WHEN WILL THE WEST STOP THIS BABBLING MADMAN?

It is quite remarkable that a single utterance from the 'Middle East Peace Envoy' is enough to double my blood pressure. His latest pronouncements on the region are little short of laughable - or at least they would be if they weren't so dangerous.

Blair said today that it was 'deeply naive' to believe the response of the 'West' to the 9/11 attacks had radicalised muslim extremists. Is he lying, mad or just stupid?

If you pound a country - Iraq - into submission because of a tissue of lies about weapons of mass destruction, if you continue to resist a just settlement between Israel and Palestine - favouring one side over the other, if you support dictators across the region in the name of stability and if you continue a desperate war against all things Islamic on the back of the actions of a few hundred madmen who are as representative of Islam as loon Midwest American Christian fundamentalists are of Christianity, what is going to happen other than resistance - resistance from the madmen as well as resistance from muslims who are frankly fed up at the lies and repression and who just want to live their lives without being branded by people like Blair as extremists or a threat to the 'West'.

The revolution in Egypt had nothing to do with the bearded weirdos of al Qaeda, nor did the revolutions in Tunisia or Libya. The struggle against the regime in Syria is also completely free of religion. It is being led by people who just want freedom, not a theocracy. Why doesn't Blair acknowledge this and celebrate the coming of freedom to these countries? Why doesn't he accept his terrible role in the wars, fear, hate and increasing denial of our civil liberties which have scarred the last decade in Britain?

Blair is an embarrassment to this country and our government should seek his removal from his laughable position as 'peace' envoy. He makes me ashamed to be British.

THE TORIES HAVEN'T CHANGED, PART 94

I was stunned into inaction this morning during the normal rush to deposit two children at school (i) dressed (ii) fed and watered (iii) provisioned for the exertions of the coming day with bags, lunch, coats etc. Stunned because of the return of perhaps the most oleaginous and disreputable politician of the late 20th century*, David Mellor. And if you think about the competition, that's saying something

This duplicitous wretch was on the Today programme (how many people had they rung before they settled on him, I wonder) defending - yep, defending - the King of Bahrain as a good friend of Britain and thus diminishing the importance of the crackdown which occurred early this morning in which at least 2 people were killed by the inappropriately named 'security forces'. His tone and his complete assurance had the ring of a 19th century nabob defending the local tribal chieftain for the massacre of a neighbouring village because it was good for Britain.

I was lucky enough to be in Wandsworth Town Hall in May 1997 when Mellor lost his Putney seat. It was a night of rare theatre and the thought remains that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

I like David Cameron more and more as I think he's playing it straight but I think he still has the sheerest of mountains to climb in his ambitions to change the Tory Party when there remain individuals with the attitude of the hated Mellor within his ranks.

This must be time to repeat my regular assurance to anyone who will listen (shades of the drunk in the bus station, but who cares) that this Lib Dem will never enter into any formal electoral or other agreement with the Tories. I don't think Nickers will either but if he has a weak moment, I'm an independent from that moment.

*Editor's note: Tony Blair is of course utterly disreputable for his decision over the illegal and devastating Iraq war but that complete breakdown of the man's judgement and morality occurred in the 21st century.

HERE WE GO AGAIN, TERROR STALKS THE AISLES IN THE AIR

Hmmm, I'm not one for conspiracy theories but...mid-term elections in the USA...embattled American President...terror alert...lots of grand pronouncements about the threat we face.

And this is the world Tony Blair delivered us into: fear, bomb threats, dubious alerts in bizarre language that says nothing to no one ('MI6 has said there is a 'very real' threat of a terrorist incident' - as opposed to?!) and a perfect opportunity to ratchet up international tension when the mood arises.

THE LOOSE CANNONS AREN'T IN TEHRAN, THEY'RE IN WASHINGTON

I'm very keen to see the response from the Deputy Prime Minister to the reprehensible decision by the UN Security Council today to ratchet up sanctions against Iran because it has scurrilously and shamelessly continued to negotiate over its plans to enrich uranium with no evidence whatsoever of any hostile intentions so far.

This is same Iran which recently offered a region wide deal to oversee checks on nuclear technology - an offer which caused some unease in other capitals nearby as other countries not too far away to the west have singularly failed to engage with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

This is the same Iran which is at the negotiating table - or at least it was until today - and which has not launched any aggressive actions against its neighbours for quite some decades now (Iraq started the first Gulf War in 1980).

This is the same Iran which had offered to send its uranium to Turkey to be enriched, thus addressing one of the main issues of the latest round of sabre-rattling by the USA and Israel.

There are uncomfortable echoes of 2003 in all this for, lest we forget, the USA used the UN to try to win some legitimacy for its long planned invasion back then. I wonder what the UN's Middle East envoy and the man who shamed our country, T. Blair esq. will say about all this. What can a man seen across the Middle East as one of the main architects of the devastation of Iraq possibly do to encourage peace and dialogue when he is hated by almost everyone there?

If the British government joins in any military action against Iran I'll be a willing participant in any protests and if the Liberal Democrats do not come out foursquare against any such actions we might just find ourselves without a party. I don't envy Nick Clegg his dilemma over such issues but I do expect him to hold fast to the fundamental principles which drive our party, one of which is internationalism.

For the record, I have no illusions about Iran. It is a poor democracy which has quite abysmal human rights and its president is clearly deranged but it is not a threat to the region. It has an educated population and recent years have demonstrated the vibrancy of its brave opposition. The people of Iran are not our enemy and they don't have to be in future.

The era of gunboat diplomacy is past, or at least it should be.