Nick Robinson's Newslog

The sanctity of the Commons

• Nick
• 28 Nov 08, 05:23 PM

The arrest of Damian Green and the forced search of his parliamentary office have caused anger and concern on all sides of politics. From Tony Benn to David Davis and Nick Clegg, there is fury at the police's violation of the sanctity of the Commons and the challenge to the duty of an opposition member to hold the government to account.

I am grateful to a colleague for pointing me to the defiant words of Speaker Lenthall to Charles I in 1642.

They were uttered when the king tried to have five MPs arrested in the Commons. On his knees before the sovereign, the Speaker explained why he would not co-operate, explaining that his duty was to the House and not to the king.

May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this

P.S.: My earlier post seems to have generated anger from those who were appalled at the arrest of Damian Green.

Having covered the cash-for-honours case (rather more vigorously than the government was comfortable with), I was merely trying to answer the two questions which were asked then and are being asked now: why did the police feel the need to arrest Damian Green and to raid his house?

Incidentally, I thought that comparing Green with Churchill might just have hinted that I saw the gravity of the situation.

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Green's arrest draws parallels

• Nick
• 28 Nov 08, 12:35 PM

Tory outrage at the arrest of Damian Green mirrors the anger that many in Labour felt when Tony Blair's aide Ruth Turner was arrested in the cash for honours investigation. Although their cases are very different there are important similarities.

Green (pictured left), like Turner (pictured right), was arrested under suspicion of conspiracy. In other words, he has not been arrested simply for receiving leaked government documents, but under suspicion of conspiring to have them leaked.

Also like Ruth Turner, he found a large number of police officers turning up on his doorstep instead of having an arranged interview. The justification will be the same in both cases - that the suspect could not be relied on to produce computer or documentary evidence that the police want to see.

There are plenty of people who believe that Green like Turner is unlikely to ever face successful charges, and there are plenty of parliamentarians who see another parallel with Churchill. He of course relied on a foreign office mole Ralph Wigram to tell him of the failure to prepare to stand up to the Nazi threat. Damian Green's revelations may be on a rather less dramatic scale but they raise real concerns about the capacity of parliamentarians to do their job.

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