actual evidence suggesting that you had ever done anything illegal is found, a police officer or former police officer is entitled to publicly allege after the event that something embarrassing to you had been discovered?
And that this officer can make that allegation up to nearly a decade later, when it is unlikely that anyone could prove the truth, at a time picked when the allegation will do you the maximum possible damage?
If you are not frightened by that prospect, you probably should be.
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