Gestapo Watch - Anti-Terror cops arrest Shadow Cabinet MP

[TonyGosling]

Michael 'the weevil' Martin at the centre of this again.

[TonyGosling]

Q: So who is the crackpot who set this ludicrous case in motion?
A: Sir David Normington, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.

Q: Not Jacqui Smith?
A: No, she's Temporary Secretary at the Home Office. It can't be long now before she moves on.

Q: And where does the House of Commons Speaker come into all this?
A: A better question would be when does the Speaker go out of it? Considering that he all but handed the Westminster keys over to the Old Bill and showed them where he kept the sherry, it is not surprising that he is now facing calls to pack his bags and be off.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090674/KEITH-WATERHOUSE-What- dont-know-wont-say.html

[scienceplease]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7768372.stm

[TonyGosling]

Sir Gus kept sniffing, like a man out jogging

Last updated at 12:04 AM on 12th December 2008


Cabinet Secretaries are not what they were. The behaviour yesterday of Sir Gus O'Donnell, inheritor of a once gloriously lofty position, was most odd. He lost his temper, started shouting, jabbed his finger and kept saying 'right?' like some character from a Harry Enfield sketch show.

Sir Gus was up before the Public Administration Select Committee which asked him about the Damian Green affair. Why had Sir Gus asked the police to go clobbering in with their polished size 11s to find the young shaver in Jacqui Smith's office who was passing titbits to the Tories? Was this truly necessary? Or was it done at the behest of a Home Secretary peeved by these leaks?

Tony Wright (Lab, Cannock Chase) suggested that the arrest of Mr Green must have seemed 'bizarre' to Sir Gus. For the first of many times Sir Gus said: 'That was the decision of the police.'

Variations of this answer included, 'It's for the police to account for their actions', 'from my view this is about police independence', 'that is a matter for the police', 'it is a matter for the police' and 'in my view this is a matter for the police'.

Such repetition! Has Peter Mandelson been coaching him, too? Sir Gus then did this little shimmy which various Brownite bods have tried recently. He tried to equate the arrest of Mr Green with the arrest of a Downing Street aide during the cash-for-peerages affair.

Gordon Prentice (Lab, Pendle) quickly pointed out that the arrest of an MP for asking a Government tricky questions was of a different magnitude to the arrest of some official for suspected abuse of the honours system. Sir Gus shot Mr Prentice a sullen glare.

Why had Sir Gus called in the cops? He claimed that national security was at stake - indeed, we were shown a letter to this effect. He then appeared to argue that the reason he feared for national security was that Tory MP David Davis had made a public boast about how half the leaks the Tories received were on national security.

Hang on. Sir Gus later conceded that Mr Davis's remarks came long after the cops were called in. So it can't have been a reason for summoning Plod.

Charles Walker (Con, Broxbourne) got under Sir Gus's pelt. Mr Walker, it has to be said, is an irritating man but Sir Gus failed to rise above the moment.

He suggested that Sir Gus was 'happy to tolerate leaks when they are helpful to the Government'.

Sir Gus, vexed, started pointing at Mr Walker and kept sniffing, like a man out jogging. 'It's not true! It's important we don't leak anything, right? I'm very clear, right?'

This demotic 'right?' business was terrible. It is the verbal tick of low-grade bluffers and bullies. A Cabinet Secretary should be above such bluster.

As for Sir Gus and leaking, in the late 1980s he was a press officer at the Treasury. At that time I worked opposite the economics correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.

She used to receive frequent telephone calls from the then Mr Gus O'Donnell and at some point in the conversations she would invariably say, 'really, Gus? My, my, that is MOST interesting. Thank you!'

But back to yesterday. Mr Walker said Sir Gus had presided over a 'Whitehall farce'.

He suggested that the reason cops were called in was that the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office 'was getting a load of bollockings from the Home Secretary'. Girls! Language!

Before we close, a shipping announcement. The Commons Chamber briefly discussed the delay to the ordering of a new Royal Navy aircraft carrier.

The building of this carrier was a great electoral asset recently for Labour in Scotland. With the deal now in doubt, Scottish Labour MPs seemed curiously shy.

Lindsay Roy (Lab, Glenrothes), who won his recent by-election partly on the back of the carrier order, remained firmly on his bottom while the SNP piled in. Mr Roy was busily writing something.

I could not see for sure myself, but I am told he was signing his Christmas cards.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094024/Quentin-Letts-Sir-Gus- kept-sniffing-like-man-jogging.html