ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Owen Paterson defends Belfast celebration of Royal Irish Regiment's Afghan service

Earlier today Belfast hosted a homecoming parade for the Royal Irish Regiment.

For Sinn Fein and symathisers any celebration of the British Army is an affront to their republicanism.  Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice remembered the Brirtish Army in this way in the Belfast Telegraph:

"In Ireland the British Army is responsible for the use of lethal force, shoot-to-kill, the use of rubber and plastic bullets, collusion, internment and torture — all with official impunity."

For Owen Paterson MP, Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, the Royal Irish deserve to be honoured for their work in Afghanistan:

"For the past six months the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, has been deployed on Herrick 8.  Their immensely difficult job was to mentor and assist the Afghan National Army in all aspects of its operations. It is vital for the future security of Afghanistan that a non sectarian army is created.

It needs a unique set of skills to take on raw Afghan troops from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds, speaking different languages, to teach them, to encourage them, to organise them and then accompany them into battle.  This job has been performed supremely well by the Royal Irish, in one of the toughest and most dangerous battle zones in Helmand...

This immensely difficult work has been carried out by people from across the community in Northern Ireland and a good number from south of the border.  With horrible symmetry two friends were injured, one a catholic from Dublin the other a protestant from Belfast.  Over 70 have been injured and tragically, Ranger Justin Cupples was killed days before the end of the tour.  Our thoughts will be with his family and friends as we celebrate our troops’ return."

Read a PDF of Owen Paterson's full article.

Three cheers for PNJ

We're a little late with this but yesterday's intervention by Dame Pauline Neville-Jones on the Tablighi Jamaat proposal for a 40,000-worshipper mega-mosque for East London is worthy of note.  Paul Waugh covered it in yesterday's London Evening Standard:

"Ministers should review plans to build a "mega-mosque" in the East End in the wake of the airline bomb plot trial, the Tories urged today. Shadow security minister Dame Pauline Neville-Jones said the case had shown that the group behind the mosque may have given cover to extremist activity. Tablighi Jamaat, which describes itself an Islamic missionary organisation, is pushing for the mosque to be built next to the 2012 Olympics site in Stratford. But the group was revealed in court as having links to some of the terror suspects, with several having passed through other mosques run by the group."

This is also an issue that Paul Goodman MP has rightly raised before.

Homeland security and community integration are emerging as two of the Conservative Party's most impressive (and very related) policy areas.  David Cameron's speech in March to the Community Security Trust set out the strength of the party's thinking.

David Cameron's inappropriate soundbite

We covered the speech yesterday but the FT is one of a number of newspapers to major in on David Cameron's attempt to distance himself from "neoconservatism":

“We should accept that we cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun,” he said in Islamabad. “We cannot drop democracy from 10,000 feet and we should not try. Put crudely, that was what was wrong with the “neo-con” approach and why I am a liberal Conservative, not a neo-Conservative.”

Mr Cameron is politically sensible to distance himself from the toxic term neoconservatism but he's wrong to misrepresent what coalition forces are doing in Iraq.  The "drop democracy from 10,000 feet" soundbite isn't just silly, it borders on the offensive.

Bill Clinton tried to solve the Iraqi problem from 10,000 feet.  During his presidency America bombed Iraq but stopped short of any serious engagement.  At enormous cost America, in particular, but other nations, notably Britain, have committed ground troops to Iraq and Afghanistan in the hope of giving those two troubled nations the possibility of the same freedoms that we enjoy.  Mr Cameron is 100% correct to say that democracy is much more than elections but it is misleading to suggest that Iraq's democracy is being imposed from 10,000 feet or at the barrel of a gun.  For example, enormous efforts have been made to craft constitutions that respect the rights of women and religious diversity in both countries.  Troops are now embedded in Iraqi communities, intimately involved in community protection, and providing the space that is necessary for political and institutional progress.

In an ideal world we would have time to allow the institutions that support democracy to evolve - as Mr Cameron recommends - but we don't live in an ideal world.  The free world had to intervene in Afghanistan because the nation's Taliban regime was supporting al-Qaeda, not least the 9/11 attacks.  Without that intervention we cannot know how recent history might have been different but who thought, at the time, that 9/11 was an isolated event rather than the beginning of a campaign of terror?

