Sir, The persistence of the police in questioning a serving prime minister should concern us all. Britain’s constitution is founded on a delicate balance of power between Parliament, the executive and the judiciary, with the monarch holding a reserve power to the side, to intervene where an imbalance occurs.

An intervention of the police to question the Prime Minister, such as over an alleged link between financial support to political parties and peerages, has the potential to destabilise a government without any culpability having been proven. Nor can there be any retrospective justification for such action if Labour MPs ultimately demand that Mr Blair step down, since it would have been the influence of the police interviews which may have been the trigger.

To allow this present action to continue during the life of this Parliament may well now have unconstitutional side-effects, in which the forces of law enforcement should play no directing part.

We may be seeing an undesirable precedent being set here of which the ramifcations for the constitution may be far reaching.

PAUL MITCHELL
Wokingham, Berks

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