Manhunt after Algerian man mistakenly released from London’s Wandsworth prison – live updates
An excruciating political moment for this governmentpublished at 14:27 GMT
Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent
The politics of this is all pretty excruciating for the government.
Sima Kotecha reports that David Lammy was informed about the release last night but that the view in government is that it would have been irresponsible for him to talk about it in the House of Commons.
And surely it would not have occurred to Lammy or his team that the Conservatives would get a tip-off before PMQs, enabling James Cartlidge to focus solely – albeit only implicitly – on this issue.
Yet there will be no shortage of those now queuing up to make the case that, whatever the operational sensitivities, Lammy made the wrong call. I am hearing from people in government who fear that the public perception will now be that the deputy prime minister was deliberately avoiding candour.
In the course of writing this post, I have even heard from one government minister – yes one of Lammy’s own colleagues – questioning whether what Lammy said and did not say was tantamount to misleading the House of Commons.
There’s an important additional point to make, though. It is understood that the prisoner was not an asylum seeker. Cartlidge asked a specific question about asylum seekers. On that basis, it may have not been entirely straightforward for Lammy to give a yes or no answer.
These are questions which not only the Conservatives but the Liberal Democrats want ventilated in the House of Commons this afternoon. After the end of today, MPs won’t return to parliament until Tuesday. It’s hard to see how this story can rumble that long without Lammy having to speak in public again.
