Spot the difference: Speaking at City Hall in London today, Acting Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said: "The police must be able to act without fear or favour in any investigation and: "It is serious when a senior politician is arrested," Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said. "But what I am absolutely clear about is that no one is above the law and the police should carry out their sta...

The Tories aren't going to take Peter Mandelson's claims lying down, if Dominic Grieve's interview with Sky News is anything to go by.  The shadow home secretary has just said he thinks Mandy is unfit for office: "This morning, Lord Mandelson has been banging on about national security.  We don't believe there is any national security angle to it at all...

Jacqui Smith, home secretary, accused her Tory shadow of behaving in a manner unfit for high office as the political row over the arrest of MP Damian Green intensified

Jacqui Smith attempted to defuse a bitter showdown between MPs and the Commons Speaker today as the Whitehall leaks row escalated.

Jacqui Smith attempts to defuse showdown between MPs and the Speaker as the Damian Green arrest row escalates.

As picked up by Luke Akehurst, see the Sky clip of the Shadow Cabinet laughing along at the Home Secretary's reply to their questions on the Damien Green affairs, exposing their mock indignation. As posted below, on the issue of public interest, the Conservative line now seems to be that the issues were not of sufficient seriousness to merit a police response, it was purely a disciplinary mat...

Todays Daily mail has the (story)that anyone can be asked to produce ID to prove who they are and if failing to do so face arrest This idea was first suggested by Home secretary John Reid and Tony Blair days befor they departed office ,but quickly fogotten when the police said it was totally unworkable. For a start. Policing in britain is by consent we all might feel bad about how the Irish were t...

While opposition politicians talk of "Stalinesque" arrests and newspapers suddenly decide we're living in a police state, not helped admittedly by a Home Secretary with an apparent tin ear and a police force that wouldn't know subtlety if it shot it 7 times in the head, a genuinely Kafkaesque farce has been continuing concerning someone not as obviously deserving of protection as Damian ...

The Tories allowed television cameras into a meeting of their shadow cabinet this afternoon where they discussed the letter Jacqui Smith had written to shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve denying any prior knowledge of Damian Green's arrest. Given the seriousness with which David Cameron's Conservatives have taken the investigation into one of their frontbenchers, the shadow ministers&#...

Dominic Grieve, Shadow Home Secretary discusses Damian Green's arrest and the search of his offices. He states that the Conservative MPs will be doing nothing to disrupt the Queen's Speech tomorrow. I suspect he won't need to. Rumour is that the red carpet is already being prepared to roll out in front of Black Rod rather than the more traditional slamming of the door in his face. T...