by David Mills
THE arrest of Damian Green has allowed political columnists to take a break from writing about economic matters, about which many of them know very little, to focus on what they know best – namely, politics and, in particular, struggles between the state and Parliament which have provided such rich seams for observers of the political process since the English Civil War.
If there is one similarity between what must surely be known as “Greengate” and the economic turbulence it is that no one yet knows what impact it will have on wider public opinion.
In one scenario, the Tories are boosted: they look like the underdogs, persecuted by an unholy alliance of the Home Office and the police, on the side of ordinary citizens who need to know about an incompetent Government’s failure to control immigration.
In another, it’s Labour which is in tune with public opinion – rightly refusing to get involved in a police investigation of a civil servant who, it is alleged, appeared to be leaking material to a Conservative Member of Parliament on a regular basis. The arrest of the Tory MP merely proves, like that of Ruth Turner, Tony Blair’s senior aide, no one is above the law.
In truth, with serious economic times at home and appalling terrorist incidents abroad, most of the public will have little more than half an eye on the matter. The view of one Government advisor, that most people will care more about making ends meet for Christmas, may well be accurate.
But perhaps the clearest danger to Labour is that the affair provides another issue which drives a wedge between the party and the professional chattering classes – which comprises most journalists and opinion-formers, and also includes lawyers and others who might have reason to worry about what looks on the surface to be evidence of an over-eager police force moving against an irritant to the party in power.
The sliver of public opinion which might best be described as “state-sceptic” is a small but important part of the Labour coalition, one which reached its ascendancy during the Neil Kinnock years, when Labour benefited from liberal outrage at infringements on civil liberties by the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
Since Tony Blair became Labour leader, the influence of the party’s civil libertarians appears to have dwindled – policies which were once anathema, such as national identity cards, are now front and centre in the party’s programme.
The line the Government has to tread is a fine one – respecting the police’s independence from political interference (a position ignored, it seems, by outraged Conservatives in recent days), while making clear that legitimate activity by MPs and journalists in receiving material from whistleblowers is part of our democracy.
If such high-minded appeals cut little ice, perhaps baser political realities will have more effect: it may not be long before the current crop of Labour MPs could be in Damian Green’s position themselves, receiving brown envelopes detailing mistakes made by David Cameron and his team.
