Cable Forum - Government & Post Election Discussion

Cable Forum (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/index.php)

- Current Affairs (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/forumdisplay.php?f=20)

- - Government & Post Election Discussion (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33705028)

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 35927234)

This is a bit of a strange situation. We now have two police officers making these allegations. I imagine the Sunday newspapers will have something to say about it tomorrow. I guess at worst, Green may have broken some codes of conducts in the past but why are these policemen highlighting it now?

Quote:

David Davis made clear he was ready to quit the Cabinet if Damian Green was unfairly fired over allegations of porn and inappropriate behaviour, it was revealed today.
Sources said the Brexit Secretary had “put his cloak around” the embattled Mr Green in an effort to toughen Theresa May’s resolve to defend her deputy.
The disclosure came as a retired Scotland Yard detective alleged that “thousands” of pornographic images were found on Mr Green’s computer in 2008.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-a3707546.html

Well, we all thought they were a bunch of onanists, anyway...

However, Matthew Parris raised a number of relevant points in his Times column yesterday

Quote:

The media and political world is in a lather about whether the (now) de facto deputy prime minister once accessed pornography in his office. Here I am, fretting — some will say nitpicking — about whether it was appropriate for a now-retired Metropolitan Police officer (1) to have gathered and kept what he claims to be the evidence for these allegations, though there is no suggestion the law was broken; (2) to have disobeyed orders by keeping the evidence; and (3) nine years later to have put the allegations into the public domain.

My acquaintance with Damian Green is slight. He strikes me as one of those necessary second-rank men (in a world of third and fourth-rank men) who combine a useful level-headedness with a dispiriting blandness: podgy and unflappable, with the advantage at least — a quality in a Tory MP to be fallen on with relief — of not being mad. So my strong sense of injustice in this case has little to do with the merits of Mr Green and everything to do with what looks like a co-ordinated police vendetta against a politician they’ve clashed with.

Be clear: all sides agree that none of the alleged material was illegal, and his accusers have withdrawn any claim it was “extreme”. Nobody is suggesting this was anything other than mainstream internet porn of the kind millions of men, probably most men, many journalists and many policemen, have accessed. There is a debate about pornography and the law but the fact remains: if Mr Green did what the police alleged (and he denies) he would have broken no law. Yet, now he is wounded, they close in on him.

This is outrageous. It reads like a low-grade mafia story: collecting and keeping dirt on somebody in case it should come in useful one day. Jim Waterson, the politics editor for Buzzfeed News, tweeted his response to the BBC report this week: “The headline on this Damian Green story should be ‘The police don’t delete your data when ordered to do so and are liable to leak details of the legal porn they found in order to embarrass you’.” I could hardly put it better, except in this regard: what’s happening is not an attempt to embarrass Green. It’s a naked attempt to destroy him.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...reen-wxr296jgd

(Behind paywall)

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

I agree. This is simply revenge for Damian Green's skirmish with these police officers at the time.

I love the comparison with the mafia! They say that criminals and the police have a similar mindset, don't they?

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Dam it another Tory has escaped.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35927290)

10 years on - it all seems rather convenient to me...

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by richard s (Post 35927294)

Dam it another Tory has escaped.

Escaped what?

Which law did he break?

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Despite not being a great fan of him he broke no laws like the millions out there who look at the same type material.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh (Post 35927298)

Escaped what?

Which law did he break?

The status quo can't continue. Either the ex-police officers get charged for leaking confidential information or Damian Green gets charged for an offence.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

What Den said. :tu:

I reckon there's a great many police officers, Labour politicians and pious civil servants and CF members even who've viewed soft porn but of course, for some, this isn't the time to admit it that it's not the crime of the century even if it's true and there's no proof it is...

---------- Post added at 21:42 ---------- Previous post was at 21:38 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh (Post 35927298)

Escaped what?

Which law did he break?

He's clearly a nasty, evil, Tory and as such that's all the 'proof' required by lefty hypocrites who wouldn't know how to be honest about this if their lives depended on it. Political points make prizes you see...

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

I think he means avoided being fired rather than being arrested.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh (Post 35927298)

Escaped what?

Which law did he break?

The one that says don't have pornography on your work computer. I was just about to post that I felt he had been hung out to dry but my boss would go mad if he found porn on my work computer, he may even fire me if he's in a bad mood and I simply tried to deny it was me, even taking out how unprofessional it is, he has allowed his computer to be exposed to whatever viruses or nasties are embedded in the grot to, God only knows what confidential government information has been compromised. I wonder what your boss would say Hugh if he found it on yours or more interestingly what you would do if it was found on someone you manages machine?

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

I would discipline them (and actually have done so in the past - but not fired them) - but that’s breaking a workplace policy (if there was one in place), not breaking the law.

However, what we wouldn’t have been allowed to do, as it would be an abuse of process and would have invalidated the disciplinary process, was find out information as part of another investigation, not say anything about it, leave the job, and then make that information public a number of years later.

That would breach the Data Protection Act, and the contract of confidentiality I had signed when I was employed.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh (Post 35927316)

I did actually come on here to say imo he'd been hung it to dry by amongst others 2 already discredited former police officers over something that happened years ago but was frankly a tiny bit annoyed by some of the comments not only excusing him but saying it's okay because many other people do it and their all hypocrites, what possessed me to take him of ignore I'll never know. Besides which its he's not in a normal workplace, he compromised highly sensitive information on a computer paid for in part by you and I, the more I think about it the worse this sounds, to me anyway.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 35927301)

The status quo can't continue. Either the ex-police officers get charged for leaking confidential information or Damian Green gets charged for an offence.

But there is no offence!

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35927579)

But there is no offence!

Correct but don't let that mere detail get in the way of the argument eh? If there was an offence and the police knew all about it but did nothing that wouldn't too good would it.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35927579)

But there is no offence!

So why haven't the ex-police officers been charged with breach of confidence then?