Richard Ingrams’s Week: Politicians like to protest only when it suits them

I am aware that perhaps I ought to share the sense of outrage being widely expressed about the police's recent unwarranted intrusion into the House of Commons.

The sad fact, however, remains that it is hard for me to feel sincere indignation about the arrest of a Conservative Member of Parliament, however innocent he may be of any of the charges.

It was Voltaire who famously wrote of England that it was thought to be a good thing in this country to execute an admiral from time to time – pour encourager les autres. There is nothing wrong with suggesting that the same principle should apply to the occasional arrest of an MP. It keeps the others on their toes. MPs are notoriously good at protesting when their little perks and privileges are threatened, and where such people are concerned, humbug is never far away.

In this current controversy they are all talking as if the leaking of confidential government information plays a vital part in the democratic process, and that somebody like the arrested MP Mr Damian Green was performing a valuable public service as the recipient of the leaks.

But we ought not to be over-impressed. I am reminded of the recent case of a civil servant, David Keogh, who leaked a memo to a Labour MP's researcher about a conversation about Iraq between Tony Blair and George Bush in 2004.

Unlike the material in the current case, this was a memo of great importance which in Mr Keogh's view showed Mr Bush to be a madman. But despite this, he and his contact were charged and received a prison sentence.

I mention it only because at the time nobody, least of all any MPs, expressed the slightest bit of interest or concern over the memo itself or the disgraceful imprisonment of the two men.

Croydon is not the place for former revolutionaries, apparently

Should a former member of the IRA be barred from being a Tory councillor in charge of the schools in Croydon? The answer is apparently yes, as was shown this week when Maria Gatland was exposed as the author of a book published under her maiden name of McGuire describing her one-year involvement with the IRA some 35 years ago.

Since then, this one-time revolutionary firebrand has transformed herself into a respectable Tory lady. But the revelation of her past activities was enough to force her resignation and her expulsion from the Tory party. It seems unfair, if only because the transformation of one-time revolutionaries into respectable mainstream politicians is an accepted feature of public life. Most of the members of the current Labour Cabinet are former Trotskyites. As for the IRA, even diehards like Rev Ian Paisley have had to except Gerry Adams, pictured below, and Martin McGuinness as respected statesmen. For that matter, when listening to the familiar Israeli denunciations of Arab terrorism we ought always to remember that at least two Israeli prime ministers, Menachen Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, were former Irgun terrorists.

Unlike these gentlemen Ms Gatland claims never even to have taken part in terrorist activities and has long since expressed her regret over her IRA recruitment. But that is not enough. What goes on in Belfast or Jerusalem is apparently irrelevant in a supposedly respectable suburban environment in Surrey.

A reason to be cheerful in these dark days

The economic crisis may have led to all kinds of disasters, but it has had at least one very beneficial effect: the price of houses has fallen quite dramatically.

According to a spot survey this week in the London Evening Standard, a two bedroom house in Parsons Green priced £675,000 in 2007 is currently on sale for £545,000. A flat in Willesden has gone down from £190,000 to £160,000 and so on.

It could be said that such houses and flats are still, despite the fall, absurdly expensive, but even so, the fall in prices ought to be welcomed, as should the possibility that the decline is likely to continue, making houses cheaper still.

The depressing thing is that the world doesn't see it that way. The fall in house prices is greeted with alarm and despondency, to be bracketed with those job losses and bankruptcies in the catalogue of all the horrible consequences of the credit crunch.

People are urged to not to get to downhearted but to look forward to the day, hopefully not too far off in the future, when house prices level out and then start to go up again reaching, with any luck, their 2007 value or possibly even higher.

I have always believed that most of the strains and stresses of modern life are caused by the astronomical price of housing, but have had to accept that I am, in this respect, a voice crying in the wilderness. So what now seems to me a hopeful sign of change is regarded by orthodox opinion as an unmitigated disaster.

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