´óÏó´«Ã½

"We are in no doubt that there has been considerable damage to national security already as a result of some of these leaks and we are concerned that the potential for future damage is significant."

This is how the Cabinet Office, in its official complaint to the Metropolitan Police, described the series of leaks from the Home Office, which ultimately led to the arrest of . The letter, released to the Public Administration Select Committee, is dated incorrectly September 8th, it was in fact sent on October 8th.

The letter says the Government was in no doubt, but a lot doubt appears to exist now.

It begs the question whether the Government oversold this complaint to the police, which might explain their seemingly heavy-handed response. As of now there is no evidence that anything affecting National Security was involved.

In fact, had any national security related material been involved it would have been far easier for the police to make arrests under the Official Secrets Act rather than the common law offence they used.

Watch the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell gracefully avoid this issue in the video below from the Committee evidence session this morning.

Read the rest of this entry

I bumped into a familiar face at the Irish Embassy's traditional Christmas bash last night - , the businessman at the centre of the row last year when it was discovered that he'd given around £600,000 to the Labour Party through anonymous donors, thereby getting round the law on openness when it comes to donations to political parties.

Having spotted Mr Abrahams in the distance at another party on Monday night I was curious as to what had happened to the police investigation into his case - and indeed a similar story which dominated politics at the start of this year - the Peter Hain funding affair. Police passed the two cases to the Crown Prosecution Service last June and July respectively, but since then we've heard not a cheep from the CPS. Had the cases been quietly dropped? I wondered.

No. The two cases are "still under review", a CPS spokesman told me this morning, but he couldn't give me any guidance as to when the CPS might come to a decision on whether to prosecute.

Mr Abrahams seemed strategically placed in the centre of the room last night, where people would hardly fail to spot him. And he seemed in a pretty good mood last night, and it wasn't just the excellent Guinness and food provided by our Irish hosts. He claims that the police told his solicitor last March that he was "exonerated". And indeed when I rang his solicitor Louis Charalambous, this morning, he confirmed to me: "He will not face prosecution".

But that, of course, still leaves in the frame. He's the Labour Party General Secretary who approved the Abrahams donations, should have known what the law was, and who resigned over the affair.