Tom Levitt’s column – Plugging the Leaks
Posted by Tom Levitt, MP for High Peak, at 12:15, Mon 8 December 2008:
This is my weekly column for 8 December 2008. You can find more about my work at www.tomlevitt.org.uk or by emailing me directly at tomlevittmp@parliament.uk, where priority is always given to emails from High Peak constituents.
Plugging the Leaks
Some politicians will tell you that leaking information is just a part of public life, it is what happens. I disagree: it is one thing for a civil servant to feel so passionately about an issue that he is prepared to risk his job over it, quite another for someone to systematically supply information to an opposition politician 20 times over a two year period. This is what happened in the Damian Green case.
Relationships at the heart of government, between ministers and officials, rely on trust. When an official deliberately undermines his employer, providing covert political ammunition to those who seek to replace them, trust is destroyed.
The Civil Service Code quite properly allows for civil servants to hold political views, join political parties and undertake legitimate political activity. Under a law passed only a few years ago ‘whistleblowers’ who report wrong doing or exercise their conscience are given protection.
To abuse this system for political gain is not in the interest of civil servants. We know that the mole in this case was a former Conservative candidate who had previously applied to work for a Conservative MP. He has admitted – through very expensive lawyers, presumably hired by the Conservatives – that he leaked sensitive information to a Conservative MP.
I cannot get too excited about the behaviour of the police in this matter. When investigating crimes committed within the Home Office, which deals with national security on a daily basis, does anyone seriously believe that any application for a search warrant would have been resisted?
Politics can be a rough game but it should be all about playing fair. As I said to the Home Secretary in the Commons: how do we know whether any other Government departments are being undermined by Conservative moles, deliberately and systematically leaking information in order to gain unfair political advantage?
Comments
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Posted by Yates. E. J (Mr.), 18:34, Wed 7 January 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #
If making use of leaked information had been an arrestabe offence when Gordon Brown was in opposition, he would never have been out of police custody.