Bugging MPs
Why is there such a furore over the bugging of Sadiq Khan [Labour MP for Tooting]? He wasn’t being bugged, but the person he was visiting. That he is an MP should make absolutely no difference.
MPs should be exempt from bugging personally because they are MPs, but bugging shouldn’t have to be restricted with regards to other people around them. MPs are just citizens who happen to be allowed to site of the House of Commons for a while by kind permission of the electorate. Maybe this is something they forget?
It shouldn’t be allowed to bug MPs just because they are MPs, but if there is any national security reason to suspect an MP or anyone else of a breach of national security, just the mere fact that they are an MP or come into contact with an MP should be no reason not to bug them.
MPs should have no extra rights to the rest of us. There should be a good reason before any of us are bugged, and that applies to MPs as well. But should a good reason rise, bugging should take place, regardless of whether they are or not an elected Member of Parliament.
Whatever the reason behind this bugging, whether it was made by the police without consulting ministers and whether or not the officer who did the bugging was pressurised into it makes no difference at all. Sadiq Khan MP was not being bugged; the person he visited in jail was. He just happened to be there.
On another note, MPs exist to be bugged. Just by their constituents, rather than the police…
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