I am relieved to know that I am not alone in my dismay at what happened to Damian Green last week. I was going to write “shock” rather than “dismay”, but sadly I am not shocked. Labour’s repressive legislation is all too often used by the police in a totally disproportionate way against ordinary citizens. Common sense – which would have told us to pick up the telephone to Damian Green – seems to have gone out the window.
The thing that caused me the most exasperation about this whole sorry episode was the behaviour of so many Labour Ministers. I literally screamed at my radio as I listened to Geoff Hoon on Any Questions. My frustration was about why these people couldn’t just say that they regretted the manner in which this happened, or express some surprise or shock. Have we really become so partisan that as long as it happened to a political opponent it is okay? I know these public servants did not go into politics to create a society in which this kind of thing happens, so why can’t they just say so?
It got me thinking. We may well be in government in a year or two. If we make it, we must not allow ourselves to become twisted like this. If something happens which distresses a reasonable person, we should put our hands up and say sorry. This should be as true if something unfortunate happens a Labour opponent as a Conservative Minister. This will be a daily battle to do the right thing in difficult circumstances. We will fall short, but at least we can try.
We could do worse than having Google’s motto in the back of our mind every day in everything we do: “Do No Evil”.
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If you lot get into power, I have little confidence that we will see more freedom of information and transparency. the Westminster Village and its groupies love operatin in secret and controlling the flow of information.
We can at least be sure that when the Tories are in power they won’t be allowing the arrest of Labour MPs without a bloody good, cast-iron, reason. The never did in the past even with reactionary Home Secretaries and they won’t in future. “A Labour government has got to take on the people who obstruct it, arresting them if necessary, arm the workers if necessary” – Valerie Vaness, Labour candidate for Nuneaton (’87)