Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, admits today that he urged chief constables to lobby MPs to support the Government's anti-terrorism proposals.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph he says that on Nov 3 - the day after the Government realised that it was likely to lose a vote on giving police officers 90 days to hold suspects without charge - he approached the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).
Mr Clarke says he "suggested to Acpo that chief constables write to MPs in their police authority area, making themselves or relevant senior police officers available to MPs, of all parties, who wanted to know their local police attitude on these issues". He says he "naturally made clear that this should not be on a party political basis" and denies that the Government sought to politicise the police.
But John Denham, the Labour chairman of the cross-party Commons home affairs committee, said MPs would be free to raise their concerns about the politicisation of the police force during an investigation into chief constables' arguments for extending anti-terrorism powers.
Mr Denham voted for the defeated 90-day proposal but strongly criticised the way in which the case was made by the police. He said there had been no proper police working group, no systematic assessment and no evaluation of the difference between 30, 60, 90 or 120 days.
Many chief constables telephoned, e-mailed or wrote to their MPs, urging them to back the measures.
Ed: Did Dr (of ancient africa) Reid know about this?
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