Any Answers

Posted on November 30, 2008 by bobpiper

Some questions that David Davis might want to ask… or answer!

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11 Responses to Any Answers

  1. Andy says:
    November 30, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    Bob,
    I do think you maybe mis-reading this one. You do seem to take a rather holier-than thou attitude to Cameron and at the same time you seem to forget the very large number of leaks that Brown and Blair benefited from in the last couple of years of the Major government. It would be intersting wouldn’t it to ask the same or similar questions you pose of those leakers in the civil service then?
    FWIW I think now as then we are witnessing the death-throws of an adminsitration – classic symptoms of control lost ..

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  2. Bob says:
    November 30, 2008 at 9:09 pm

    I don’t take a holier than thou attitude at all. Where? Again, if civil servants were leaking ‘political’ information, as opposed to stuff that might embarrass the government, they should have been sacked and prosecuted whether they were leaking to Brown, Blair or Cook. It fundamentally undermines the basis of a supposedly neutral civil service.
    Leaks of the kind Ponting and Tisdall, prosecuted by Thatcher, could be justified (and in the case of Ponting was in court) on the basis of a legitimate public interest.
    Your final point is just futile speculation. Do the lottery or something useful.

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  3. David Duff says:
    December 1, 2008 at 11:18 am

    Taking the questions in order:
    1: Are you, and Lord Harris, suggesting that civil servants are to be forbidden from joining, or having sympathies with, political parties? And will that apply to *all* parties?
    2; Of course there was a “relationship/link” (nice smear words) between Galley and Green, how do you think one passed information to the other?
    3: What iota of difference does it make if Galley has met senior Tories – he’s a source for information, none of which is security related, and as a free-born Englishman (I’ll try not to giggle) he is entitled to meet whom he likes.
    4: Possibly true but irrelevant.
    5: I’d bet the deeds of my house that he has not but even if he has what does it matter. I repeat, we are not talking of security matters here, only embarrassing maladministration by a government department which we, meaning the tax-paters and voters, are entitled to know.
    6 and 7: Who cares?
    8: Same question as #3, so same answer.
    Lord Harris is a portentious old bore and dimwit incapable of rising above party faction, and you, Sir, by associating yourself with him, risk appearing like the lick-spittle apparatchik that he so obviously is. Why not pay more attention to Tony Benn who has a keener appreciation of the real issues at the heart of this controversy.

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  4. Andy says:
    December 1, 2008 at 11:48 am

    Well Bob, of course its speculation – but we’ll see whether its futile or not in 18 months or so eh?
    And I don’t do the lottery – I try to avoid the bread and circuses created to keep us proles quiet ..

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  5. Bob says:
    December 1, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    What a relief to readers of this blog that we have such a valued insider as David Duff. OK, readers, so you may not know what Galley has leaked to the Tories, and neither does anyone else apart from the police (and David Duff)… but rest assured, because David tells us it is OK.
    You see, David’s point is different to most of the pompous puffed-up people who are getting so exercised about this. David thinks the civil service are entitled to be politically partisan and do whatever they think fit to either protect their political friends in government, or stab them in the back by slipping tit bits to the opposition.
    It’s a valid point of view, and not one I entirely disagree with either… as long as we all agree that is the rules of the game. If we have a civil service who are entirely politically appointed and booted out with a new regime, I can live with that. But if they are expected to be politically neutral (and they never have been because the senior civil servants are all the same Oxbridge/Eton crowd as the establishment) then that’s what they should be.
    We eagerly await Galley’s appearance in court… or squealing like a stuck pig to Max Clifford.

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  6. David Duff says:
    December 1, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    What, precisely and exactly, is political about a civil servant leaking information, none of which is of a security nature, to the effect that a major department of state is, er, “unfit for purpose” – now who said that?
    And what, etc., etc., were you saying in the early ’90s when your party leader was making his name and reputation(?) “procuring misconduct in public office” and boasting about it on the ‘telly’?
    http://www.order-order.com/2008/11/brown-confesses-to-procuring-misconduct.html
    And, forgive me if I missed it, but you do not appear to have remarked on the fact that the Counter Terrorism police are even now browsing through the e-mail and correspondence between a member of parliament and his constituents. Perhaps you are taking your lead from your Home Secretary and Prime Minister because they have nothing to say on the subject, either.
    Now, for goodness sake, Bob, go and buy your copy of the New Statesman and read Martin Bright’s words on the subject.
    http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2008/12/labour-progress-end-green
    Then come back and tell us you forgot to engage the brain before hitting the keyboard – God alone knows, we’ve all done it.

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  7. Bob says:
    December 1, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    David, believe me, we know you have. How many times do you have to be told that the Special Branch have been incorporated into the new elite police force that also deals with counter terrorism. The Special Branch always investigated ‘political’ issues. Keep up for god’s sake man!
    And again… despite your self appointed ‘expert’ insight, you have no idea what the police were investigating, but in any event, that is up to them. The Met will be responsible to the Mayor and the police authority, and ultimately to the Home Office and Parliament… not instructed by any of them.
    I don’t know whether you are playing the half-wit or whether you are the genuine article.

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  8. andy says:
    December 1, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    Bob,
    How about some sensible debate instead of your snide comments to anyone who disagree swith you.

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  9. David Duff says:
    December 1, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    The Special Branch, about which I suspect I might know slightly more than you, do not investigate political matters except where there might be direct security implications, for example from the recent past, members of the Communist Party, CND and so forth. None of the very many MPs who were members or supporters of both, or either, of those organisations were ever arrested and their parliamentary offices, constituency offices and their homes ransacked. Can you imagine the furore if Michael Foot had been treated in such a manner? Mind you, considering the likes of Tom Driberg and Raymond Fletcher, they would have deserved it!
    To be politically blind in one eye is, just about, understandable for a partisan like youself; to be blind in both is a crippling impairment to a man who seeks to offer wise and lofty political prescriptions to us ‘ordinary folk’.
    I repeat, if it makes you more comfortable, go and read the words of Martin Bright and listen to Tony Benn.

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  10. Bob says:
    December 1, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    Andy, those who come here with sensible comments get a sensible response. Those who come to have a row, get one. You came on here with a fairly reasonable remark with a dig inside it, you got an answer to your sensible point, and your daft comment was kicked into touch. Live with it.

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  11. Bob says:
    December 1, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    David, I’m fascinated by your recommendation of the works of Tony Benn. I am a strong admirer of Mr Benn, and his belief that we should adapt Marxist philosophy to deliver democratic socialism in Britain, and I’m pleased to hear you are an adherent to his works.
    However, I suspect fifty years in the Palace of Varieties has warped his sense of perspective about the level of respect and reverence we should give to our Members of Parliament. Martin Bright, on the other hand, is a journalist who feels wounded by the New Labour mafioso and wants to display his scars to the world. There are a few of these delicate flowers about, but we can’t take them too seriously.
    I however, have no love for Jacqui Smith, and a fairly deep dislike of most New Labour project people, so I’m hardly blindly ‘partisan’. What I do not think is that the Home Secretary should direct police operations, neither stopping action against MPs, nor initiating it. In this case she didn’t, and I’m pleased about that. If Benn, Bright, Duff or Uncle Tom Cobbley want a Home secretary who directs police operations, that’s up to them. I just happen to think they are wrong.
    Whilst I have no affection for New Labour, I have a general loathing for Tories, and I would hate the thought of giving some reactionary like David Davis the power to direct our police force operations if ever the Tories were to get re-elected.

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