Politics amused more when you don't get to vote...

[thecesspit]

I see, reading the press, that London's finest arrested a Conservative MP for being Tory in a built up area. Twenty years too late for that, thanks, Mr Plod. However, the squealing and shifting by the MPs is interesting. Many seem outraged that one of their number can be arrested for passing on information that may, or may not, be covered under

Comments

[onebyone]

MPs are shocked that they could be held accountable to the same laws that they enact and that the rest of the civilian population has to follow

That's certainly the way the cabinet will spin it if they can. Laws concerning government whistle-blowers are awful, because the government of course wants to treat itself as a special exception to usual rules. Hence the existence of the Official Secrets Act and other provisions which go far beyond what any private organisation can expect of its employees. So for instance a regular employer cannot prosecute an employee for revealing that he has committed a crime. The government can, but usually doesn't.

As a consequence, MPs also want to be a special exception, since they are after all supposed to have the constitutional responsibility of holding the government to account, and this duty applies to MPs of the governing party as well as to the opposition.

And then the press also has a significant role in holding the government to account, although not one which is constitutionally implied, and so they also claim exceptions however they can, perhaps under human rights issues like free speech.

The net result is a status quo that does not actually represent the law. The law basically says that any civil servant who breaks a confidence, for any reason up to and including the prevention of wilful and imminent murder of millions of people by the government, can be shot at dawn as a traitor, as can anyone to whom they have leaked. I exaggerate slightly, but the point is that the law is far stricter than everyday practice.

Suddenly shifting the status quo (if that is indeed what has happened) comes as quite a shock, regardless of who it is who is no longer permitted to do whatever it is they've been doing all along. In this case it's an MP (assuming, as he claims, that he's done nothing different from what opposition MPs have been doing for years). So other MPs are naturally more excited about it than they would be had it been a member of the press or other civilian.

[onebyone]

I guess what I say in summary is that laws which the government enacts to protect itself from being held accountable for wrong-doing are bad laws. Any sensible citizen should break them where necessary, and support others who do the same. In this case, it has been suggested that the leaked documents included evidence that the Home Office was misleading parliament and the public. I don't want the Home Office to have the right to do that, especially since history tells us that the Home Secretary is the "cabinet role most likely to be found guilty in court of unlawful conduct".