Ed Lucas says Putin’s apologists and enablers must face a moral reckoning

Good stuff from Ed Lucas in the Daily Mail today:

Ignorant, arrogant, complacent, timid and most of all greedy. The charge sheet against countries and people that for 30 years ignored abundant warnings about Russia’s dangerous designs on its neighbours is damning.

And history will surely judge harshly those who ignored the monstrous threat that Putin poses to our democracy

The guilty men - coined to describe those who indulged Nazi Germany in the 1930s - range from hard-Left activists such as George Galloway to patriotic types like Nigel Farage with a nostalgic fondness for no-nonsense strongmen. Lenin would have called both lots ‘useful idiots’.

A swathe of our professional elite is in the dock too: for years they enjoyed lucrative life on the ‘caviar express’, a gravy train run by thugs and gangsters. And many others are guilty for apathy and naivety.

Ed is the Liberal Democrat PPC for the Cities of London and Westminster.

And, before you say anything, I am delighted to see him writing for the Mail. You win elections by talking to people who didn't vote for you last time, not by avoiding them 

GUEST POST Why the Progressive Alliance is irrelevant in Batley and Spen

Matthew Pennell says those arguing for a Progressive Alliance in the Batley and Spen by-election don't understand the seat.

I’m a massive track and field freak and I learnt an important life lesson from an Athletics Weekly editorial a while back - it talked about having a ‘no short cuts’ approach to the sport. 

This wasn’t, as you’d expect, about not taking performance enhancing drugs, but weight loss. It’s known that getting on the Slimfast can boost your performance in the short term but what you gain in speed you lose in strength so you’re far more likely to get ill/injured in the long term. Adopt a ‘no short cuts’ approach to life in general and you won’t go far wrong. 

For this reason I smell a rat in the recent calls for a Progressive Alliance in politics as it seems like a classic short cut approach.

You may have already noticed calls for a Progressive Alliance in Batley and Spen, they’re utter drivel and I’ll explain why. Batley and Spen isn’t a classic red wall seat, it’s toggled between Labour and Conservative throughout the years and has never been a particularly safe Labour seat since Mike Wood gained it in 1997. It’s competitive, Labour know it’s competitive, how much does Labour want to win?

What’s the pathway to Labour victory in Batley and Spen? 

This seat has developed a micro-climate which Labour will have to negotiate in order to reach the winning post. Unlike Hartlepoolm there’s no overwhelming Brexit sentiment in Batley and Spen, the Brexit party polled far lower in 2019 and Reform UK isn’t standing this time. There was a major third party, however, last time out - the Heavy Woollen District Independents (HWDI), who polled a whopping 6432 votes. 

This is a rare example of localist politics breaking through at a general election. This smacks of disaffection with the political establishment, but it’s not an overt right-wing Eurosceptic statement - HWDI aren’t standing this time. 

Due to problems with their candidate the Greens aren’t standing this time either, If you aggregate Brexit, HWDI and Green votes from 2019 that amounts to 8800 - this voter cohort will be crucial in determining the result on July 1.

Another ingredient in the micro-climate is the latest chapter in the George Galloway’s Massive Ego show. He’s standing under the Workers Party banner, with what looks like a straightforward Blue

Labour platform, and has already been very active in the constituency. Early polling suggest the Workers Party pulling in 6 per cent of the vote, enough to be a spoiler for Labour.

For those wanting Labour to win, there are four key outcomes:

• Labour retains its vote from 2019
• Labour manages to persuade some Conservatives to switch back to them having left Labour due to Brexit and Corbyn
• Labour wins over 50 per cent of Heavy Woollen District Independents votes 
• Labour neutralises the threat of the Workers Party

If Labour is successful in doing the above it will win the seat, and quite frankly the voting behaviour of Lib Dems and Greens, who would be shoehorned into a Progressive Alliance, won’t matter. 

The notion of a Progressive Alliance simply isn’t relevant to Batley and Spen, and most of those who do don’t live there, aren’t campaigning there and clearly don’t know its recent electoral past and present.

Matthew Pennell blogs at returnoftheliberal and you can follow him on Twitter.

Alistair Darling and councils setting illegal budgets

Embed from Getty Images

I see Dawn Butler has spoken in praise of Labour councils that refused to set a balance budget because of the limits Margaret Thatcher's government set for them.

Which gives me a perfect excuse for reprinting one of this blog's favourite quotations.

Here is George Galloway reminiscing in 2008:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf. 

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze. 

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy. 

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left. 

