Something In The Coffey

Luke Coffey was the disgraced Liam Fox's Special Adviser at the Ministry of Defence despite never having held British nationality and despite having been refused full security clearance.

Coffey has turned up on Al Jazeera to claim credit for the idea of a permanent British naval base in Bahrain, and to advise the world that this scheme is about, not IS, but "the common concern that Iran may get a nuclear weapon."

Common to whom? Not to anyone, including in Israel, who knows anything about the subject.

And is that the Iran alongside which we are currently at war? Did Liam Fox vote against that war? In it, we are also lined up, at least indirectly, with Russia.

We are lined up very directly indeed with the Government of Syria, with Hezbollah, and with Hezbollah's many (including Christian and Sunni) allies.

Such are fighters on the front line against IS, the IS into whose arms our bombing campaign is driving the Sunni populations of Syria and Iraq.

What says either Liam Fox or Luke Coffey about any of this? Is either of them even remotely aware of these things? Fox probably isn't.

But Coffey is.

He was Fox's Special Adviser at the Ministry of Defence despite never having held British nationality and despite having been refused full security clearance.

And a permanent British naval base in Bahrain was his idea.