Leadership Responsibilities

Of your charity, pray for the repose of the soul of Father Pierre El-Rahi, the Parish Priest of the almost entirely Maronite town of Qlayaa, where he was killed yesterday while coming to the aid of a parishioner during an Israeli bomb attack in pursuit of the stated aim of annexing, clearing and colonising Lebanon at least south of the Litani. Three days earlier, he had preached that, "None of us carries weapons. The only weapons we carry are peace, love and prayer." But we arm this, and the precious RAF Akrotiri provides intelligence for it. Indeed, it is a front in the war that half of our Epstein Class pretends that we are not fighting, while the other half angrily demands that we fight it harder.

The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' primary school in Minab was bombed with Tomahawks, which neither the Israelis nor, as if it needed to be said, the Iranians have, but which the Americans do, and components for which are manufactured by Raytheon at Glenrothes. While taking a good, hard look at Prestwick Airport, which the Scottish Government owns, the SNP should also register its firm objection to this arrangement. But it will not. It is an Epstein Class party. Alba may be no more, but that clears the way in May for the Workers Party. On either side of the Border, the Greens are the party politically and personally closest to Noam Chomsky, but do not tell them to stay in their lane when Tehran is under the black smoke of bombed oil depots such as Saddam Hussein inflicted on Kuwait in 1991.

Then there is Oman. It plays host to the three GCHQ bases of Timpani, Guitar and Clarinet, which tap into the undersea cables that pass through the Strait, before obediently passing on their findings to the United States National Security Agency. There is the British military base at Duqm. There is the Omani-British Joint Training Area. There is the training role of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. There certainly used to be a Privy Council featuring Sir Alan Duncan, past and present Chiefs of MI6, past and present Chiefs of the Defence Staff, senior advisers to our own Royal Family, and a former Governor of the Bank of England. And yesterday, His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik al Said sent Mojtaba Khamenei "best wishes for his success and good fortune in assuming his leadership responsibilities in his friendly country" as the new Supreme Leader of Iran. Think on.