It appears that Damian Green was arrested and held for 9 hours and his offices in the Commons were searched because he had been receiving leaked information that embarrassed the government.  This seems a completely unacceptable misuse of police powers and contempt of Parliament. (Tony Benn was v good on this).

It seems to me that if any Minister or the Speaker authorised this, or knew about it in advance and did not stop it, they should resign in disgrace (unless it emerges that there were really serious offences involved, and not just leaked Home Office documents, which seems very unlikely).  But what do people think?

Reading Hazel Blears's piece in the Guardian today, I think she is absolutely right that mainstream parties must redouble their efforts on grassroots action to block the rise of the BNP. However, by pushing ahead with direct elections for policing, an area extremists would love to gain control of, the government is leaving the door wide open to the BNP.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/22/bmp-membership-nick-griffin-decentralisation