Two Damians, One Spinning Sorry Brown

After days trying to put a lid on Smeargate, Brown finally played the 'sorry' card to milk it for all its worth, in a feeble attempt to kill two Damians with one spinning stone. 

As a beleaguered Brown belatedly muttered the S-word, many were left wondering if saying sorry was dreamt up on a good day to bury bad news.

The prime minister had finally uttered the S-word but not before the shameful disgrace of trumped up charges against Tory MP Damian Green were dropped and his disposable home secretary Smith was under fire.

As home office leak charges against Green were being dropped and a committee of MPs slated civil servants for "exaggerating" the seriousness of the alleged leaks, which led to the heavy-handed police raid and arrest of Green, a bad hair day for Brown and bad news for home secretary Smith was just getting worse. 

So, out of the blue, up pops the prime minister, with the much-demanded 'sorry' over the smear emails from Damian 'McPoison' McBride in the Tory sex smears scandal.

A tad late in the day for an embattled Brown, in a blatant attempt to distract attention from the Greengate scandal and his beleaguered home secretary: 

No apology then for Damian Green and his family who've suffered the indignation of an anti-terror raid on their home with trumped up charges hanging over his head. 

Instead an apology for just one of Brown's tight cabal of attack dogs lurking in the bowels of Downing Street, dreaming up the next pre-election Tory attack.

Just another piece of good old Brown spin which the deluded prime minister keeps insisting is all behind him but will only go away when his tight cabal of spinners and henchmen have bitten the dust.

Brown and his bunch of amateur reservoir dogs really don't get it. Where news is concerned, big or small there's room for all.

Brown's 'sorry' will linger for a little while but the shameful smears of Smeargate and the disgraceful treatment of Damian Green will leave a bitter taste for months to come. 

Picture: Still from TV Special: 'Gordon Brown's S-Word', with walk-on part by hard hat guy

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Smith Under Fire As Greengate Dropped

Trumped up home office leak charges against a top Tory MP have been dropped as a committee of MPs slated civil servants for "exaggerating" the seriousness of alleged leaks, which led to the heavy-handed police raid and arrest of Damian Green. It's goodbye Smeargate, as Greengate leaves a discredited fag-end of a government trying to close another 'gate' after the pre-election dirty tricks horse has bolted.

The Greengate decision comes as a reeling Downing Street struggles to cover up the Smeargate email scandal against the Tories and raises fresh doubts over the involvement of home secretary Jacqui Smith and her band of political police, already under fire for G20 police brutality. 

Now the CPS has said there was "insufficient evidence" to bring a court case against the shadow immigration minister, adding: "The information leaked was not secret information or information affecting national security," something police must have known before the raid and arrest. 

Many at Westminster expected charges against Green to be dropped weeks ago but instead it dragged on for months since anti-terror police made an unwarranted raid on Green's office in the sanctity of parliament. 

Red-faced cops and officials tried to use the excuse of 'national security' for the raid to hide their embarrassment. Now the home affairs committee has questioned whether police would have got involved if they had not been misled.

The MPs said there was a "clear mismatch" between the "misleading" and "hyperbolic" contents of a senior cabinet office official's letter citing national security as a reason for the raid and the description of the leaks provided by the home office's civil service chief.

The decision to drop charges against Green comes days after the appointment of Yates of the Yard, commissioner John Yates, to head up the Greengate police inquiry after Smith's favourite copper, bungling Bob Quick, was forced to make a quick exit when he exposed anti-terror plans to  the media. 

Green's controversial arrest last November came after Quick sent 20 anti-terrorist officers to search his parliamentary office, causing outrage at the time by both LibDems and Tories: 

Both Green and Christopher Galley, a junior civil servant working at the home office, always denied wrongdoing. Both have had charges against them dropped due to "insufficient evidence". Green says he was releasing information in the public interest.

Key questions remain over why police were involved in this case when it was clear that could have been handled as an internal matter. 

But the Tory MP paid the price of public interest after the heavy-handed tactics of the political police were exposed with his arrest. Yet he was bailed, not under anti-terrorist laws but under common law.

The shameful arrest of Green made a mockery of the pseudo-liberal facade of the New Labour government. Once again it exposed the hidden workings of powerful institutions of political and social control. 

Home secretary Smith and the rest of the gang involved in this disgraceful episode now face fundamental questions at the heart of this scandal, not least why were the heavy mob used for the arrest when clearly this did not involve any state secrets? And who authorised the police search in the sacrosanct precincts of the Place of Westminster?

Downing Street had claimed this was a matter for the police and the prime minister had no prior knowledge of the arrest but the Orange Party smelt a big political rat at work here and some scary heavy-handed Big Brother tactics. A police investigation into a high-ranking politician would have to have been cleared at the very top. 

Speaking after the CPS decision a relieved Green pointed the finger of responsibility at the home secretary: “I believe in the old Italian phrase that the fish rots from the head down.” Smith was “a poor home secretary” who had "shown poor judgement."

The decision to drop all charges over the Greengate affair is a further nail in the coffin for disposable home secretary Jacqui Smith, as the two homes secretary is already under fire over her second homes expenses fiddle. It is difficult to see how she, or speaker Michael Martin can survive. 

Goodbye Smeargate, hello Greengate. The government is spinning out of control as another concerted attempt by Brown's bunch of spinners and henchmen to stoop to dirty tricks in Tory attacks has been exposed in the run up to the general election. 

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