The late Ron Brown, Red Ronnie as he was known, was Alistair's bosom buddy. He was thrown out of Parliament for placing a placard saying hands off Lothian Region on Mrs Thatcher's despatch box while she was addressing the House. And Darling loved it at the time. 

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been. 

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

George Galloway eyes Manchester Gorton

Embed from Getty Images

From the Guardian website this afternoon:

George Galloway could be preparing for a political comeback in the highly contested Gorton byelection. 

The former MP will only say that he is “considering standing” – but sources say he has been on the campaign trail for three weeks. 

On Friday, Galloway was reportedly giving a talk to the congregation of a local mosque in the area, further signalling his bid to be elected to the Manchester seat, vacant since the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman. 

A source close to Galloway explained that the veteran leftwinger had picked the constituency because it fitted “perfectly” with his political ideals.

There is a danger in being a pundit from a distance, but I suspect this is good news for the Liberal Democrats.

Alistair Darling: From the International Marxist Group to the Lords

View image | gettyimages.com

Alastair Darling was given a peerage today, so it is time to remember how far this particular Lord has come.

Time, indeed, to wheel out my favourite George Galloway quote:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf.

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze.

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy.

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left.

The late Ron Brown, Red Ronnie as he was known, was Alistair's bosom buddy. He was thrown out of Parliament for placing a placard saying hands off Lothian Region on Mrs Thatcher's despatch box while she was addressing the House. And Darling loved it at the time.

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been. 

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

When Labour sent George Galloway to talk some sense into Alistair Darling

With Alistair Darling back in the news and fighting to save the Union, it is again time to uncork one of this blog's favourite newspaper articles.

Here is George Galloway reminiscing for the Daily Record in March 2008:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf. 

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze. 

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy. 

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left. 

The late Ron Brown, Red Ronnie as he was known, was Alistair's bosom buddy. He was thrown out of Parliament for placing a placard saying hands off Lothian Region on Mrs Thatcher's despatch box while she was addressing the House. And Darling loved it at the time. 

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been. 

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

Runners and riders in the Corby by-election

The Northamptonshire Telegraph keeps us up to date as the ballot paper for the forthcoming Corby by-election takes shape.

Labour has chosen Andy Sawford, son of the former MP for neighbouring Kettering Phil Sawford. And the Liberal Democrats have chosen Jill Hope, who has previously fought Harborough and Milton Keynes North.

UKIP has chosen Margot Parker and the paper reports that George Galloway has said he is keen for Respect to field a candidate too.

The Conservatives are meeting to choose and candidate between the lines and, reading between the lines, they may not be an entirely happy ship. Two prominent local Tories - David Sims and Peter Bedford - who originally let it be known they were interested in standing have failed to make the shortlist.

As to the yesterday's silly season story, as put about by Tory bloggers who wanted more hits:

Former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss had been rumoured to be one of those being considered for the shortlist, but his name was ruled out yesterday after it was revealed he had missed the deadline for consideration.

And quite why Strauss would want to rush to stand in a contest he would almost certainly lose was never explained.

Finally, back to UKIP... I think I have discovered the shameful secret that Roger Helmer was so anxious to hide this morning.

The Telegraph says the party has opened campaign headquarters "in the former Baguettaway shop in Everest Lane".

Nasty foreign things, baguettes.

When Labour sent George Galloway to talk some sense into Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling is a former chancellor of the exchequer and Labour's voice of moderation and wisdom. George Galloway is a tribune of the people and the only MP from a far-left grouping.

But, as I blogged back in September 2008, it wasn't always like that. My source was a Daily Record article by Galloway that has seems to have disappeared - though he still writes a column for the paper. Anyway, here is the story in Galloway's own words:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf. 

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze. 

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy. 

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left. 

The late Ron Brown, Red Ronnie as he was known, was Alistair's bosom buddy. He was thrown out of Parliament for placing a placard saying hands off Lothian Region on Mrs Thatcher's despatch box while she was addressing the House. And Darling loved it at the time. 

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been. 

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

And, no, this isn't an April Fools' story.

When Alistair Darling was Red Ally

With the would-be chancellors' debate on Channel 4 this evening, this is a good time to recall that Alistair Darling was not always the monochrome figure he appears today.

As I once recorded on this blog, before Darling joined Labour he was a member of the Trotskyite International Marxist Group. And in his early Labour days, he was a hard-left council leader in the mould of Ted Knight or Derek Hatton.

So extreme was he that the Scottish Labour establishment sent George Galloway along to talk some sense into him.

Galloway later remembered those days:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf.

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze.

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy.

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left ...

