Can they beat the lawyer who represented Lord Levy

The big development in “Green-Gate” was a news conference this afternoon involving the Home Office mole and his solicitor – the head of criminal law at Bindmans and the man who represented Lord Levy. Neil O’May ain’t going to come cheap and judging by the bits of the news conference that we saw he ain’t going to be a push-over either.

As the BBC’s Nick Robinson describes it: “Mr Galley’s side of this story is now clear:
• He did give “regular” leaks to Mr Green;
• All of it was what his lawyer O’May describes as “embarrassment material” and not documents that would be covered by the Official Secrets Act such as those relating to state secrets, terrorism, national security or which would lead to “financial jeopardy”;
• There were no “inducements” offered by Mr Green to persuade Mr Galley to leak (his lawyer said that “the statement was clear re inducements” and it makes no mention of them)”

So what do the police now do? Will they seek to prosecute but that means getting the sanction of the Crown Prosecution Service. As Ted put it on the previous thread: “The police are up a gum tree (easy to climb, hell to get down in my experience).”

And if the police are up a gum tree then so is the government and so is Labour. I find it amazing that the number of senior party figures who’ve worked this one out is very small. It’s down almost to Denis MacShane, David Blunkett and Harriet Harman. She, of course, is almost immune from Brown Central because she was elected deputy leader. Other ministers would clearly find it hard speaking out in public.

I’m hoping for a new poll tonight, from ComRes, which might give us a sense of the public reaction.

Mike Smithson