Whatever the rights or wrongs of what the police did or did not do there is one incontestable fact which I belueve has been admitted by Mitchell. He swore in the worst way at a police officer. If he did, that is an arrestable offence and when his political friends trumpet that we should expect the highest standards from our police forces they obviously do not apply those same standards to one of their own. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I belive that when we elect people to rule over us we are entiltled to expect them to be better than we are and I certainly do not want them to commit arrestable offences without having to answer for it. If any one of us went into our local town centre and used the same language to a police officer there is not much doubt we would be under arrest. In this instance I think the police showed remarkable restraint. They didn't need to stitch him up, they had him dead to rights! No way should he ever come back to the Cabinet.