Cash for honours -- told you so.

Nearly six months ago, when Ruth Turner was arrested, I predicted that the police had nothing hard to go on in their cash for honours enquiry - and tonight, listening to the World Tonight, I gather an announcement is being made tomorrow that no one will be prosecuted in relation to this affair. The report says that "friends of" Tony Blair (=Tony Blair/Alistair Campbell) think Blair's authority was seriously undermined by the police conducting the investigation.

Not being the most sympathetic to Blair, I can fairly say that for once he has a valid complaint, although had the same investigation been ongoing in 1995/1996, I am sure Blair would have attempted to score every available political point as he did over the arms to Iraq affair (itself now rather ironic).

Sadly, a government on the receiving end of such police incompetence sees no issue in allowing police to lock people up for three months without charge....

The course of justice

I feel almost vindicated by Fraser Nelson's article in the latest edition of the Spectator, which says that the police are never going to be able to prosecute anyone for contravening the Honours (Prevention of Abuse) Act 1925.

Nelson writes: "This is why Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s chief of staff (and one of those who have been interviewed by the police) is so incensed at the media coverage. He tells friends emphatically that there is no chance of any conviction. It remains my understanding that he is right. There are hard questions about Labour’s accounting practice, and whether a loan granted to a near-bankrupt organisation can in any way be regarded as ‘commercial’ (and therefore non-declarable). But in six months of investigations, email-reading and interviews, police have found no conclusive evidence of corruption with which to press charges against any of Mr Blair’s close advisers."

So as I recently wrote, the police are going to go hard for convictions for perverting the course of justice. This begs the question, what is the course of justice?

If no crime has been committed, the course of justice is, surely, that everyone can go about their business without any further interference from the state. Where evidence has been destroyed, which might show otherwise, I agree, people must be accountable. But where misleading answers or obfuscation of some other type has been cleared up, and there is still no evidence of a crime being committed, I must question the motives of the police.

There is currently no crime of failing to indulge the cops in their grandiose schemes or refusing to bend over and take it like a man without blubbing. Most sensible people, when confronted by the police do not assume that just because they are law abiding respectable citizen, that the police will be on their side. Take the recent case of Nicolas Tyers who was dragged through the courts (until the judge threw out the case) for having "kidnapped" a 12 year old who had earlier smashed the windows of his chip shop, when in fact he was trying to make a citizen's arrest. No wonder, no one trusts the police's judgment these days.

Ruth Turner Arrest

I sense that opinion is divided over whether the police were right to turn up at Ruth Turner's home at 6.30am on Friday morning to arrest her and take her in for questioning. For the record, I am sure the police were grandstanding. They could have easily have rung her up, or rung her solicitors (if she has instructed any) and asked her to come in for an appointment, to be arrested and be questioned. In the highly unlikely event that she had done a runner, this could have been taken as a clear indication of her guilt.

I have been told that when IT forensics people are called into companies to perform internal investigations into fraud or corruption, they give the suspect a two hour warning that his/her PC is to be examined. This way, if the suspect is guilty, he/she will delete the incriminating files there and then and it is a relatively simple task to search the hard drive for files "deleted" in the previous two hours. I digress.

I am more appalled by the whining from the police about "political interference". Friends and colleague of a suspect rallying round can hardly be criticised if they are genuinely concerned. The fact that they are all politicians is neither here nor there. In fact, it might just encourage them to speak up, if their doing so upsets the officers in charge (who clearly need to grow a backbone if they are going to conduct these sort of inquiries).

The fact that the police are going after Turner for "perverting the course of justice" makes me think that they have not got anything on anyone for the main event. It rather reminds me of the investigation of Martha Stewart in the US who was investigated for insider trading. She was not prosecuted for that, but since she had misled the police during their investigation, she could done for that. In both cases the authorites were/are desperate to get "a result" and don't really care what for.

I would be thrilled to see the Labour government exposed as the bunch of corrupt hypocrites that they are, but I am with those who say the police need to put up or shut up before they do anymore unwarranted damage to our entire political system