Monday 4th August was a big day.
As PM’s Rep for the Centenary of the First World War I’ve been involved with building the national programme for nearly three years. My preoccupation has been getting the tone right. I think we succeeded in doing that, and hope the public considers the opening of the centenary was both a proper tribute and useful in building up interest in the series of anniversaries between now and Armistice 2018.
I’m pleased my friend Boris Johnson has announced he’s planning to stand at the General Election. He’s been a huge success as Mayor of London, a role of international proportions, and it will be great to have him back in the cockpit of the Commons. Less welcome is Baroness Warsi’s curious decision to resign from the government. The UK’s position on Gaza is in step with partner nations and institutions. We are just one of several that can bring influence to bear and must all pull hard and together to achieve the sort of negotiated political settlement that is the only thing that ultimately will deliver an enduring peace.
I have condemned Israel in the Commons in the past and do so again for what appears to me to be both deeply disappointing from a western-leaning democracy and disproportionate. But we must understand what we’re up against in Hamas and its backers. Brutal and terroristic, their hands are bloody indeed, their malign influence extending well beyond the eastern Mediterranean.
Alistair Darling trumped Alex Salmond in the first Scottish independence debate. The wheels are falling off the SNP’s case which is built on an unedifying tub-thumping nationalism and attempts to romanticise old grievances entrenching them with borders, passports and, a separate currency. Darling’s cautious, thoughtful pragmatism shone through and will win the day.
It was a pleasure to attend the inauguration of the White Ensign Association flowerbed by the town war memorial in Trowbridge on Sunday. Very nicely done
