An unnamed Blairite, political intermediary, thought to be Lord Goldsmith, cautioned the police against their desire to question Tony Blair as a suspect, stating that the Prime Minister would have to resign if he was questioned, under caution, as a suspect as opposed to merely being questioned as a potential witness. Why did the police allow themselves to be subjected to political blackmail? Their response to the submission that Tony Blair would have to resign should have been "So, what?". We already know that Tony Blair has been caught out telling lies. The whole point about amending the caution is to deny the defence an opportunity to spring a trap on the prosecution by relying upon something said in court which was not brought out during police questioning. Because Tony Blair was not questioned under caution, any lies he may have told will not later harm his defence. If Tony Blair is allowed to get away with this, it is tantamount to saying that he is above the law. I don't like the sound of that.
The Sunday Telegraph has the story. And, it appears that Downing Street is putting out a different version of events than that given by Scotland Yard. As I understand it, if the police are not happy about the answers given to their questions, they tend to revisit the scene of the crime to re-examine the details to try and determine why their results and what they are being told are different.
I think that it is time to stop pandering to the whims of politicians. I think that it is just wasting police time. Question Tony Blair again, this time under caution, and if he decides to evict himself from the Big Brother house, then, so be it.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
This is spooky - Having read the article myself today, I had made up my mind what I needed to say. You've beaten me to it, almost word for word.
ReplyDeleteSince the wording of the caution is fairly generous, whatever could he have had to worry about if he was going to tell the truth?
He could always have gone against type and confessed to not knowing all the answers, if they asked him a tough one....
The typical copper's response to the suggestion that he might resign would be "And ??", but the enquiry team are bound to bow to political pressure to a certain degree, given that their future careers will be made or broken on the back of this one - and some of them will want to do very well out of it.
Whatever happened to upholding the law "without fear or favour" ??
I almost didn't cover it. Being something of a rehash. But, then I thought the Torygraph had left some questions not asked...
ReplyDeleteWell he IS above the law. Pardon me for saying such but I challenge you to disprove it...
ReplyDeleteDespite the fact that he is a conniving cunt...
For him to resign would be an admission that he was dishonest and could have been perpetrating dishonest deeds throughout his career. We all know that, its just that nobody is supposed to mention it so that it is eventualy glossed over and forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThinks this is old news. Almost 8 weeks old. My take is that Blair is all but under caution de facto. And that Goldsmith is in fact right because the possible offences are so slight in the greater scheme of things that taking a PM out as the SNP want is not a mature approach. IMO.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've wanted Blair to go for a long time and slammed his supposedly brilliant conference speech in the lead Guardian letter on the Thursday after the Tuesday.