Also in the picture, just behind the Minister, stood a young man, holding an umbrella. For a time, ‘the umbrella carrier’ became a nickname for any minister’s private secretary
This picked up on the name commonly given to a minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) – the bag carrier. But the PPS is always an MP.
The Private Secretaries are civil servants who staff the minister’s Private Office. They see all correspondence & papers, monitor phone calls, keep the diary, fill up the red box at night, sit in the chamber of the House of Commons whenever the minister speaks or answers Questions, sit in on meetings & attend all official (but not Party) engagements & take notes – as much for the minister’s protection as anything else, so they cannot be claimed to have made unwise promises or commitments
Jobs in Private Office were much coveted & went to the cream of the cream of the Fast Stream, despite the long hours, late nights & weekends
Much must have changed since those days. Parliament no longer sits for such long hours, modern communications have reduced the necessity to be at the minister’s side during all the hours they work, & New Labours desire for a less formal, sofa style of government, together with the increased use of political advisers, will have affected the private secretary’s role
Some private office jobs are even advertised externally these days – no doubt this is why ministers have been encouraged to produce notes about working with Liam,
or Tom …
Discretion & trustworthiness are prime requirements for private secretaries
When it comes to civil service leaks, there is, I would suggest, a difference (though not necessarily a legal one) between those which come from somebody who is simply in a position to copy sensitive papers, & those which come from someone in the wider department, charged with developing or administering a policy, with which they are unhappy, or with keeping secret some information which they feel should be in the public domain.
The first is rather like finding that someone you employ as a childminder or cleaner in your house, or someone who works as a secretary in your solicitor’s office, has been copying your private documents
And so, in the 1980s, Sarah Tisdall was convicted of offences under the Official Secrets Act, while a jury declined to convict Clive Ponting
Whether the police would feel they needed to investigate your private complaint would be a different matter
If there is suspicion that someone outside has been inciting, encouraging or still worse, paying for the copies, then they too deserve - well opprobrium at least
That the police should investigate the series of leaks from the Home Office seems reasonable.
A young man, said to be an assistant private secretary has been arrested.
If there are grounds for questioning Damian Green, that seems reasonable too
The search of his offices & home, & particularly of his Parliamentary office has raised constitutional issues which will be widely & thoroughly debated
For me this case brings once again to the fore another worry about how police go about collecting evidence these days
At least there have been no early morning raids, as we saw with the Maxwell brothers & read about with Ruth Turner & Harry Redknapp.
Harry Redknapp won a case against the City of London police for the way in which they conducted their search of his home
But these fishing expeditions, during which all kinds of documents, communications equipment & computers may be seized, to be perused by police at their leisure, continue
In the case of Damian Green it is reported that his wife, herself a barrister, was able to prevent the removal of the family PC by claiming legal privilege. Others are not so fortunate
I was under the impression that similar powers which used to be exercised in civil cases under Anton Piller orders are not much used now
How much does this trawling for evidence reflect the advice of the CPS, who were (again, according to press reports) advising the police in this case?
A recent report by the Inspectorates of Constabulary & of the Crown Prosecution Service showed that this relationship is still causing problems
One thing is for sure however. This case will be discussed by tomorrows students of law, politics, or the British Constitution just as that of Crichel Down was discussed by the undergraduates of my generation
***
The rain it raineth on the Just
And also on the Unjust fella
But mostly on the Just because
And also on the Unjust fella
But mostly on the Just because
The Unjust stole the Just’s umbrella
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