More controversially, we also had to intervene in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was an unrepentant threat to the peace of the region and wider world.  The Iraq campaign was very badly handled.  We all know that but David Cameron would be better advised to criticise the Rumsfeld doctrine - and its belief in a limited deployment - or Iran for its destabilising role.  Talk of dropping democracy from 10,000 feet makes for good headlines but it doesn't help us understand what went wrong - nor what has begun to go right in Iraq.

Pakistan should be a top foreign policy priority for David Cameron

After his visit to Afghanistan (where CentreRight contributor and TA soldier Lee Rotherham is serving) David Cameron arrives in Pakistan today for talks with political leaders.

It is very timely that the Conservative leader is making this visit.  He visits a very troubled nation.  Richard Holbrooke and the New York Times have argued that Pakistan was George W Bush's biggest foreign policy failure:

"It is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world." Nothing -- not even Iraq -- represents a greater policy failure for the outgoing administration."

It's hard to disagree with that judgment and to be optimistic about the near future.

Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, is expected to become the nation's president on Saturday, succeeding Pervez Musharraf.  Bret Stephens introduced Mr Zardadi to Wall Street Journal readers yesterday:

• Known as "Mr 10%" he was found guilty in 2003 of laundering $10m.
• He owns a 3555 acre estate near London although he has never earned any large amounts of money (legally).
• In return for support from an extremist political party for his presidential bid he helped to engineer an end to the Pakistan military's bombing of Taliban positions.

Mr Stephens also quotes a June poll that found that 71% of Pakistanis oppose cooperating with the USA in counterterrorism.  51% oppose fighting the Taliban at all.  Britain - and its next PM - may have an important role in ensuring that Pakistan remains an ally in the war on terror.  In his maiden post for CentreRight, Suli Shah made the case for the UK leading international action plan that would see significant economic, military and intelligence assistance for Pakistan.  Suli's post is worth reading again.

Liam Fox condemns "outrageous" nature of alleged pact between British forces and Basra criminals

The main story on page one of this morning's Times alleges a "Secret deal kept Army out of battle for Basra".

"Outrageous" is the word Liam Fox uses within a letter that he has just sent to his opposite number, Defence Secretary Des Browne.

The letter seeks clarification of whether British intelligence did strike such a deal.  The full text is pasted below.

If true, it is another humiliation for the British military.  Our troops have fought bravely throughout the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but their political direction has been consistently poor.  Basra was dominated by criminal groups when Britain retreated and it took the Iraqi armed forces - backed up by US troops - to start to turn that situation around (and here) in what was called Operation Charge of the Knights.  The humiliation is doubly depressing if  our absence from that Operation wasn't for strategic reasons but because of a shoddy deal with Iranian backed terrorists.  When will civilised nations learn that dealing with terrorists only invites more terrorism for the future?

Hague and Osborne discuss Middle East strategy

At yesterday's Annual Business Lunch of Conservative Friends of Israel, Daniel Finkelstein (The Times' new Chief Leader Writer) interviewed two of the Conservative Party's top three figures; Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.  You can watch the Q&A in the videos below but here are some of the key points to emerge from the discussion:

