The police and the Commons

Like many MPs, I am very concerned at the arrest of Tory front-bencher Damian Green. The issue will no doubt be raised in Parliament when we return after the few days recess on Wednesday (and the fact that the 'raid' on his Commons office took place last Thursday, the morning after we had broken up at the end of the session). Meanwhile I am writing to the Speaker and the Leader of the House of Commons underlining my concerns.

MPs should not, of course, in general be exempt from the law and treated differently from any other citizens - but they and their offices and correspondence should not be subject to police searches and raids when it comes to their Parliamentary duties - not for the purpose of protecting MPs, but to protect their ability to do their job of representing constituents and scrutinising government. It is time to assert and set down clearly the rules that should allow MPs to do this.

PS I have just had a look on the BBC at what the Home Secretary said on the issue today. She was right to say that Minsters should not be involved in decisions about specific police investigations. The issue, though, is how far MPs (and their offices etc) should be subject to such investigations - and it should only really be in exceptional circumstances that should be allowed, and as I say above there should be clear rules, specifically including about how and when any such action should be authorised. The issue is not about Ministers interfering in police enquiries - it is about the extent of Parliamentary 'privilege' - and that's there as I say for the benefit not of MPs but of the public and ultimately our democratic system.

Still no answers from the Tories

Just back from a lively PMQs (Prime Ministers' Questions today). The Tories still seem not to have worked out their own strategy to deal with the downturn.

I was able to get in with a question just before the end on credit card cheques, an issue I have been raising for some time. It seemed appropriate to do so given the Credit Card summit the government was holding today. The PM agreed to follow it up, and I will send him more details. I have had a lot of correspondence on this issue over the years. Anyone who has a particular story about credit card checks is welcome to send it to me so I can pass it on.

Did Alistair Darling get it right?

The big talk in the Commons today, and also in the media, was yesterday's Pre-Budget statement - in fact a budget in itself - from Alistair Darling. Predictably enough, media reaction depended very much on the perspective of the media outlet concerned - the right wing press like the Telegraph were very hostile; but it got a much more positive response in papers like the Record, the Independent and the Guardian. (Indeed, in the last named, Will Hutton described it as 'almost a great economic statement' - I don't think even the Chancellor would have gone that far, but I am sure Will Hutton's comments will be added to the collections on the wall of No 11 Downing Street).

Will it work? The defining factor will probably be whether or not other countries do take similar action in a coordinated fashion, as the UK government clearly is trying to encourage. If there is a real stimulus to the US economy, along the lines that Barack Obama is talking about, then its effects will spread to the UK. If the USA doesn't do that, then that failure it is going to have serious effects throughout the world anyway. At the moment, Obama is clearly going for a big 'kick-start' to his economy - so taken together with our own measures here at home, that is a reason to be a bit more positive than some are suggesting. But it's going to be a tough and unpredictable year or two ahead, of that there's no doubt.

In the Commons itself yesterday, George Osborne gave what the papers call a "rumbustious" performance - a lot of sound and fury, and to be fair some good points. It will certainly have improved his standing with Tory MPs - which he certainly needed! It didn't, however, give any clue at all of what he thought should be done, and I suspect that he will be pressed very hard to tell us his strategy during the extra debate on the pre-budget review which the Tories have called for today(and which I have just heard the Speaker has granted - which is fair enough given the importance of the issue).

A lot of MPs tried to get in to ask questions of the Chancellor, and I was fortunate to be the last one to be called. I used the opportunity to highlight the need for the SNP Scottish Government to use the flexibility to bring forward spending which for some reason it hadn't been doing. Yes, I was a bit partisan (I am a politician, after all), but it may have done the trick, as I hear the Scottish Government has announced some extra help for housing today.

Three in a row!

Last night - this morning - saw the best election results for Scottish Labour for some time. Obviously there was Glenrothes, but also the local by-elections in both Glasgow and Edinburgh where Labour held seats. The Edinbugh election was for the Forth Ward, and was caused by the sad death of Elizabeth Maginnis (see below).

This one was particularly important for me as the vast majority of the Forth Ward is in the Edinburgh North & Leith constituency, so I spent a lot of time campaigning in that ward (although I did visit Glenrothes as well). It wasn't the easiest election to campaign in - many of the people who might normally have helped in a byelection were off to Glenrothes as well, so it was a pretty small team at times. And by the end of the campaign, it was getting pretty dark by the time people were back home from work - so the 'window of opportunity' for actually meeting voters (which I prefer to the more anonymous telephone canvassing) was fairly limited during the week.

But we stuck at it - and got a good result, with Labour's candidate Cammy Day winning, with even a slight increase in our vote. The full figures are here.

The SNP were in a good second place, which wasn't surprising, but the real revelation was the plunge in support for the LibDems, who dropped from fourth place to a poor fourth. They had run a massive campaign (presumably because they weren't that bothered by Glenrothes); one friend of mine who lives in Forth Ward had actually received 11 LibDem leaflets! And yet their vote went down significantly. Perhaps this is partly because more and more people are seeing through the bogus byelection campaigns produced by the LibDems - which included in the Forth ward misleading claims such as that the election was a "two horse race" - when it clearly wasn't; misleading graphs; and demanding action by the Council on various issues while seeming to forget that the Council Leader for the last year and a half has actually been a LibDem. And another friend got a phone call urging a LibDem vote as a way of demanding lower food prices! (On enquiring as to how one more LibDem Edinburgh councillor could do anything about that, he was told the Council could pass a resolution calling for lower food prices......

Good comments on the election from Cammy Day and Andrew Burns.