If I'm not here on Friday, you'll know I've been nicked
Last updated at 9:03 PM on 01st December 2008
Richard Littlejohn
Smith continues to insist she had no advance knowledge of the
arrest of Damian Green. If you ask me, I reckon she's lying through her
teeth. You can smell her duplicity. Of course she must have known.
If she says I'm wrong, she can sue and let's have it out in open court,
with her on oath.
Her behaviour has been reprehensible. Instead of doing the decent thing
and resigning immediately, she hints sinisterly that Green is indeed
guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.
In her stubborn dissembling, she is aided and abetted by her allies in
the police force, who brief menacingly that there are disturbing aspects
of this case which have still to emerge, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Offensively, they claim that Green was 'grooming' a young civil servant
to leak information - a scandalous slur normally used in relation to
child sex offences.
What seems to be going on behind the scenes is a desperate search for
any kind of evidence which will allow them to fit up Green and excuse
their draconian abuse of power. They hope the DPP will decide that he
has a case to answer.
Gordon Brown has done his world-famous disappearing act again, which
almost certainly means he has something to hide. Conspicuous acts of
courage are not something we have come to associate with the Prime
Minister. Buck-passing and cowardice are more his stamp, coupled with
outright contempt for any concept of accountability.
His failure to condemn the heavy-handed operation and speak up for the
independence of Parliament serves only to illustrate his utter
unsuitability for the highest office.
In any event, whether Smith and Brown knew about the arrest five minutes
before or half an hour afterwards is academic. Jackboot Jacqui
instigated the investigation into leaks from her office. She's directly
responsible for the police. Once the mole was identified, the only other
name in the frame was the MP who made the leaked information public.
It defies belief to claim that she was kept out of the loop and the Old
Bill were acting independently. Especially since the two senior
policemen involved, Paul Stephenson and Bob Quick, have both thrown
their hats in the ring to succeed Ian Blair as Met Commissioner.
Surely they wouldn't have nicked an Opposition front bench spokesman
without a green light from their political mistress, who held their
career prospects in the palm of her hand.
One thing which is imperative is that neither Smith nor her henchman at
the Home Office, David Normington, should be allowed to play any part in
appointing the next chief. They are hopelessly compromised.
Frankly, if they had a shred of decency, both would fall on their
swords. But decency is in short supply these days, especially among
senior Labour ministers and our increasingly arrogant and politicised
civil service.
As I wrote on Saturday, Speaker Martin should go, too. He's supposed to
uphold the sanctity of Parliament, but instead rolled out the red carpet
for Plod and put the kettle on.
Although this affair has provoked cross-party condemnation, there are
still plenty of Labour MPs who think it's no big deal and that the
Tories had it coming.
Disgracefully, they are trying to draw some kind of moral equivalence
between Green's arrest and the cash-for-honours investigation.
There is no parallel. Cash-for-honours was a legitimate inquiry into
corruption at the very highest level of government, conducted with
scrupulous impartiality and professionalism by Assistant Commissioner
John Yates.
The arrest of Damian Green was a politically motivated attempt to crush
an Opposition spokesman simply for doing his job, which culminated in an
outrageously over-the-top operation involving 20 members of the anti-
terrorism squad.
Believe me, this isn't just a Westminster bubble story. People are
talking about it in pubs, in hairdressers, in bus queues. And frankly,
they're frightened. If this kind of totalitarian treatment can be meted
out to a member of the Shadow Cabinet, where does it leave the rest of
us? That's the crux of it.
For years, I've been accused of scaremongering when I've described the
police as the paramilitary wing of New Labour. After this, can you think
of a better description?
Those of us who talk about a 'Stasi State' are accused by Labour of
being unduly alarmist. But throwing Opposition spokesmen into jail is
simply the logical conclusion of a decade of resorting to any means of
suppressing dissent and shutting down free speech.
Still, maybe we shouldn't be all that surprised.
So many prominent Labour figures have a background in hard Left
politics. And I can remember in the not-too-distant past when Labour
members expressed their admiration for East Germany and made regular
fraternal visits behind the Berlin Wall.
