Expect thousands of unfair dismissal claims as Damian Green says porn appeared on his computer without being downloaded
Bad omens: Damian Green’s defenders have already caused a crisis over data protection breaches in Westminster; now they are offering an excuse to everybody who has ever been sacked for having porn on their office computer.
How kind of Damian Green to provide office workers across the world with an excuse if pornography is found on their computers!
How unfortunate for employers who have sacked who-knows-how-many office workers for having downloaded porn – and may now face multiple “unfair dismissal” claims from disgruntled ex-employees with an axe to grind!
If Tory ‘reforms’ of legal aid make it prohibitive for people to challenge their employers singly, This Writer can heartily recommend getting together with others to mount joint legal challenges.
According to the Torygraph, Mr Green has provided evidence from Deputy Commons Speaker Eleanor Laing “showing porn has been found on other parliamentary computers without being downloaded or watched by staff”.
Politics Home amplifies: “He has passed on an email from deputy speaker of the House of Commons Eleanor Laing to Ms Gray, explaining that a member of her staff also found porn on her computer without having accessed or watched it.”
How did it get there, then – by magic?
But Ms Laing is clearly one of the queue of Tories lining up to defend Mr Green, any way they can – like Education Secretary Justine Greening, who called for action to be taken against the former police officers who brought forward evidence of pornography they found on Mr Green’s office computer, along with evidence that he was logged in when the material was downloaded.
She said (again according to Politics Home): “I think it is important that we have high standards in public life.”
This Writer agrees – but there are grounds to believe the evidence would have been suppressed if the gentlemen concerned had not come forward in the way they did. And high standards in public life should start with our Parliamentary representatives.
One example of the failure of such standards is the behaviour of David Davis, Brexit Secretary and Cabinet ally of Mr Green. Sources (whoever they may be) were quoted as saying Mr Davis was ready to quit his government job if Mr Green is sacked – but now Politics Home is saying they have changed their tune: “A source told HuffPost UK that Mr Davis was not likely to step down, but did feel ‘aggrieved’ at Mr Green’s treatment.
“’David has an historic role in government and we are within touching distance of getting a major breakthrough on Brexit. Why would he walk away from that?’”
Obviously this was before the historic collapse of that “major breakthrough”. I wonder how Mr Davis feels about these matters now.
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Dirty Damian Green gives new meaning to the word “wriggling”.
that being said………… i have heard others saying………they have had porn come down with something else they were downloading. often things can “ride” on the backs of other programmes…….. i have had friends say about this and having terrible problems trying to get rid of it. as with trojan horses…. which also ride on the backs of other minute bits of innocent programming. ..i am not saying that what Damien Greens solicitors or whoever it was, is telling the truth in this case, just that it CAN and does happen…. because of that i have a feeling he and lots of others will now get away with these things.
What other programs?
And are these other programs the kind of data that office workers – particularly those in Parliamentary offices – should be downloading?
I don’t think we should consider giving these people any kind of clean slate just yet.
You cannot download porn without knowingly done so. Anyone who told you that is, ‘erm, being a tad dishonest, in all likelihood because they were caught doing it! Porn sites can attach viruses to your downloads, or have viruses embedded in the page, but you have to be smut surfing to get them. Unless you are specifically looking for something on the web, you don’t get ‘pushed’ that sort of content either. Even if you type in a search these days, the search engines are sophisticated enough that porn is filtered out. Unlike the early days when searching for ‘Barenaked Ladies’ (they perform the theme tune for TV show big bang theory) would give some shocking results! As such, we can safely rule out ‘accidental’ downloading as yet another Tory whopper (no pun).
Pure BULLSH*T you can stream porn just like anything on Netflix or Amazon! What’s the next load of BULLSH*T he’s going to try and claim is the reason it is on there?
Obviously, we don’t have access to the original investigation, or access to the individual computer in question (or ever WILL have), but I hope the police did their job properly in investigating this!
I think this may say more about Parliamentary IT security than anything else (if what Green is saying is accurate). Also bear in mind what Dorries said.
I know that browsing history has been mentioned, so you might argue these are two separate things, but I remember reading an article several years ago, about a family who discovered that their machine had been hacked into, and was being used to store indecent images. Can’t remember the paper, who it was or anything, BUT I DO remember reading it!
I would be very surprised if anybody hacked through Westminster’s IT security, just to store filth on one of the computers there.
I SIT AT MY PC ALL DAY AS I AM RETIRED AND NOTHING HAS EVER APPEARED ON MY PC IF YOU TRY TO DOWNLOAD ILLEGAL CONTENT THEN YOU WILL POSSIBLY BE FACED WITH EXPLICIT MATERIAL THIS IS HIS OWN ACTIONS THAT CAUSED THIS.