The Prime Minister tries to portray an image of calm, but to many of us it looks like ignorant inaction, fearing the reality of energy and food shortages and higher prices.
Nobody sane likes war, and those that do seldom fight them. Badenoch isn’t itching to ‘do war’. She’s advocating defending British interests, and if you think Starmer hasn’t damaged those then you are living in an isolationist virtue bubble.
The world’s security – to which Britain is so connected – would deteriorate with a nuclear Iran. Busy sanctioning, banning and preparing to prosecute, ministers give the impression that far from being an ally, Israel should be treated as an adversary.
People can try to brush out what happened a year ago but deep in Israeli society it won’t wash. It really was a national trauma, and it really was as bad as Hamas terrorists wanted it to look.
The Starmer government’s equivocation over Israel is not in the long-term interests of this country – or of the West.
“The UK goverment and the international community would urge all parties not to escalate further…that is the real danger,” he says.
Is there is a whiff of Sarajevo, 1914 about the crash deaths of Iran’s president and foreign minister? Even if not, the increasingly confrontational agendas of both Tehran and Jerusalem makes conflict more likely.
Like Hamas and Hezbollah, already banned under this act, the PFLP are a terrorist group. They have never hid this fact. Yet in Britain they, and support for them, remain legal.
It is imperative to grasp the group’s objectives, doctrines, and expansion tactics. Employing a combination of both soft and hard power measures is essential, targeting not only Hezbollah but also its allies and associates globally.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has made Hezbollah into the force it is today – and its expanding activities in this country beggar belief. Surely the best course of action is to proscribe it.
Our policy needs to be joined up, realistic and deliverable. The era of wishful thinking, of hoping that Iran will change, must be confined to history.
Sir Keir will have to work hard to keep his party on the right side of the line. Which will require withdrawing the whip from any Labour MPs who support attacks on our troops.
Fifty years on from Edward Heath, another Conservative Prime Minister faces their premiership being brought even lower by a Middle Eastern energy shock.
The danger is that the conflict slowburns into a wider one, with hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies accelerating, and knock-on consequences for inflation and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The question of Hezbollah’s future looms large. Many Lebanese now see it less as a protector and more as a liability. Those I spoke to genuinely believe that competitive elections could diminish Hezbollah’s parliamentary influence.