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been.

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

Decca Aitkenhead ignores Alistair Darling's Trotskyite past

This week's Private Eye has some fun with the account of his youthful politics that Alistair Darling was allowed to get away with in his widely reported interview in last Saturday's Guardian.

According to Decca Aitkenhead, the reporter who interviewed him:

Studying law at Aberdeen, he stood for election in the student union, but not for a party. "I was just quite interested in getting things done." His manifesto favoured "strictly bread-and-butter issues, things like food prices in the student refectory". When he joined the Labour party in 1977, he never expected to be more than a member. "I was enjoying becoming a lawyer."

He'd simply realised, he explains, that "if you want to make any changes, there's only one way you can do it, and that's by getting into a position where you can influence things. And the obvious thing to do seemed to be to join a party." Why Labour?

"Just... I suppose, overall, I thought the Tories were unfair. They were only for one side, and not for everyone. The Labour party just seemed to reflect my outlook on life - you know, that we were better working together - fairness, helping everyone to get on, rather than just a few.

This is nonsense. As Private Eye points out, before he joined Labour Darling was a member of the Trotskyite International Marxist Group and went on to be a hard-left council leader in the mould of Ted Knight or Derek Hatton.

So extreme was he that the Labour establishment sent George Galloway along to talk to him as a force for moderation.

In fact Galloway told this story in a characteristically entertaining style in an article for the Daily Record earlier this year:

When I first met him 35 years ago Darling was pressing Trotskyite tracts on bewildered railwaymen at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. He was a supporter of the International Marxist Group, whose publication was entitled the Black Dwarf.

Later, in preparation for his current role he became the treasurer of what was always termed the rebel Lothian Regional Council. Faced with swinging government spending cuts which would have decimated the council services or electorally ruinous increases in the rates, Alistair came up with a creative wheeze.

The council, he said, should refuse to set a rate or even agree a budget at all, plunging the local authority into illegality and a vortex of creative accounting leading to bankruptcy.

Surprisingly, this strategy had some celebrated friends. There was "Red Ted" Knight, the leader of Lambeth council, in London, and Red Ken Livingstone newly elected leader of Greater London Council. Red Ally and his friends around the Black Dwarf were for a time a colourful part of the Scottish left.

The late Ron Brown, Red Ronnie as he was known, was Alistair's bosom buddy. He was thrown out of Parliament for placing a placard saying hands off Lothian Region on Mrs Thatcher's despatch box while she was addressing the House. And Darling loved it at the time.

The former Scottish trade union leader Bill Speirs and I were dispatched by the Scottish Labour Party to try and talk Alistair Darling down from the ledge of this kamikaze strategy, pointing out that thousands of workers from home helps to headteachers would lose their jobs as a result and that the council leaders - including him - would be sequestrated, bankrupted and possibly incarcerated. How different things might have been.

Anyway, I well remember Red Ally's denunciation of myself as a "reformist", then just about the unkindest cut I could have imagined.

I suppose we should be shocked that Darling gave such a misleading account of his political career, but I am afraid that politicians have fallen so low in public esteem that few will be.

But what can we say in defence of Aitkenhead? Did she really not know about Darling's background? It is hardly a secret. If she didn't know, why didn't she do a little research? It was not hard to find Galloway's article with Google. And if she did know the truth, why did she allow Darling to get away with it?

Never mind moody photographs of your subject among the stones of Callanish: just tell your readers the truth.

Respect splits in Tower Hamlets

The Newham Recorder reports:

Respect in Tower Hamlets were in turmoil this week after a revolt by four of their councillors.

Oliur Rahman - the first Respect councillor in the country - and colleagues Lutfa Begum, Cllr Rania Khan and Ahmed Hussain have formed the breakaway Respect (Independent) faction.

They have resigned the Respect Group whip, which means they are not obliged to follow the party line. The rebels say it is no longer possible for them to work constructively with the group.

I presume that the four issued a statement along the following lines:

It is not we who have left Respect, it is Respect that has left us. It is no longer the party we joined: the party of George Galloway and Yvonne Ridley.

George Galloway: Poplar not Blackburn

The BBC reports that George Galloway is to stand against the transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick in Poplar and Limehouse at the next general election.

Earlier speculation suggested he might stand against Jack Straw in Blackburn.

George Galloway to stand in Blackburn?

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph reports:

Renegade anti-war MP George Galloway is considering standing against Jack Straw in his Blackburn constituency at the next general election.

After uprooting Labour's Oona King in London's Bethnal Green seat at the last election in 2005 Galloway promised to only serve one term.

