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November 29, 2008

Will nobody rid me of these troublesome leaks?

Matthew Parris comments on the arrest - by anti-terrorism police, no less - of the "distinctly herbivorous" Conservative Shadow Immigration Minister, Damian Green.

On the whole, and in the main, and everything considered, you do not in a democracy go around arresting the Opposition. For some time now, web humorists have been spelling new Labour “Nu-Labour”. As reports of Damian Green's arrest swirled yesterday, the prefix ZA attached itself to the bloggers' joke: ZANU-Labour. If by lunch I had heard the comparison with Zimbabwe once, I had heard it a dozen times.

Nine - nine - counter-terrorism officers? Raids (for that is what we would call them in Russia) on the home and offices of a senior member of the Opposition? What a blunder. What an outrage. What a stupid, stupid, thing to do. The best argument for doubting that ministers had anything to do with the arrest of a mild-mannered and distinctly herbivorous Shadow Immigration Minister is that this is a gift to the Tories, and incredibly damaging to a governing party whose Prime Minister enjoys a reputation for bullying.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at November 29, 2008 08:21 AM

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