Priti Much Finished

Imagine that a British Cabinet Minister had gone "on holiday" to Russia, there to hold 12 meetings with politicians, including one with Vladimir Putin, but all without any British official present, and all without any minutes being kept, at least by anyone British.

Imagine that that Minister had informed neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary about this excursion, and, having been caught out, had lied about it directly, repeatedly and publicly. And imagine that that Minister had reasonably supposed that such conduct was the only way of aspiring to the Leadership of the United Kingdom's governing party.

As for diverting overseas aid to supporting the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, which absolutely no one suggests were ever part of the Biblical Land of Israel, it is notable that a promise to do that is now a prerequisite to be considered a candidate for the Leadership of the Conservative Party by the man who decides these things, Benjamin Netanyahu.

And it calls to mind Tony Blair's scheme, in the dying days of his Premiership, to conscript Britain's least accomplished school-leavers directly into the Israeli Defense Forces. Remember that that remains the position of those Labour MPs who, funded by the Israeli Embassy, seek to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Imagine that anything up to 100 Labour MPs were seeking to undermine the Leader of the Labour Party in a campaign that was funded by the Russian Embassy.