The fact that our criminally inadequate Home Secretary thinks she's done
nothing wrong and our unelected Prime Minister sees no reason to
apologise tells you all you need to know about their distaste for
democracy.
They think they can brazen it out. That mustn't be allowed to happen.
The Tories are talking about staging some kind of protest around the
Queen's Speech tomorrow. It's not enough. A vote of confidence is a
waste of time, since Labour has a working majority and its MPs would
back the Government, rather than trigger an election which would
inevitably cost many of them their seats.
The Conservatives will have to force the issue. Unless, at the very
least, the Prime Minister makes a grovelling apology in the House and
delivers up the heads of Smith, Normington and Gorbals Mick on a silver
platter, they should resign their seats en masse and offer themselves
for re-election. That's the real nuclear option.
Nick Clegg seems genuinely horrified at Green's arrest, so he should
encourage his Liberal MPs to do likewise.
The Queen would have no option other than to dissolve Parliament. The
alternative is another 18 months of hubristic, slash-and-burn Labour
Government and the further trampling of our historic liberties.
This must not stand. It used to be said that Britain may not be the best
country in the world to live in, but it was the safest to go to bed in.
After 11 years of increasingly tyrannical Labour rule, does anyone still
think that's true?
If I'm not here on Friday, you'll know I've had my collar felt.
Have you ever heard of anyone falling off a hassock?
I've written before about the way in which elf'n'safety is targeting
churches, forcing bell-ringers to wear protective helmets and ear muffs,
and insisting that vicars put up 'no smoking' signs and instruct
worshippers to mind the step on their way out at the end of the service.
Mail reader June Lower tells me she called in at St Peter's, Derby,
recently for a few minutes of quiet reflection.
Wondering why there weren't the usual hassocks on the pews, she was told
they had been removed on the orders of elf'n'safety.
They said the church would be held responsible if anyone tripped over a
hassock or fell off one and hurt themselves,' June writes.
Have you ever heard of anyone falling off a hassock? Are A&E departments
the length and breadth of Britain teeming with people suffering prayer-
related injuries?
It won't be long before they're insisting that all members of the
congregation have to wear skateboard-style knee pads before taking
communion.
Democracy? You must be joking!
Peter Mandelson has been busily rewriting tomorrow's Queen's Speech,
according to reports from Westminster instigated by, er, Mandelson
himself.
So much of it has already been leaked it makes you wonder why Her Maj is
bothering.
And if you are still labouring under the impression that Britain is a
functioning democracy, consider this: the speech has been drawn up by a
Prime Minister who was elected by neither his party nor the country, and
redrafted by a business secretary elected by nobody but the Prime
Minister.
Steady on, Raymondo
Actor Ray Winstone tells the Mail on Sunday he is thinking of emigrating
because of rising crime and high taxes. 'We're falling apart at the
seams. All the things we used to be proud of - our police, our
schools, our hospitals - have gone to hell,' says Ray.
'We've got a working class which doesn't work any more. As I see it, you
make a choice. You sit on your backside, laze about and claim benefits,
or you work your b***s off and pay most of what you earn in tax.'
Steady on, Raymondo. At this rate, I'm going to be out of a job.
Promiscuous Brits
Britain is now the most promiscuous country in the world, according to
new research. We have even more one-night stands and sexual partners
than traditionally liberal nations such as Holland and Sweden. It's
reassuring to know that while we have killed off most of our
manufacturing industry and are the worst-prepared country in the free
world to cope with the credit crunch, we still lead the world in
adultery and sexually transmitted diseases. Makes you proud to be
British.
* As you steel yourself for a raft of exciting new taxes designed to
tackle 'climate change', you may have missed the report at the weekend
that ski resorts across Europe are opening ahead of schedule after
experiencing the heaviest November snowfalls for a decade. That'll be
the global warming, then.
* This morning's edition of You Couldn't Make It Up comes from the
front page of yesterday's Guardian, which was giving away free wrapping
paper designed by Jonathan Ross. Coming next week: win a pair of Gary
Glitter pyjamas.
http://www.dailymai
Im-Friday-youll-
Monday, 1 December 2008
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