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The Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green has been arrested, in relation to the supply to the media of information leaked from within the Home Office embarrassing to the Government.

Mr Green is the MP for Ashford in Kent, and was detained for 9 hours after being arrested by 9 policemen for an alleged offence of “Conspiracy to Commit Misconduct in Public Office”. He has been released on bail to return for further questioning in February.

He has denied any wrongdoing after bring arrested for allegedly leaking information to the media.

The arrest was after an investigation following a complaint received from the Cabinet Office. Boris Johnson was informed of the arrest in advance in his role as Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

The arrest was in connection with alleged leaked information relating to media stories about immigration.

This is the second in the lastest series of Blogpower Roundups, and this is my roundup of some of the current live issues around Civil Liberties. I’ve only been able to cover half of the Blogpower blogs, but I’ll do another one soon with the other half.

While there are differences between bloggers on some questions at the edge on just what comes under Civil Liberties, there’s usually a strong consensus around the right to self-expression, and that restriction of topics that we can write about or the excessive monitoring of online activity are BAD things.

Heather Yaxley has reflected on the whole theme of Defending Blogs.

Colin Campbell’s comment about extra speed cameras in South Australia prompted me to do some digging into just how many speed cameras we have now in the UK. The answer: one hell of a lot - perhaps 10,000 plus all those installed in cars and on motorcyles.

Just in advance of the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust have released a new poll commissioned from ICM. The points that jump out at me on a rapid reading are

The Politics Home story tracker (snapshot from 1:30pm) is not showing this registering yet; it may do so later.

The nuggets are:

• 60% of people think that 28 days is plenty of time to hold people without trial.
• 93% believe DNA profiles should be kept permanently for serious violent or sexual crimes.
• 74% of people think DNA records should not be kept at all, or only for a limited time, for those who are innocent.

I find this encouraging, but further questions arise for the future - notably that of innocent people who are placed on the sex offenders register.

This is the full text of the Press Release.

Is there anybody out there?
What political event is happening in two days time? The Haltemprice and Howden by-election of course! How many people do you think could answer that question correctly? Not many outside those who take a keen interest in the political world – even for some within it, it may well have [...]

John Major has published a seminal article in the Times yesterday in advance of the “42-day detention without trial” vote.

I’m taking the unusual step of reproducing it in its entirety; I hope on this occasion that The Times or Sir John don’t mind.