Downing Street Says » Police Inquiry

Asked if there had been any contact with the police today, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) replied that there had not been any contact.

Asked if there was any reaction to the CPS statement earlier today that there would be no charge against Des Smith, the PMOS replied that there was no reaction to that or to Sir Gus O’Donnell’s comments.

Asked what bits of Sir Gus O’Donnell was he not reacting to, the PMOS replied that Sir Gus O’Donnell had underlined our response to ITN in saying that there was no second email system in No10 and that we had fully cooperated. He was sure that this would be fully reflected in the Lobby’s coverage.

Asked why the Cabinet Secretary was willing to say more about the inquiry than the PMOS had been, the PMOS replied that in both his role as Head of the Civil Service and Head of the Cabinet Office, Sir Gus O’Donnell did have a locus in the matter.

Asked to clarify the Cabinet Secretary’s role in the matter, and could they assume that he had a role in ensuring that Downing Street gave full co-operation, the PMOS replied that this was more a matter for the Cabinet Office to speak on.

Asked if the Prime Minister instructed Sir Gus O’Donnell to ensure that there was full cooperation, the PMOS replied that the Prime Minister had made it clear to everybody in Downing Street and the wider Government that there should be full cooperation.

Asked that when he referred to "full cooperation" with the police investigation, was he saying there had institutionally been full cooperation, or was he saying that he believed Ruth Turner and Jonathan Powell had given full cooperation, the PMOS replied that the Prime Minister’s view was that there should be full cooperation. We had no evidence to the contrary that there had been anything but that. Put to him that the police had already arrested one of the Prime Minister’s key aides for not cooperating, the PMOS replied by questioning who had said that the arrest had been as a result of not giving full cooperation. Put to him that it was a fact the police had arrested a key aide on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, this surely implied non-cooperation, did he therefore believe that Ruth Turner had given "full cooperation", the PMOS replied that we had never discussed individuals. Furthermore we had never got involved in the business of speculating in the press about individuals. The Prime Minister gave a clear view as to what should happen. As we had said before, there had been no complaints that there had been anything but full cooperation. Further questioned why he was saying there had been "full cooperation" when someone from No10 had been arrested for "not giving full cooperation", the PMOS replied that the premise the correspondent started from was an action of someone other than No10, therefore it was not for No10 to explain.

Asked how the police would let us know of any such complaint, the PMOS replied that making their views known did not seem to have been a problem in the past.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Police Inquiry

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries