Questions to be answered over Damian Green

There are serious questions which need urgent answers after the arrest of Conservative Immigration spokesman Damian Green on Thursday. There is no doubt that he has discomfited the government on a number of occasions over recent months, with information known to be leaked from the Home Office. Green was arrested on suspicion of 'aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office', held for 9 hours and released on police bail - due to face further questioning in February.



It is clear that Green got his information from a Home Office 'mole' - information which the government clearly did not want published - and that forms the substance of the charges.

But this raises very serious questions about the ability of the Opposition to do its job and the role of the police in such matters. There are issues which any opposition sees as being in the public interest which governments will try to suppress - primarily because its not in their interest rather than the public's. Gordon Brown is saying that government ministers were not involved in any way in the police decision to raid Green's parliamentary office and his two homes.

This may well be true. But I think it needs to be clear to everyone what did motivate the police action and exactly why, without any hiding behind some 'compromising future legal proceeedings' bullshit. The police need to come clean about what evidence they acted on in this case and who initiated the arrests.

We do need to be certain, regardless of our choice of governments, that democratic rights of Her Majesty's opposition are not being hindered and threatened by a wrongful use of police intervention.