Lost Control Again

Here is the image of Sir David Normington, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and it would seem Accusor-in Chief of shadow immigration Minister Damian Green. Sir David (for it is he) was getting pretty damn vexed about the leaks coming from his Department some of them landing in Green's in-tray. 'Sir Humphrey' Normington claimed, laughably, the leaks had "risked undermining the effective operation of my department". The Civil Servant whose actions threaten the entire department is of the lowest managerial grade.

Sir D has every necessary connection at the very top of all the parties and could have had a quiet word but instead called in the Met. Old Plod can usually be relied on to overreact, so they did not disappoint by sending several anti-terrorist officers to raid Mr Green's offices and homes in Westminster and Ashford. Then they convinced themslves there was sufficient reason to arrest the largely blameless Tory and held him for about 7 hours before getting round to questioning him.

The issues leaked were quite varied and certainly not restricted to immigration. The only official with access to all those documents would have to work in the Press Office or more likely in a Private Office, directly to Ministers. In other words, it could only be a handful of people and the leaker would have known that. The leaks say more about how Normington runs his department where staff seemingly cannot wait to disseminate embarrrassing material than it can ever say about Damien Green's threat to national security.

Leaks to opposition members is a decades old practice. Civil Servants Clive Ponting and Sarah Tisdall were both jailed for their leaking (under Official Secrets Act) and both were acquitted on appeal. There is no prospect of the junior official, currently suspended, being prosecuted.

Mr Green was arrested under the common law 'offences' of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office" and "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office". Again no hope of prosecution -this is pretty much the legal equivalent of 'looking like you're up to something.'

Ministers claim to have not known about the arrest or the complaint but the job of any Perm Sec like Normington, if it could be distilled into a few words, is 'to inform and advise Home Secretary on everything'. If proven, then a resignation could not be resisted. Perhaps Normington thinks this is a 'shot across the bows' of officials and Opposition members alike. The British character usual rebels against such edicts so it could all be counter-productive for Normington. Certainly if the Conservatives form the next Government Normington will be, "so fired".

I can confess when I was an official, I leaked. It was usually the odd message left on a Guardian journalists voicemail. I rang Nick Clegg's office once when John Reid was due to announce some idiotic policy. Clegg used it in Parliament and Reid fumed at him. I felt like it was in the public's interest to know. I knew I risked the sack but would not have expected any 'standard issue' size 10s kicking my door in like they did for Damian Green.

This story will keep rolling yet.