Kevin Ovenden, spokesman for Galloway, said that he was now considering whether to stand again as an MP and if so where.

Thanks to Harry's Place.

Yesterday's extradition debate

All Liberal Democrats should read David Heath's speech summing up yesterday's Commons debate on the UK-US extradition treaty. He lays bare the Tories' complacency in earlier debates and the government's... well, let's be charitable and call it stupidity rather than deceit.

Other highlights came from Dominic Grieve:

I have seen the political briefing provided to the Solicitor-General, which starts with the heading:

“Not allowing crime to escape over borders versus supporting the PR campaign of multi-millionaires charged in relation to the biggest fraud in US corporate history.”

At the end, it says:

“The Lib Dems have been spun by opportunistic PR merchants. We are fighting to get the benefits of the treaty for Britain to tackle crime. The opposition are supporting the campaign of multimillionaire bankers accused of serious crimes.”

That is the level of discourse that we are getting.

And, taking valuable time off from his stage shows, George Galloway:

All we want is a special relationship that does not resemble that between Miss Lewinsky and a former United States President: unequal, disreputable and with the junior partner always on their knees.

The other end of the ice pick

Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News, which somehow turned out less critical of Gorgeous George than it was intended to be.

The text message should certainly have read "PETE 2 WIN". And in a show of editorial caution the words "drink-sodden" were omitted before "former Trotskyist popinjay" in the published version.

I say: so sue me, Hitch.

Cat o'nine tales

George Galloway was back in the House on Monday. Not the house – you did not see ‘DENNIS IS FIT – PETE TO WIN’ scrolling across the screen – but the House. He had an adjournment debate on press regulation.

The Respect member for Bethnal Green and Bow has a long history of involvement with newspapers. He wrote a lucrative column for many years and he has netted around two million pounds in libel cases. (Which means I shan’t be repeating that story about him. Or that story. And certainly not that story.)

On Monday he was not calling for new controls so much as rehearsing his grievances against the press. And whatever you think of Galloway, he does have cause to feel aggrieved. It is probably no coincidence that such a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq found himself traduced on both sides of the Atlantic.

His most recent adventure is a run in with the News of the World. Galloway unmasked Mazher Mahmood the ‘fake sheik’ after what sounds like a crude attempt to set him up.

Perhaps the issues are more balanced than first appears – Mahmood has fingered many villains in his time and has reason to defend his anonymity – but it was still funny seeing the News of the Screws going to court to plead for people’s right privacy.

The only sane verdict on all this is Tom Stoppard’s: “I'm with you on the free press. It's the newspapers I can't stand.”

Where now for Galloway? His Respect party is not built to last. Its activists come from the Trots of the Socialist Workers Party, but Galloway himself is on the other end of the ice pick.

He once said “the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life,” and when he described Christopher Hitchens as a “drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay” he knew which word was meant to be most wounding.

Add to this a broad strand of Islamist identity politics – the party’s candidate for Mayor of Newham claimed Israel has been “formulating and directing UK and US foreign policy” – and you have a beast that makes a pantomime horse look graceful.

Made it. A whole column about Galloway without a single cheap crack about cats.

George Galloway on the Danish cartoons

I am told that George Galloway disputes the words that have been attributed to him, so out of fairness and prudence I am withdrawing this post.

Lord Bonkers writes: Do you know Prudence? Lovely girl.

Government defeated on Religious Hatred Bill

The BBC reports:

The government has suffered two shock defeats over attempts to overturn Lords changes to the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

In a blow to Tony Blair's authority MPs voted by 288 votes to 278 to back a key Lords amendment to the bill.

Analysis of the division list showed the prime minister voted in the first division but not in the second, which was lost by one vote.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told MPs that the bill would now become law.

Later. The ePolitix site explains exactly what the votes were about:

MPs had been expected to back the government, having already passed the proposals once.

But in a sign of the government's waning authority, and the controversial nature of the proposals, MPs voted by 288 to 278, a majority of 10, in favour of keeping a Lords amendment to restrict the offence of inciting religious hatred to threatening words and behaviour rather than a wider definition also covering insults and abuse.

In a second division MPs then voted by 283 votes to 282, a majority of one, to ensure that discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence.

Even later. Sandra Gidley tells us whose the one extra vote for the Opposition was in the second division. Respect to Mark Oaten for turning up.

Even later still. According to Nick Robinson on the BBC News, George Galloway turned up too.

And voted with the Government.

