Speaker’s ‘regret’ leaves Brown isolated

Michael Martin came close to apologising to the House when he said that he “regrets” that police entered Parliament and searched Damian Green’s office without a warrant. Tory grandees including Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith pressed the Prime Minister on whether he too regretted that all this had happened without a warrant. Brown was left looking rather lonely as he repeated his pre-packaged line that he respects the police’s operational independence. It’ll be interesting to see if Jacqui Smith will go further than this when she addresses the Commons tomorrow.

During Cameron’s speech, the interventions of several Labour MPs show that they wanted to pull Cameron into this affair; clearly believing that the Tories will not want to take any risks if their leader is involved. But so far, today has broken in the Tories’ favour. Although, it does seem odd that David Davis doesn’t seem to have spoken yet—but I did pop out to answer the phone a few times so I might have missed him.