• CFI: The first organisation that William Hague joined as a Conservative was Conservative Friends of Israel.
• Zionism: William Hague said that he was a Zionist if Zionism means being a friend of Israel who believes in its right to exist and its right to defend itself.  This echoed David Cameron's reply of last year and William Hague joked that the new thing in the Conservative Party was that all MPs say the same things!
• Iraq: Both stated that they still support the Iraq war but too many mistakes were made.  William Hague said that note should be taken of substantial progress in recent months.  There is, he continued, another democracy in the Middle East alongside Israel; Iraq.  We must help that democracy to flourish.
• Democratisation: The best long-term guarantee of peace and stability is the emergence of more and more democracies, said George Osborne, in response to a question about the Sharansky doctrine.  William Hague said it takes time to create democracies.  'Would Israel be more secure if all Israel's neighbours became democracies?', he asked.  'Probably not,' he replied.  They would likely go in a direction more hostile to Israel.  In the long-run, however, we want to see Israel's neighbours becoming more open and democratic.
• Syria: William Hague said it was imperative that we avoid a so-called clash of civilisations by building much better links with moderate Islamic states, in particular.  He repeated his commitment to a dialogue with Syria.  He has previously spoken of an acquaintanceship with Syria.
• 2006's Lebanon war: The Shadow Foreign Secretary stood by his belief that Israel's behaviour in the Lebanon war had been "disproportionate" and militarily ineffective.  It was the only time, he said, that he'd ever criticised an Israeli military campaign but you have to look at Lebanon today and see Hezbollah so much stronger to realise that it was not a good campaign for Israel.
• Hamas: William Hague said that Hamas must renounce violence and recognise Israel and honour previous agreements before Israel should talk directly to them.
• George W Bush: Both George Osborne and William Hague avoided answering a question about whether George W Bush had been a good President.  George Osborne said noone should underestimate the difficulties that the Bush adminstration have faced in the post 9/11 world and their actions need to be judged in that context.  Mr Hague said that history would judge President Bush more kindly than today's commentators.  He continued, however, by saying that America had been insufficiently open to the differences between Middle Eastern states - Syria and Iran, for example.  There had been a tendency to see the Islamic world as monolithic when it is very complex and diverse.
• McCain v Obama: William Hague said that the Conservative Party would not choose between Barack Obama and John McCain although the Republicans were the sister party.  George Osborne said that in terms of campaign techniques the Obama campaign was the campaign to study because of its "phenomenal" use of the internet.
  

The lunch was attended by eighty Tory MPs and many parliamentary candidates.

George W Bush and David Cameron hold second meeting

It's very unusual for George W Bush to meet opposition leaders but America's President did meet David Cameron for thirty minutes earlier today, during his London visit.  That's a good sign of (a) the White House's awareness of the Conservative Party's ascendancy and (b) Much improved Tory-GOP relations.

William Hague, George Osborne and Pauline Neville-Jones accompanied the Conservative leader during at meeting at the US Ambassador's London residence.

CCHQ has released the following statement from David Cameron: 

“I had a very productive meeting with President Bush, taking forward some of the issues we discussed when we met in Washington last November.
 
I raised the situation in Zimbabwe, and the pressing need to do everything possible to prevent Mugabe from stealing the election. It is extremely important to make sure that independent observers have full access to the poll.  We continued the discussion we had before about the importance of standing up for free trade.
 
I underlined the commitment of the Conservative Party to Britain’s role in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. I also raised with the President my concerns about the need for improved co-ordination of the civilian effort of the ground, and greater clarity and unity of purpose between the different military chains of command – in particular between the NATO-led International Security assistance Force (ISAF) and Operating Enduring Freedom.”

***
Over the weekend we twice blogged about The Telegraph's mischief-making re David Davis (here and here).  The Telegraph's take on the Bush-Cameron meeting, from Rosa Prince: Green David Cameron undermined by George W Bush meeting.  A headline worthy of The Independent/ Guardian/ Mirror.

Related link: ToryDiary report on the first Cameron-Bush meeting, last November.

Let's not forget that we have a new Shadow Home Secretary

The shock of David Davis' resignation and the joy of Ireland's "no" has distracted us from paying sufficient attention to what is very significant news in its own right.  The Conservative Party has, of course, a new Home affairs spokesman, Dominic Grieve.

Over at The Spectator's Coffee House, James Forsyth hasn't missed the significance of the appointment and has listed five reasons why he is worried.  James fears that...

• DG unbalances the frontbench and tips it away from the C2s,
• Is a passionate supporter of the European Convention on Human Rights,
• Is not above threatening to resign,
• Is weak on Islamic extremism, and
• May not be a strong enough media performer to channel public anger on crime.

ConservativeHome knows Dominic Grieve to be intelligent and one of politics' gentlemen.  Few have done more to build better relations with minority communities but we worry with James Forsyth, in particular, about his views on the ECHR.

One of the first things that Mr Grieve needs to do is rebut Labour suggestions that the party is soft on terrorism.  David Cameron made an excellent speech to the Community Security Trust in March.  Dominic Grieve needs to revisit the themes of that speech and make it clear that, unlike Labour, a Conservative Government will not allow extremists to enter Britain and will ensure no public funds go to extremist organisations.  Mr Grieve must also make it clear that he shares Dame Pauline Neville Jones' view that the Conservative Party does not approve of many of the attitudes of the Muslim Council of Britain.