Respect members rebel over gay rights

Respect, the bizarre Trot, Tankie 'n' Taliban coalition put together by George Galloway, is already displaying its inherent contradictions. Harry's Place reports:

Grassroots members of George Galloway’s left-wing Respect party have condemned as “unacceptable” the decision of the party leadership to exclude lesbian and gay rights from their manifesto for the general election earlier this year.

Respect MP George Galloway is now being asked to explain why his party dumped gay rights from its manifesto. Allegations abound that Respect’s right-wing Islamist backers demanded the exclusion of gay rights as a condition of their electoral support for the party.

At Respect’s annual conference on Sunday (20 November), delegates rebelled against party leaders who vetoed the inclusion of gay equality in the party’s manifesto for the 2005 general election.

Defending Hitler against the terrorists?

Village Hampden points out that Britain still recognises the regime of Robert Mugabe ("a sort of mixture of John Prescott and Papa Doc Duvalier") as the legitimate government of Zimbabwe.

He writes:

This means that, on the definition of terrorism that the Government would like us to accept, if some public-spirited benefactor of mankind were to give Mugabe the lamppost treatment, it would be classified as an act of terrorism, just as the fall of Ceausescu would have been. And under the Tyrant Blair's new anti-terrorism measures ... it will be classed as a terrorist offence to encourage an act of terrorism. Therefore, my saying that Mugabe deserves to come to the same end as Mussolini makes me a terrorist.

Reading this, I was reminded of a Commons debate in the last days of John Major's government. On 14 February 1997 the House debated a Jurisdiction (Conspiracy and Incitement) Bill. Nominally it was a private member's bill from Nigel Waterson, the Tory MP for Eastbourne, but in reality it was drafted and promoted by the home office. For that reason the home office minister Timothy Kirkhope played a prominent part in proceedings.

The point of the measure was to make it an offence in British law to conspire to break the law in another country or to incite someone else to break that law. Not surprisingly, Kirkhope was challenged over the point that once might have very good reason for conspiring in Britain against a tyrannical overseas government.

One Labour backbencher put it rather well. He challenged Kirkhope:

I am willing to accept that he did not support the African National Congress's freedom struggle - I am fairly certain that he did not - and I am even willing to accept that he did not support the Contra revolutionaries in Nicaragua, but it is stretching things a little to believe that he would not support violent criminal action to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Looking back into history, does he feel that he would have had to offer support to the French resistance, whose members were committing acts of sabotage and cutting the throats of the Nazi occupiers of France? Under the Bill, they and their supporters here in Britain would have been guilty of an offence.

Kirkhope's reply was extraordinary. He did not point out that we were at war with Hitler when he was occupying France. Instead he said:

I do not support the idea of anyone using our country to incite others to commit crimes elsewhere, any more than I support the actions of Members of Parliament who suggest that others should fail to pay their poll tax or disobey the law in this country in any other way.

As I said, writing about this exchange in Liberal Democrat News the following year:

The written record cannot do justice to the sheer awfulness of Kirkhope's performance. He sounded like a member of a losing school debating team whose collar had suddenly become two sizes too small for him.

Kirkhope has the mind of a duck, I will grant you, but this exchange was not just about scoring debating points. It raises questions that are even more important to us today than they were when that Labour backbencher asked them.

Take Chechnya. The Russian government presents its actions there as a straightforward anti-terrorist operation, but it is by no means clear that we should see it that way. In essence it is a colonial struggle, with the Russian state trying to hang on to imperial conquests in made in the nineteenth century - the Chechens did not surrender to the Tsar until 1864.

Britain (with the odd arguable exception) gave up fighting such wars decades ago. And it is not at all clear that we should be supporting the Russians today. Is it ethical to do so, when the Russians have displayed such brutality in their actions? And is it wise, when it serves to antagonise Islam to no good end?

How did things turn out?

Waterson's bill fell despite having the support of both front benches, thanks to some procedural manoeuvering by some of the old lags on the Labour backbenches. But something very like it became law as the 1998 Terrorism and Conspiracy Act after Labour took power. That Act is the reason I was writing about this debate a year after the event, and I suspect Village Hampden will find he is already committing an offence under it.

Timothy "Mind of a Duck" Kirkhope is now is now the leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament. I hope his French colleagues appreciate his views on how we should all have responded to the German occupation of their country.

And that Labour backbencher? His name was George Galloway. You may have heard of him lately.

Fighting like Socialists

The Weekly Worker has an article on the tensions within Respect. It's hard to see how this lot can hang together for long, as the SWP and Galloway are essentially on opposite ends of the ice pick.

I found this via A Councillor Writes.