They don't like it up 'em.
Do you remember how many times Blair professed his "complete confidence" in his namesake as the head of the Met? He did it on more than a couple of occasions last year. That's what makes the reaction to the arrest of Ruth Turner, Blair's political liaison officer, on the suspicion of perverting the course of justice in connection with the loans for peerages investigation, so illuminating. Out they come, all united in their questioning of the "theatrical" nature of the arrest, done as it was "before dawn" at 6:30am.All of which made me remember the treatment of Lana Vandenberghe, who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission. She was the one who leaked the reality of what happened to Jean Charles de Menezes to ITV news, disgusted by the way that the police had lied and attempted to cover their tracks over what took place at Stockwell tube station on the morning of the 22nd of July 2005. For her trouble, she too was arrested before dawn, but rather than being questioned and released within hours like Ruth Turner, she instead had her door kicked in by 10 police officers and was thrown in a cell for 8 hours without access to food, water or a lawyer.
Whilst what Vandenberghe did was clearly in the wider public interest, correcting the myths which had been perpetuated, Ruth Turner is widely thought to have been arrested for potentially destroying evidence, i.e. deleting emails, a serious, imprisonable offence.
As Curious Hamster points out, this is the same government that wants us to trust the police, that wants them to be given further summary powers of justice and desperately wants us to believe that if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear. As ever, when the boot is on the other foot, the predictable loyalists and hangers-on of Blair emerge from out of the shadows to voice their distaste. Isn't it all so terribly unfair?
Labels: Jean Charles de Menezes, Lana Vandenberghe, loans for peerages, Ruth Turner
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