THE Home Secretary is learning that politicising the police has its disadvantages as well as perceived advantages.

The decision not to prosecute either MP Damian Green or his mole over information leaks from the Home Office must make Jacqui Smith smart.

Her henchman in this pathetic case, ex-Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, has gone and she alone must answer to Parliament why this arrest was ever sanctioned.

The grounds for the arrest initially were “national security”. This has been proven to have never been the case by both (the Labour-dominated) Home Affairs select committee and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The real reason I suspect for the arrest was that Mr Green made public facts which showed that immigration was yet another area in which Labour was failing.

Instead of refuting Mr Green’s exposé in a mature and democratic manner, I believe Ms Smith resorted to her boot boys of the Met to roughen Mr Green up – metaphorically, of course.

Ms Smith will, in the finest traditions of her dishonourable party, not resign, but will be moved in a summer reshuffle.

Her tenuous majority in Redditch will be overturned in the General Election and she will vanish into obscurity. Her only legacy will be one of failure.

Colin T Mortimer, Pity Me, Durham.