> Mr Grieve recently gave a speech on Britishness.

Our case for 42 days

We know this isn't going to be popular among a great many ConservativeHome readers and 92% of adopted Tory candidates but we ought to publicly nail our colours to the mast and stand up with Ann Widdecombe, Norman Tebbit, Matthew d'Ancona, Melanie Phillips and Frank Field as supporters of the Government's attempts to introduce a period of 42 days' pre-charge detention.

This debate is often portrayed as a great clash between those who care about civil liberties and those who don't.  Between those who are too worried about the threat of terrorism and those who are blind to the dangers we face from extremists.  This isn't helpful.  Is there really a substantial, principled difference between the Conservative leadership's support for the existing 28 day detention period and the Labour leadership's preference for 42 days?  David Cameron has always been careful to appear pragmatic on the issue - repeatedly saying that he and the Tory frontbench were open to persuasion that more than 28 days might be necessary.  He hasn't been persuaded but he has never ruled out a longer period of detention on the grounds of high principle.

Experts are divided on the issue but we have heard enough in recent days to tip us into the camp supporting the Government's plans.

Crucial to our conclusion was last week's article in The Telegraph by Peter Clarke, former head of Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Unit.  He argued that the complexity of the terrorist networks we currently face - using hi tech methods and operating across borders - may mean that more than 28 days of investigations might soon be necessary.  Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, the former Met Chief, who advises David Cameron on security issues, has told this morning's Times that "anti-terrorist police have come close in the cases of six suspects to needing more than 28 days to detain them".  A mature political party, interested in public safety, shouldn't lightly dismiss the arguments of such a senior anti-terrorist specialist and a senior police chief.

John Major: "The threat to liberty is graver than terrorism"

Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has written for this morning's Times about the many ways in which he sees Labour assaulting Britain's fundamental liberties:

Complicity in rendition: "We now know that, despite repeated denials, our Government was complicit in rendition, or - to put it in plain terms - the transfer of suspects out of civilised jurisdiction to a place where they could be held without charge for a lengthy period.  Although the intention was presumably to garner information, such action is hardly in the spirit of the nation that gave the world Magna Carta, or the Parliament that gave it habeas corpus."

42 days: "The Government has introduced measures to protect against terrorism. These go beyond anything contemplated when Britain faced far more regular - and no less violent - assaults from the IRA. The justification of these has sometimes come close to scaremongering.  After terrorist attacks on London, Parliament doubled the time that suspects could be held without charge from 14 days to 28 days. Probably, that was justified. But soon Parliament will be asked to increase detention without charge to 42 days... There is no proof that an extended period of 42 days would have prevented past atrocities. There is no evidence it will prevent future atrocities. No example has yet been given of why the police need more than 28 days to frame a charge."

ID cards: "They were to be voluntary. Now it is clear that they will be compulsory. Yet the Government has admitted that such cards would not have stopped the London bombers. Nor will they cut illegal immigration, since asylum-seekers have been obliged to carry ID cards for nearly eight years. Nor will they have any real impact on benefits fraud, as this is typically caused by misrepresentation of financial resources rather than by identity."

Recording DNA: "Under present legislation, DNA can be retained permanently for even minor misdemeanours, such as being drunk. A total of more than four million samples are already on the UK database - far more than in any other country. This includes tens of thousands of children, and a disproportionate number of black men. If this is accepted, it will one day go farther. This cannot be right: for me, it is all uncomfortably authoritarian."

Ann Widdecombe will back Government on 42 days

The former Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe has confirmed that she's likely to vote with the Government on 42 days pre-trial detention:

"My reasoning is very simple indeed: it's that if we have a state of emergency then the government should be able to ask parliament for emergency powers, as we did for example over Northern Ireland … providing that the legislation does not remain on the statute books indefinitely until somebody gets around to repealing it."

She was speaking to Radio 4's World at One and is quoted in The Guardian.

Just over a year ago 7% of Conservative MPs told ComRes that they would be willing to support 60 days' detention without trial.

