Jacqui Smith denies any knowledge of police search

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the House of Commons she had no prior knowledge of the police investigation into Tory shadow minister Damian Green. She said she did not know an MP was the likely target of the investigation and that it would have been inappropriate for her to be involved. Theresa May, shadow Commons leader, …

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Yeah, Right.....

***"Jacqui Smith denies any knowledge of police search"***

In other news, the RAF shot down a pig after it strayed into controlled airspace.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Jacqui Smith denies any knowledge of police search

And I still belive in Santa...

It seems remarkable that action of this sort would have been taken without seeking advice from their Boss - ie Whacky Jacqui. If she truely had no knowledge of the Police action, then I would have thought that as Home Secretary that she would be demanding the heads of those responsible on a pike.

Or is she just a PR mouth piece for Nu Labour and has, in fact, absolutely no control or influence over the Police?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe her

The complaint was raised originally by the Home Office for documents leaked to Damien Green. Complaints don't just pop out of thin air then come from the mouths of people and that person knew the source of the leak was her dept and the recipient was Damien Green.

As to whether she knew the police were going to raid Parliament, I bet she and many others (e.g. Mandelson) knew and had approved it or perhaps even initiated it. I don't believe an officer alone would go for it.

But who will investigate this? Who will go seize Home Office emails? Who will go raid and search Home Office computers? The police? The head of the MET is a Home Office appointment!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

Sarjeant? Seriously? and not just once either.

[Anonymous Coward]

That will be a lie then

Pie faced facist!

Papers citizen!

[dervheid]

Time for the sacqui...

for WackyJaqui.

[Ian]

She's telling the truth...

... but I suspect she's using the "Lawyer's Lie". That is, someone told her "The police think that they've fingered an MP". To which she replied, "For God's sake, don't tell me anything more about it or I won't be able to claim I knew nothing about it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on!

For those of you saying you dont believe wacky jacqui, what did you expect? After she said people were coming up to her in the street asking for ID cards asap did you really think she would tell the truth about this?

[Daniel Wilkie]

Serjeant

It is Serjeant at Arms yes, iirc it was like a medieval half-knight?

[Vincent]

Oh ffs

Our Government are like a bunch of children - take credit when they do something right (which is rare), but blame it on others when they do something wrong (which is almost always the case).

[caffeine addict]

A title is required.

Yes, AC, Sarjeant. Well, Serjeant, anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms

Can we take away AC for people proven to be muppets? :)

[The Other Steve]

Spot the difference :

Operational Independence *

Complete failure of democratic oversight and abrogation of responsibility for such.**

It's amusing that Straw and the other wankers who keep screaming that we aren't in a police state hold that the definition of such is a state in which the government controls the police, rather than one in which the government can't, or won't, control the police.

*<Cough> BAE corruption investigation </>

** And not just in the case of Damien Green, either, but more generally.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ AC #2

I know, they'll be spelling _everything_ correctly before long. It's a dark day for those who love orthographic mayhem!

[Jared Earle]

Can't win

Pick one: "It's one law for them and another for us" versus "It's a Police State!"

Quite a safe position if you're in opposition. Anything you do can always somehow make the party in power look bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely not knowing would be worse

than knowing?

We already know she is "economical with the truth" and has a rather "individual" view on ethics so there would be no net loss in her admitting she was involved.

Not knowing about something as serious as this is really Jacqui speak for:

"You know all those bad things you thought about me before? Well get this they are still true but also I am a complete incompetent and the police, you know, technically I'm their boss? well they have nothing but contempt for me at all levels."

[Alan Dougherty]

@AC 13:40

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms

Meh.

[Luther Blissett]

Have a heart

My sympathies are with the University of Oxford, and specifically Hertford College. Every day, in every media and public performance, they must wonder how they were ever privileged to entertain a thinker of such sublime distinction as Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith on a PPE. That's philosopy, politics, economics - who would have guessed from Ms Smith's oratory?. (Equally wondrous, is the fact that they allow this marketing nugget to persist on Wikipedia).

Perhaps Smith recognised herself as a modern Cartesian fellow-traveller, assailed by doubt, but somehow got stuck in a time warp, continuing to know nothing up to this very day? Or pehaps she was inspired by the classical example of Socrates, gadly of cynics and cynosures, ever seeking someone who actually knew something for sure, but never find him (or her - we mustn't forget the Oracle here :-)? Until that is, she found the theory of truth in a little red book by Mao? Which says, fuck theory - praxis is all that matter, and see it come out the barrel of a gun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Serjeant-at-Arms

I was watching Paxman interviewing Harriet Harman on Newsnight last night. It would appear that the serjeant-at-arms has so little understanding of her position that she thought it was OK to let the police into parliament and into the HoC servers.

MPs have to deal with a lot of confidential information about their constituents. They keep this confidential not because they have "something to hide" but because they have been entrusted with very personal information in confidence. Whatever, for a key holder of a historic parliamentary post to not understand (or be unwilling to understand) the importance of her role is a sacking offence.

As for Jacqui Smith, it doesn't really matter whether she actually knew or not. In Nazi Germany they would speak of "working towards the Fuhrer" which meant that while Hitler didn't know and hadn't authorised what they were doing, it was in keeping with his aims and therefore deemed to be implicitly authorised. It is the spin doctors who are more usually guilty of working "towards" their masters, but in this case the Met appear to have been "working towards" the home secretary. Her protestations are probably true in the strict sense, and utterly meaningless.

[Guy Herbert]

Contempt of parliament?

"... but the police are still holding at least some of that hardware today. "

If it is true, then by failing to observe that order of the Speaker, the police have committed a serious contempt.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldcomp/ldctso43.htm

Lays out something of what the Sargeant at Arms ought to have known.

