Michael Martin is making his statement to the House.

[Swedes]

His face is almost purple with stress. And he's putting on that whiny Scots voice saying: "my hands were tied".

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the constitutional law that should be applied. There was no search warrant {shock]

oh fgs, it's not as if the police beat Damian Green with rubber truncheons they followed procedure exactly as they should have, except possibly for the bit where the Serjeant claims they didn't tell her she could refuse the search (yeah right, what grown human being doesn't know the police need a warrant to search somewhere?)

If there's a regular, consistent, security breach from a sensitive government department and someone has been encouraging the breach and making it happen, I damn well want it investigated, whether it involves MPs or not. If the boot was on the other foot and the mole had shared dangerously damaging information with Al-Qaeda, wouldn't we all be calling for the police to do everything they could to find out where the leak was coming from?

The information leaked is wholly irrelevant - the crime Damian Green was accused of is aiding and abetting the sharing of highly sensitive information, which is punishable by life imprisonment.

As for the de Menezes case, this is quite a useful explanation:

"In his legal ruling to the jury before he sent them out to deliberate, Wright said they could not find the firearms officers who fired the fatal shots or senior officers coordinating the operation liable under criminal or civil law for the death because inquest law prohibited any jury returning a verdict that would lay the blame at the door of an individual or individuals.

He told the court he had listened to submissions from the legal teams for all the parties before making his decision. "After hearing the submissions the conclusion that I have come to is that the evidence in this case taken at its highest would not justify my leaving verdicts of unlawful killing to you," he said.

"This is so in respect of C12 and C2 concerning their direct involvement in shooting Mr De Menezes and also in respect of any of the particular senior officers in relation to their management and conduct of the operation."

Wright said the decision did not indicate police did nothing wrong on July 22 2005, but he said all interested persons agreed that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be considered if jurors could be sure a very serious crime, such as murder or manslaughter, had been committed to a criminal standard of proof, ie beyond all reasonable doubt.

Even if the jury concluded that a number of people made different mistakes which together resulted in the shooting of De Menezes, unlawful killing should also not be considered."

Oh well that's all right then, the police get to be judge, jury and executioner and no-one is allowed to bat an eyelid.

I'm not on the jury, I haven't heard all the evidence, but I do think it should be for them to deliver the verdict. Not me, not the coroner and not 'the authorities' who have an inbuilt tendency to protect each other.

As for pretending the action against Damien Green was just straightforward, come off it! There must have been at least one senior officer with the wit to realise searching parliament is, um, not exactly an everyday occurrence. All Green has done is embarrass the government. MPs get leaks all the time - it's their JOB to hold government to account. There's footage of Brown cheerfully admitting to this when he was in Opposition.

Damien Green told us, the public, that the Home Office was covering up appalling blunders such as employing illegal immigrants in sensitive security positions. It's the government which was cavalier about national security, not him.

It's not only shoot the messenger time, it's string him up as a warning to others. Disgusting.

I don't know how this keeps getting missed, but what Damian Green is accused of is NOTHING TO DO WITH leaking the information. Leaking is tolerated as part of the political process, that's NOT the problem.

If information in the public interest lands on your desk in a brown envelope, and you leak it, that's totally fair enough, even if it does embarrass the government.

But if you actively encourage a civil servant to breach security and pass you sensitive information, no matter who you are, then that is a criminal offence punishable by life imprisonment. Particularly if you offer some sort of reward for doing so, in this case (allegedly) advancement within the Conservative Party. And if the Conservative Front Bench was fully aware that one of their MPs was encouraging someone who had access to very sensitive information in the Home Office to pass it to them, then that's even more serious.

Noone is suggesting that Damian Green was wrong to leak the information. But they are saying he would have been wrong to encourage the civil servant to pass it to him.

As for the de Menezes case, I only posted that excerpt because I thought it was quite a useful explanation of the legal reasons behind directing the jury.

I don't personally think one can hold any one person responsible for his death, but rather a series of errors by different people, which basically makes unlawful killing an impossible verdict, so from that point of view the coroner was correct to direct the jury - and they have a perfect right to direct the jury, in my understanding.

Oh come off it, Green isn't the Big Bad Wolf enticing a poor innocent ickle-wickle bunny civil servant to hand over the crown jewels. Said civil servant is a grown man who is perfectly capable of making his own decisions.

What are you on about wrt life imprisonment? Are you thinking of the Official Secrets Act? Because the police have said they are talking about misconduct in public office NOT OSA so clearly even the biggest drama queen in the CPS couldn't stretch this one into any category other than 'embarrassing the government'. Which is not a capital offence.

Mind you, the way this lot are going it may not be long...

It's not about him being the Big Bad Wolf, this isn't a judgment call - the offence is called "suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".

Committing "misconduct in a public office" is a serious criminal offence punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

(both those quotes from the Guardian, who I assume know what they're talking about)

The CPS says

"A charge of misconduct in public office should be reserved for cases of serious misconduct or deliberate failure to perform a duty which is likely to injure the public interest." and that prosecutors should only use it as a last resort

It's a fig leaf. The Home Office and police are hoping that because it appears so dramatic, people will go 'ooh, that sounds bad' rather than realise the whole thing is ridiculous.

Completely and utter waste of public time and money for the sole purpose of saving Jackie Smith's blushes.

More evidence of police wrongdoing and taking action only to protect their own backs in the news today -they are trying to suppress evidence in the trial of an officer in the Royal Protection Squad because it details a culture of gambling, moonlighting and drinking. here

And this is the force pretending to sit in moral judgement over Green?

erm - the police force don't sit in judgment on anyone, do they? they investigate crimes, put together a case for CPS, and then the courts sit in judgment.

as for Mr 'I'm accused of serious fraud so my defence shall be that everyone was behaving badly in the Royal Household', it's hardly relevant to his case, is it? he's just trying to cause maximum embarrassment to the Royal Household in order to try and deflect attention from his own behaviour.

you're right that the misconduct charge should only be used when there is no other sentence that would give the court the required sentencing powers, according to that link - but given that they were dealing with an MP, it seems to me that there probably wasn't another charge they could have used? But I'm no lawyer.

Michael Martin and his staff have been shown to be idiots. But the police were just doing their job and investigating what could have been a very serious breach of security in a very sensitive public office, imo.

Yes this is classic separation of powers stuff. The police are part of the Executive (as is Jacqui Smith). They should only be involved where someone has committed or it's reasonable to believe someone has committed a criminal offence. You don't phone the police when the builder puts your window in upside down or because your employer is trying to make you work Thursdays when the agreement was that you would work Tuesdays because these are civil matters.

I think the CPS are part of the Executive as well aren't they?

Nicely put, Swedes.* Interesting point re. CPS - executive or legislature?

• What did you make of Billy's, btw? Sorry the footballers' wives weren't in.

Edam at all those middle aged Harpenden men out on the pull..... it's the stuff of nightmares isn't it? But I enjoyed it immensely, in the interests of local research.

Yes, I noticed it only took 0.000001 seconds before some bloke was chatting to you.

OMG, just thought, if I ever fall out with dh and have to find myself a New Man, will I have to go to Billy's? Eek. Must be nicer to him...

Edam - Hold him very tightly.

< Hope to see you v soon.>

me too, it was lovely!