Bribery is sometimes necessary, says Tebbit, when British jobs and security are at stake

Last week the Editor of ConservativeHome celebrated the Court's criticism of Tony Blair's decision to halt the SFO probe into the BAe-Saudi arms deal.  Lord Tebbit offers an alternative view in The Daily Mail.  Here are highlights from the former Party Chairman's piece:

Bribery is unfortunately necessary for British jobs and security co-operation with Saudi Arabia: "To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling's poem, Mandalay, "somewheres East of Suez, where the best is like the worst/where there ain't no Ten Commandments", they play by different rules to the ones we stand by here. I thought of this again when the High Court last week wrongly denounced the Government for abandoning the bribery investigation into the massive British Aerospace arms deal with Saudi Arabia... This is Britain's biggest-ever arms deal, signed more than 20 years ago and worth £43billion - yes, £43billion.  If we abandon it, we will put thousands of British jobs on the line and jeopardise relations with Saudi Arabia, a vital ally in the struggle against terrorism.  At the bottom line, without Saudi's cooperation, British lives could be lost to jihadist terror.  I have personal experience of this affair.  As a junior trade minister and then as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, under Margaret Thatcher, I had the job of promoting British exports - whatever they were.  The driving principle of the task was relatively simple: no one has to buy from us, but unless they do, we are unable to pay for the food, oil and raw materials we need to survive."

We should aim to eliminate corruption in the long-term: "Eliminating bribery throughout the world should of course be a priority, and it is utterly wrong to use it here in Britain or in other countries where it has been largely eradicated.  But let us remember that some British companies have to operate in places where the world is not as we would like it to be."

Our judges' double standards: ""No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice," they said.  Come off it. Which of them stood up and objected when the Government let out of jail IRA/Sinn Fein and Loyalist terrorists by the busload, claiming that the bombings and killings would start again if they were not released?"

Judges are increasingly behaving as lawmakers: "More and more judges are being tempted to find not according to what the law is, but according to what they think it should be.  And more and more they are using foreign law - whether from Brussels or so-called International Law - to impose their views.  As far as they are concerned, national security can take a back seat.  It seems to me that the judiciary is in danger of forgetting that policy and law are made by politicians.  And for good reason.  If politicians get it wrong, we can sack them at the next election.  They are accountable. Not so the judges."

Nick Herbert MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, will be writing for ConservativeHome on these subjects in the next few days.

Related CentreRight links: Samuel Coates wonders what Tebbit would have said to Wilberforce, Matt Sinclair on the 'judicial aristocracy' and Peter Franklin on Britain for sale

Sins of omission

Labour survived yesterday's Conservative attempts to force an inquiry into the Iraq war.  Twelve Labour MPs voted with the Opposition but William Hague's arguments (summarised on our Parliament pages) were not enough to persuade more Government backbenchers to defy their whip.

Yesterday's motion was an attempt by the Conservatives to say something about a war that is now five years old.  Many Conservatives genuinely believe that there will be benefits from an inquiry but many others simply see this exercise as a way of putting the Government on the back foot.  One Tory MP, Mark Field, admitted as much on Radio 4's Westminster Hour on Sunday night.  Tory opponents of the Iraq war were most evident in yesterday's Commons debate.  They hope that a key result of an inquiry will be further public opposition to the Iraq war and to a hawkish foreign policy.

Our key question is this: Should a call for an inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war really be the top priority of the Conservative Opposition?

Most of the current Tory leadership - David Cameron, William Hague, George Osborne, David Davis, Liam Fox - all voted for the Iraq war five years ago.  They may have a responsibility to investigate the background to their 2003 votes - and, more importantly, the votes of the governing party - but they also have a responsibility to see the liberation of Iraq concluded in the most satisfactory way possible.

But on the one strategic decision that has delivered most improvement to the people of Iraq - the Petraeus-led troops surge - the Conservative frontbench has been silent.  We asked CCHQ yesterday for a statement in support of the surge.  Nothing was forthcoming and nothing apparently exists from the last 12 months.  There have even been attempts to attribute the reduction in violence to other factors.

Britain could not have delivered a troops surge for southern Iraq because Labour has left our armed forces under-resourced and over-stretched.  The Conservatives' response to this situation has also been inadequate.  We have failed to make the case for the rebuilding of Britain's armed forces.  There's no new money on the table for our military although the defence of Britain should be any Government's first and overriding priority.  ConservativeHome proposed our own modest plan for £3bn of extra defence spending a couple of weeks ago.

