Statesmen?

I was never a fan of the Labour government headed up by Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, but I had great respect for Robin Cook. I met him once in Inverness airport. We were all heading back to Glasgow on the same plane. He chatted to my colleagues and me a bit, asked what we'd been doing in Inverness (working) and apologised that he was a 'bit tired' because he'd been doing the same. He at least acknowledged us. It was a terrible blow when he resigned over the invasion of Iraq. He was right to do so but he was also the best hope we had of introducing something like an ethical foreign policy. 

We're not going to have an ethical problem with Boris Johnston. (Sorry there's no photo, by the way. I can't bring myself to put one up). Everything Johnston touches turns to slime. For some reason, he thinks he's entitled to be prime minister. After cocking up the Brexit campaign (remember the bus?), he has conspired with some of the other slimiest people in the UK, Rothermere of the Mail for one and Michael Gove for another, to get himself into a job he can't do and he just keeps on proving to us he can't do it. He obviously doesn't read the briefs that are sent to him by his civil servants at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and cocks up every opportunity he gets to do his job effectively, hanging about ineffectually at meetings of foreign ministers as if his private education hadn't taught him to smarm and charm, and when he does speak just saying the wrong thing. And the prime minister is so weak and ineffectual she can't get rid of him. (Not that I think she should be in the job either. It's just the Tories brought this Brexit disaster on us and some of us think they should clear it up). 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who went back to Iran to visit her family with her little daughter, has now been in jail for 19 months on a trumped up charge. 

We should ask: What would Robin do? Well, not what Johnston has done. Cook would get out there, go to Iran, have meetings, get allies and enemies alike to put on some diplomatic pressure, make concessions if he had to. But, whatever else he did, he wouldn't stand up in Westminster and talk rubbish: 'she was training journalists'; or ask Gove (who seems to have three feet, two to walk on and the other to shove in his mouth) to help him: 'I don't know what she was doing in Iran.' Cook would realise we're talking about a young mother separated from her daughter, and allow his civil servants to get a press campaign going on the basis of that alone. But with Tories, there's always the fear we're dealing with people lacking in emotional literacy whose best position is to do nothing. 

I listened to the rally supporting Nazanin this evening. She spoke from Iran and sounded remarkably cheerful but she needs to be out of jail and home with her family. Can you imagine what it's going to take to fix the bond between Nazanin and her child after all this time? And is Johnston the person to reunite them? I hope so.  

There are online petitions about Nazanin and I would encourage everyone to sign up. The fact the UK Foreign Secretary is a fool doesn't mean the rest of us are.