This is very serious - the arrest of Damian Green

Its appears Damian Green was arrested but not charged by police and his parliamentary office searched by the police in connection with leaks from the government. ( There will be questions about search warrants and parliamentary privilege to answer here ).

This is potentially explosive stuff.

The police will have to explain and justify their actions and any links to serving Labour minster ordering this without due cause should result in the fall of the government.

The suspicion has to fall on Labour's dirty tricks brigade, but more worrying is the direct deployment of the police by the executive powers against parliament.

Can it be that the Home Secretary was not asked about this before it happened ?

Given the behaviour of Labour before 1997 with leaks from civil servants and its supposed desires to protect whistle blowers this look very strange.

Update: I had planned to write a new post about the very deniability of the arrest and the strangeness of Boris Johnston and David Cameron being informed, but the government trying to give the impression it didn't know. But quite frankly "The Mole" over at the First Post makes a first rate job of the same task, Whiff of deniability at No 10 over Damian Green’s arrest. So I forward you there.

Let me only add that this move, which will have the affect of intimidating civil servants who know of wrong doing and government actions against the national interest. Fits in with the recent crack down on descenting Labour MPs carried out by Gordon Brown's right hand commissar Nick Brown.

As has been mentioned elsewhere the immediate reaction of the Telegraph to ring up the possibility of Damian Green's resignation begs some very serious and sinister questions about whats happening there under its new management.

Other blog reactions:

Damian Green’s arrest is an affront to British liberty - Cranmer
The Consequences of the Arrest of the Ashford One - Iain Dale
Clunking Fists Strike Opponents - Guido
Green by name, green by nature? - The Daily Pundit ( who sees this as just a knee kerk response )
The arrest of Damian Green MP - Tony Sharp, The Waendal Journal