I see that the scandal of the jackboots sounding through Westminster continues this morning with allegations/innuendos/revelations about the possible bugging of Parliament.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bugging-scandal-inside-the-commons-1041637.html
This is not the first time, as we know that an MP has been bugged previously, but now there is not even the flimsy excuse of the alleged war on terror.
Damian Green was simply embarrassing the Home Secretary by showing how incompetent the Home Office is at immigration control. This is not a state secret - the mismanagement under Jack Straw was legendary - though he blamed the public. John Reid, when Home Secretary himself, declared the place not fit for purpose.
The Home Secretary, hoping the same incompetence defense will work for her personally, has said that the arrest was not Stalinist, (in a possible allusion to comments about her boss when he was in charge of the Treasury), and she has refused to apologize for the behaviour of the police.
On the one hand it seems she thinks correct procedures were followed, as if there is such a thing as a correct procedure for the raid on the office of an MP, Privy Councillor and Opposition Front Bench spokesman, and on the other she is doing an impersonation of one of my favourite childhood TV characters, Sergeant Schultz, pretending, that like the Prime Minister she knew 'nothing' about it.
Brown, of course, has form both for leaking himself and never being around when his decisions come back to make him look unpopular, but how Smith thinks she can do so convincingly in her position as Home Secretary is astonishing.
