Downing Street Says » Law Enforcement Agencies Meeting

The PMOS told journalists that he could not give the entire cast list for obvious reasons but the following would be present at the Law Enforcement Agencies meeting this afternoon: the Prime Minister; the Home Secretary; the Metropolitan Police Commissioner; an ACPO representative; the Attorney General; the Lord Chancellor; the Foreign Secretary; the Secretary of State for Transport; the Chief Secretary and Hazel Blears. He doubted that we would be saying anything very much afterwards. However this would form an important part of the preparations for next Tuesday’s meeting with the leaders of the oppositions.

Asked if we were expecting any progress on phone taps at this afternoon’s meeting, the PMOS said that this was an issue where there were very serious issues at stake. We fully accepted that. We would not want to do anything that jeopardised intelligence sources. On the other hand the Prime Minister had said he could see, in principle, the advantages of doing it. The people whose advice we had to ask and take very seriously on this matter were the people who were represented at this meeting. It was not a point about principle for the Prime Minister it was about the practical consequences and the advice he got on those practical consequences. Asked, given the line up suggested they would discuss resources, whether they would also discuss practicalities such as station searches, the PMOS said that it was better because of the very nature of the subject matter that the meeting took place first before commenting. Asked if the meeting was an investigation update, the PMOS said the reason why we had not yet held this meeting before now had been because we had not wanted in any way to divert away from the investigation. It struck us that now was a reasonable time period since the attacks to take an assessment both of where the investigation was, even though that remained totally an operation matter, and to look at lessons to be learned in terms of resources, powers and to here any thoughts about further legislation on top of what we had already announced. This was a good assessment point at which to talk to people and find out their views.

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Did you see that? ‘And Hazel Blears’ – the only one actually named by the PMOS. Either she’s some sort of ‘Special Advisor’ or maybe the PMOS is trying to finger her… Oops, did I mean that?

I’m really struggling to understand what the PMOS is actually saying in all of this persiflage and general flannel. I’m not seing any grip of reality at all, but maybe that’s down to Friday afternoon, more bombs, cops shooting people and turning Stockwell into the OK Corral, and a large lunch.
Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 22 Jul 2005 on 3:34 pm | Link

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» Thursday, July 21, 2005

Law Enforcement Agencies Meeting

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