Likely Stories

Whatever happened to those two “Latvians” at USAF Molesworth? On that as on the fact that I cannot find a cufflink but I am not sure whether the blame lies with Russia or with Iran, I have every confidence that Andy Burnham will set me straight. After all, he has reassured us that it was “highly likely” that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps had “coordinated” whatever it was that had happened at the now-abandoned USAF Fairford, a prime site for affordable housing.

To be exact, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that, “I can confirm our assessment that it is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.” “Highly likely” Iran, but “almost certainly” the Guards. This nonsense has all the coordination of the event itself, and if that event were the worst that Iran in general or the Corps in particular could throw at us, then we would have more to worry about if we were ever invited to stay the night at the birthplace of the Oxford Movement.

The Fairford arrestees have all been bailed, meaning that they could not possibly be suspected terrorists, but Marco Rubio has stepped in to order Britain back into line, and since Burnham had no power to influence decisions such as the granting or otherwise of bail, then he has had to demean himself, his office, the House and the nation. Such abasement before the man whose vulgar pursuit of Donald Trump’s base with a view to the 2028 Presidential Election had caused him to sanction the International Criminal Court in retaliation for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, not to Trump, but to Navi Pillay.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You wanted the ICC. We didn’t. We said that it would only ever be used against black Africans and against whoever was the wrong sort of Slav that week. Until 24 November 2024, we were pretty much right. While talk of being “democratically elected” is of no relevance, the point is well made that all sorts of monsters had never attracted the ICC’s attention. We told you that they would not. But the best that can be said of Rubio’s nomination chasing is that at least it does not involve a livestreamed execution.

What do our own MAGA wannabes have to say about that? What do they have to say about anything anymore? Obviously, don’t mention Northern Ireland or the Falkland Islands, with the second taboo also operative in relation to the fangirling of Benjamin Netanyahu and of Liz Truss’s beloved Javier Milei. With its downright daft proposal to end the asylum system altogether, Reform UK is demob happy as it waits for the parliamentary report into Nigel Farage’s five million pounds, a report that is due any day now. The Conservatives have already turned away some of their own former MPs who had tried to re-rat. And over at Restore Britain, the Leader of the Great Yarmouth First Group has not only left both parties, but also quit his day job as Rupert Lowe’s constituency office manager. Jon Wedon has used the old line about the impact of politics on his family life, but he will continue to sit as an Independent councillor, so that story is as “highly likely” as any that might be told from the despatch box.