Police Questioning: A dark day for democracy

This afternoon, John Yates, the police inspector in charge of the cash for honours inquiries, was pushed in front of the press to defended his decision to continue investigations into Tony's cronies. Blair gave some heart-rending sob story about how dreadful it was for his staff to have undergone investigation. 'terrible even traumatic', he said. He may say a few formulaic words about the police just doing their duty, but in fact directs our eyes accusingly to the terrible fiend who has had the cold-hearted malevolence to put such delicate and sensitive creatures as Ruth Turner and Lord Levy in the spotlight.

This extraordinary silent retaliation against the police investigators is the most significant and sinister aspect of the entire "Cash for Honours" saga.

Am I the only one to be amazed that a professional police inspector has to defend his decision to investigate where the evidence led him, regardless of the outcome? I find it absolutely extraordinary that thanks to some emotional spin from the Government, egged along by the tone of BBC coverage, the implicit finger of accusation points at the police for doing their job. Would the public have thanked the police if they had listened to Tony's affirmations that everyone in no.10 'is a pretty straight kind of bloke really' , and then said ' oh well, they seem a nice bunch, we don't want to upset anybody. Let's let this whole question of the corruption of our Government lie"?

There are two sorts of political events: Enormous tectonic plate-shifts, where our entire perception of who we are and how the world works is shifted and then there are the rags of yesterdays newspapers that blow about on the top.

This extraordinary silent retaliation against the police investigators is the most significant and sinister aspect of the entire "Cash for Honours" saga. The day when you're ostracised for even daring to question Government is a very dark day indeed. And today, the tectonic plates shifted a good deal near.