It should be wrong (and I believe it is wrong) for civil servants to engage in party politics. Therefore the person to blame in this case is the civil servant – if he was indeed acting for party political reasons (which I think is a safe assumption).

The thing that I dislike about the Damian Green case is that his arrest seems to have been for no reason other than intimidation. Arresting him was unnecessary and the only effect is to lessen the Opposition’s ability to hold government to account.

As for lies, for all the laws Labour have brought it, it’s shameful that MPs are still allowed to lie with impunity. That’s a law worth making.

Brief precis: his assertion was that the gvt opposition were implying that civil servants have enjoyed a long enshrined right to pass on info to MPs who are not part of the gvt. Why should this be since a similar scenario in the commercial world could be considered commercial espionage?

Cutting to the chase, I asked if he believed that all journos should be arrested when they ‘responsibly’ publish secret gvt info. No. Bottom line, we agreed that the main problem was that nobody trusted what this gvt says, ditto previous and future ones.

Again, going further down the food chain to local councils, the distrust is manifest.

Deny the right to form political parties? Dictatorship or anarchy? Bags I be leader of the Anarchists.