So what is Smith saying ?

Jacqui Smith ( your mates Mum who Gordon Brown thought would be a good woman - ie not Harriet Harman - to be Home Sec ) is trying to smear Damian Green - suggesting darkly that there is more to this than the media are reporting ( hey does that prejudice any subsequent legal action just to provide political cover for herself ? ) and talk about systemic leaks. That is to suggest a plot to let the public know what their government is doing.

Given that this level of leaks is not unprecedented and that her boss was at the receiving end of many of them before 1997 this is a bit rich.

What's the argument for the police informing Boris Johnson and David Cameron - but leaving the hands of the Home Sec clean from any actual knowledge ?

Perhaps it was a political trap by Labour to try and get senior Conservative people warning Damian Green ?

It is certain that the attack on Parliament is unprecedented, except back to the days before the English civil war ( which was fought and won to stop exactly this sort of thing ).

I personally believe Mrs Smith is not being straight with us.

Update: Iain Dale has a good point about if the Home Sec has authorised a bug on Damian Green's phone by signing the warrant. This is going to run and run.

Russian roulette with the Peter principle

So the Cabinet reshuffle is closing in on completion, and there have been one of two big promotions.

Of course there is a problem with our style of government, which takes most of its executive from the ranks of MPs or party supporters and that is Talent - or the lack of it.

Who knows if former teacher Jacqui Smith is up to being Home Secretary ? She may have the talent, but she has also risen through the ranks fast, even desperately fast. You can see why she's a good political move for Gordon's efforts to get himself elected to the office he has now achieved by more Machiavellian measures. His problem is central England - where all the seats he needs to hold are. Jacqui is English and from a Midlands seat - hey presto - a good person to promote and a token Woman too ! But there's no evidence she'll be good for high office - its Russian roulette with the Peter principle. ( A similar case can be made for the boy Milliblogger. )

By the way her Web site says:

Local issues have been very important for Jacqui. She has been closely involved in campaigns for fair funding for Worcestershire education, to save the Alex hospital from being downgraded and losing it’s A+E, for keeping eye surgery at the Alex.

So she's going to have problems with Cabinet collective responsibility since she's against the health attacks on English Hospitals - organised by - the Scottish Labour government under Blair and now Brown and must have noticed all the education money heading north to Gordon Brown's constituency in Scotland where you get small primary school class sizes, free university education and extra nursery provisions - paid in part by taking money away from her constituents. Still perhaps her sense of future career loyalty will help her square that circle - as Hazel Blears has managed.

Lets hope she's good at her job she's been given - given the car bomb discovery, we all need her to be. But there is no guarantee or indication from equivalent or similar service, and the risk has been taken for politics rather than the country. Brown has put his own personal ambition ahead of the interests of the country - I doubt it will be the last time.

In passing: Thanks to the use of gambling terms like roulette this post gets a mention on Zios Journal .... there you go..