Today, I can offer three comments for the price of one, including a full update on the political situation in Thailand.

1. Leak Soup

Has there ever been a leak soup quite so thick and overcooked? The hysteria and media comment surrounding the Damian Geen affair represent the worst kind of muddled thinking. The lack of clear, logical reporting makes one despair. As readers of my web sites will know, I am passionate about liberty and freedom, but this case has little to do with either. We urgently need to rehearse the unadorned facts.

First, parliamentary privilege has not been breached. Parliamentary privilege applies to what is said in the chamber, but to nothing else. It does not provide protection to MPs, or their offices, outside the chamber, and rightly so. What really frightens me about this case is the assumption that MPs should, in some way, be beyond the law. As Vernon Bogdanor of the University of Oxford has rightly said:  “The important principle is that MPs - apart from when they’re speaking in the chamber and dealing with constituents’ correspondence - are as subject to the same laws as the rest of us.” Parliamentary democracy has thus not been put at risk.

Secondly, the police did not arrest Damian Green, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ashford and shadow minister for immigration, because of leaks per se, but because he is alleged to have solicited leaked material directly from an official in public service, thus causing that person to break his contract and oath of office. The specific charge is precise on this. The police state that they arrested Mr. Green on suspicion of “conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office” and of “aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".

Thirdly, the civil servant involved, Mr. Christopher Galley, who has admitted leaking, breached the Civil Service Code. There is no absolute right to pass on information to an opposition MP, although ‘passive’ leaks that do not threaten national security rarely involve an external criminal inquiry, only normally the application of internal departmental disciplinary procedures. The charges in this case are not, however, about ‘passive’ leaking, but about alleged solicited and ‘active’ leaking. The two are substantially different. The Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, David Normington, thus had every right to call in the police if he thought it right to do so.

Fourthly, this affair has nothing to do with Britain becoming a police state, which is a state where politicians directly use the police to cow and to control its citizens, often violently. Indeed, to claim that the Damian Green affair is a prime example of ‘Police-State-Britain’ is to insult the poor folk of the world who really do have to live in a police state. It is a democratic indulgence too far.

Luckily, wiser commentators are starting to clarify the leak soup, and I can, accordingly, recommend strongly Peter Riddell writing in today’s The Times and Marcel Berlins in The Guardian as essential reading. Berlins concludes that the hysteria surrounding this affair might even prove “damaging”:

“What I fear, though, is that this relatively unserious incident will be used to rearrange the relationship between police, politicians and government. This would be damaging. It is at times like this that I wish I was less cynical. I have a simple explanation for the avalanche of excess that has descended on us in the past week. It is so easy to write and comment incessantly on something happening in parliament and in London. It is difficult to seek out far worse injustices that are occurring every day, all over the country, to unknown people.”

2. Thailand Update

It would be a serious error of judgment to believe that the withdrawal of the yellow-shirted, anti-government protesters from Bangkok’s main airports after their eight-day siege is the end of Thailand’s troubles. By contrast, it may represent the beginning of a much more volatile and dangerous phase of the bitter struggles between the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and popular democracy. International media will inevitably focus on the fact that the end of the airport blockade should, at last, allow their weary and angry nationals to return home, and, indeed, some international flights are now scheduled to resume on Thursday.

But, in Thailand, the judicial removal from office yesterday of the current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, by the Thai Constitutional Court will only result in a vigorous fight back by the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra and their People’s Power Party (PPP) MPs. It is worth recalling that the same Constitutional Court deposed another pro-Thaksin government, under Samak Sundaravej, only in September, and, as on that occasion, Thaksin’s and Somchai's MPs will simply form a new government under a new party label.

Indeed, the battle lines have already been worryingly drawn.

One of the leaders of the PAD, Sondhi Limthongkul, has stated openly that “the PAD will return if another [Thaksin] proxy government is formed or anyone tries to amend the constitution or the law to whitewash some politicians or to subdue the monarch’s royal authority".

In stark response, Chaturon Chaisaeng, a former Thaksin cabinet member, has declared that there could be civil war if the PAD alliance presses for a non-elected government: "Why do we still condone the PAD, who are waging terrorist attacks against government buildings and the democratic system? Do all Thai people have to bow to the PAD’s orders and demands?"

In reality, the airports have only been opened again because yesterday’s Court decision gave the PAD protesters a fig leaf to cover the inevitable abandonment of their protests, which were becoming increasingly unpopular among both Thais and stranded visitors.

Sadly, we must thus expect stormy political weather to return soon. There is, however, likely to be a short lull for a couple of days in honour of the much-loved King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is 81 on December 5.

But after this brief ‘ceasefire’, the politics will surely resume with a vengeance.

To date, only six people have died in the protests. We must hope that, at the least, further bloodshed can still be avoided.

For a fuller analysis of the current situation in Thailand, see my two earlier comments: ‘Thailand: Democracy and the Dark Side’ and ‘The Silence of a King’.

3. Globalisation: the Hippo-cratic Oath

I wonder if this remarkable story represents a seminal definition of globalisation.

A 16-year old boy in the DR Congo has his arm ripped off by a hippopotamus, and it becomes infected and gangrenous. A vascular surgeon, David Nott, who is a volunteer doctor working in the DR Congo, is aware that there is an immensely complex operation that could possibly save the boy’s life, but he has never carried it out himself. Nott therefore texts a famous doctor, Professor Meirion Thomas of London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who he knows has performed the operation successfully. Within a remarkably short time, the London doctor replies with a step-by-step text message explaining the difficult procedure in full. The operation is then carried out, with help from the medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and the boy is fine, and his smiling face is posted on their web site.

Now that really is a globally-applied hippo-cratic oath.

And how nice, and unusual, to be able to end on such a happy note. “Hippo, Hippo, Hurrah!”