I don’t have a particular brief for the Police, nor do I think that Ruth Turner is a hardened criminal or particularly corrupt (if she is charged, it is to take the wrap for her bosses). But I really can’t understand why Labour politicians are getting their knickers in such a twist over her 6.30am arrest on Friday.
Firstly, this is the party that likes to go on and on about how it is “tough on crime” and how the police should send signals to criminals. The police are just carrying out government policy. Secondly, this is a member of Downing Street staff. I would be surprised if she didn’t get up at the crack of dawn each morning to go to work.
The alternative, as the Guardian suggested on Saturday, would have been to arrest her at her place of work. Yet, you can absolutely guarantee that if the police had done so, exactly the same people would have protested at the “theatrics” of arresting someone at Number 10. The policy are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
You can’t help but suspect that this is a “some animals are more equal than others” moment, coming at the end of a regime that has become so utterly corrupted by the trappings of power that even when they are caught with their hands in the till, the expect to be treated with complete deference.
More importantly if they arrested her in relation to perverting the course of justice this is likely to relate to the information she has or hasn’t given them. Therefore the element of surprise is important. (‘Our chief weapon is surprise’ etc.)
Indeed.
You mean if they had come to arrest her at work they would have been help up in reception while she had a chance to push delete on a certain folder?