[Andy Livingstone]

Plausible Deniability

Now, remind me which film that was?

[Simon Painter]

I would rather she knew...

At least she would then be nasty rather than incompetent.

[Chris Collins]

Godwin

Dammit, pipped to the post by AC 14:50. It is like living in Nazi fucking Germany. Without the fun of spanking.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting

about 1% on here believe Jackboots is telling the truth.

Guess for some there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden....

[Dan]

@Andy Livingstone

Was it Clear and Present Danger?

[Mark]

re: Godwin

"Dammit, pipped to the post by AC 14:50. It is like living in Nazi fucking Germany. Without the fun of spanking."

Nor the joys of leather shorts!!!

[RW]

But what's significant...

It isn't that dear Jackie is probably lying through her teeth. It's that everyone who's paid attention to that dimwit's actions since she became Home Secretary has come to that conclusion. The woman has a very bad reputation for lying, a reputation unbefitting a minister of the Crown, and for that reason alone should be purged. How can the country continue to have someone as Home Secretary whom everyone assumes to lie whenever convenient?

This is definitely a case where the optics outweigh the reality, but in a manner NuLabour's spinmeisters probably didn't anticipate.

Question: is it better to actually lie all the time or to have a reputation as someone who does so?

Besides, the twit is nothing more than a former schoolteacher! Of what, one wonders?

[James Pickett]

Boswelox

If she knew, she's lying. If she didn't, she's not in control (and utterly incompetent).

How long, I wonder, did the police give the Serjeant at Arms to read the document she signed?

And Hazel Blears thinks that bloggers are undermining the state!

[Anonymous Coward]

Accessing servers

Don't tell me -- "accessed shared drives on the House of Commons servers" -- they are not password protected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't I believe her?

(Apart from the obvious)

Boris Johnson knew beforehand and David Cameron was also informed immediately before.

Are we supposed to believe that servants would have left either the Home Secretary or Prime Minister ignorant of the situation if a senior Tory had got on the phone to tell them this was an outrage?

That Jacqui Smith is ignorant is a given, that she was ignorant of this is a good old fashioned Melton Mowbray of a lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

re what's significant

She at one point at least taught economics as I worked with someone she'd taught who couldn't stop laughing when her appointment was announced.

I'm guessing plausible deniability, but then she does admit she knew there was an investigation and she obviously knew Green was involved as he'd revealed the leaked documents. So it wouldn't be unreasonable for an educated person to assume the police might want to speak to him at some point. Makes you wonder if the conversation went along the lines of 'just don't tell me when you get to the MP bit so I can deny everything'

As has been said many times either she's lieing or incompotent, but then that seems to be the current qualification for a cabinet post (maybe on their CV they have to declare if they have a Mandelson/Blunkett certificate)

[Lupus]

@ Andy Livingstone

Independance Day!

[Norfolk Enchants Paris]

I think she's right

After all, JS could plausibly deny knowledge of ANYTHING

[Andrew Kilgore]

@ Andy Livingstone

You guys are all wrong.

It was The Simpsons Movie (on the big screen)

"I was elected to lead, not to read"

and..

"Don't worry, I have a solution for you, sir. In fact, I have five solutions. You don't even have to read them. You'll have deniability. I'll take care of everything. You know nothing."

"No, I need to know what I'm approving."

"Absolutely. But on the other hand, knowing things is overrated. Anyone can pick something when they know what it is. It takes real leadership to pick something you're clueless about."

Mines is the one with the skittlebrau in the pocket.

[Steen Hive]

@Norfolk

I wish I could plausibly deny knowledge of the lying, Stalinist sacks of shit that are in the UK government, I really do.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

@ caffeine addict

"Can we take away AC for people proven to be muppets?"

No more than we can allow the police to stop and search us. Make ourselves their enemies and trust them not to interfere with our computers when they take them away to inspect them.

If the police are to be opposed we will have to resist with violence and all of us will have to act together. Otherwise they will win.

And don't forget their abilities to do what Margarat thatcher wanted them to do [b]incorporated violence[/b] against the miners. Incorporated [b][u]organised violence[/u][/b] against the miners.

[Dave]

Too many words?

Hasn't your headline got three too many words in it?

[Matt Martin]

Hang on a minute....

Surely if these MP's have nothing to hide,they have nothing to fear from the police exercising their powers.

Anyway, that's the bullshit we get told when it applies to us lowly peasants.

[ShaggyDoggy]

Why not

Use RIPA on Jacqui Smith

We've not come far from Orgreave have we

[Ted Treen]

Less is more

I would give more credence to a shortened statement - "Jacqui Smith denies any knowledge".

That would have a certain irrefutability.

[Florence Stanfield]

This needs to have an independant enquiry and public one

We need this cleared all that have lied removed and if Police fail to follow speakers instructions and return all hardware they also need to be investigated.

Time to stop the stealth tricks Brown we know you want total surveillance of the UK citizens but all you plan is outside the EU rules for our privacy anyone else wish to use EU against this government they will go down in history as the one government in the UK with an unelected Prime Minister to have kept the EU court of Human rights busy due to his paranoia, urge to control and total spy on UK citizens.

[Francis Offord]

Here we go round the Mulberry bush

What makes anybody think that there will be truth emanating from the Speakers Enquiry in the House of Commons? These so called leaders would not know truth if it bit them and any potentially communistic regime would not acknowledge it any way. Sayin that howerev, I bear no "Standard" for the other parties either as they are, in my experience, differentiated by which colour rosette they sport and are self seeking for their own benefit alone. A plague on all their houses.

[Mark]

re: Hang on a minute

And I would agree. We also need to ask the police what they have to hide. Maybe we ought to pop over and check their actions and keep a webcam access to all rooms in the cop shop.

Or won't they like that either?