MP Arrested: embarrassing government now a terrorist offence.
The news that front bench Tory MP Damien Green had been arrested by ‘counter-terrorism‘ officers and held for nine hours for leaking Home Office material demands a blog post. I’m staggered by this news; not only does Green have a right to freedom of expression in law, but as a journalistic source and a whistle-blower he has special protections under the Human Rights Act. And lets not beat about the bush – the information leaked was in the public interest; Greens crime (although there’s no charge been pressed as yet) seems to have been embarrassing the government.
But what’s really got my goat is that this is the only arrest of a politician I can remember for leaking information, and it would be impossible to deny that the government has systematically and continually leaked information for political gain from the moment they took power, and they did so when in opposition too.
Information is a political tool; it is released and concealed by the authorities in order to protect and foster their own interests. The government does this all the time, councils do it (mine certainly does), and parties, MPs and public bodies do it. For the police to act in this manner (and I don’t for a second believe the obvious lie that after opposition MPs, the Speaker and Boris Johnson were all told in advance by the police that the PM and Home Secretary were kept in the dark) is yet another warning note, in what is rapidly becoming a symphony, that should sound out to us that Labour is determined to grind our liberties to dust.