The coming together of evil men, rogue regimes and devastating weapons technology is the security challenge of our time.  Yesterday's debate didn't take us much closer to a coherent Conservative response to that challenge.

3pm: James Forsyth at The Spectator encourages William Hague to go beyond "cheap publicity"

Cameron gets tough with Islamic extremists, apologists for terror and the idea of 'state multiculturalism'

Last night, keeping up his recent frenetic pace, David Cameron spoke to the Community Security Trust - an organisation that "provides physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews".  Here are key extracts from the speech:

We must not tolerate the apologists for terror: "The historian Michael Burleigh has written a brilliant new book I would urge you all to read.  It’s called Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism.  In it, Professor Burleigh demonstrates how, time and time again, people who have resorted to terrorism have been assisted and sustained by apologists who seek to make excuses for them.  In some cases, even to glorify them.  We saw it in the 1970s when the Red Brigades were hailed as liberators by some Italian university professors.  We saw it in the 1980s when parts of the Labour Party were prepared to appear on platforms with IRA front men.  And we see it today when some people attempt to justify suicide bombers and call them ‘martyrs’."

The "nauseating" middle class Britons who are the terrorists' fellow travellers: "Extremism is not confined to any particular religious or ethnic group.  During protests against the conflict in Lebanon, we witnessed the nauseating sight of well-scrubbed, middle class English people… marching through central London holding placards that read ‘We are all Hizbollah’.  That is the extremist mindset in action.  These are the same people who urge a boycott of Israeli goods and academics… while saying nothing about China, Iran or Zimbabwe.  Unless we challenge such attitudes and expose them for the morally-bankrupt nonsense they are… they will spread through the body politic and become the received wisdom of millions."

What can the British Government do to persuade young Muslims that they should reject terror and fully embrace the British way?

The title of this post was the question asked by Paul Goodman MP within a speech he gave to the New Culture Forum on Monday night.

Mr Goodman, Shadow Minister for Social Cohesion, analysed three potential strategic answers to that question: appeasement, assimilation and integration.  We summarise the speech below and this PDF contains the full text.

Appeasement is a course that Mr Goodman quickly rejects: "If our armed forces withdraw from Afghanistan – the argument runs – if we simply let Iran acquire nuclear weapons without sanctions or resistance; if we actively seek the replacement of our allies in the Islamic world by Islamists, if we abandon our support for the existence of Israel and if we connive in Britain at special legal dispensations for Muslims, then the problem will go away... You don’t have to be a neo-conservative – as I am not – to dismiss this option with the contempt it deserves.  It’s hard to perceive how abandoning parts of Afghanistan to Al Qaeda could help weaken that movement rather than strengthen it; how writing special sharia provisions into British law could strengthen community cohesion rather than weaken it, above all, how knuckling under to extremism could possibly help mainstream Islam worldwide."

Paul Goodman also rejects assimilation: "At heart, this school of thought usually believes that Islam in particular, if not religion in general, is at the root of separatist extremism... If government is to hold that religion in general is a problem – a habit that, like smoking, is bad for your health, and is to be tolerated only in private, if at all – it must surely move towards, say, cutting off all state support from faith schools, removing all tax breaks from religious-based charities and, eventually, scrapping the Coronation Service.  You can make your own judgement about whether such courses of action are more or less likely to lower school standards, remove support from vulnerable people, offload new burdens on the taxpayer, damage civil society, harm the current quest for shared values and dent our common sense of Britishness.  I’ve already made mine."

Mr Goodman then devotes a large section of his speech to discussing whether Islam is different from other religions and deserves special prohibitions.  His strong conclusion is that there is enough hope within certain traditions of Islam to firmly reject the idea that Islam needs to be suppressed.  He focuses particularly on Sufism as catalogued by Bernard Lewis.

Cameron to call for preachers of hate to be banned from the UK

ConservativeHome has been given an advance copy of what David Cameron will say at the first meeting of the CDU-Conservative Party working group later today.

Responding to the news that Yusuf al-Qaradawi may be granted a visa, Cameron will call on Gordon Brown to act quickly and ban preachers of hate from entering the country.

Peter Cuthbertson made this point on CentreRight on Sunday.

We will be there to check against delivery and listen to the Q&A. As always if you have any good questions we will try to ask one on your behalf.

We've put the speech into bitesize chunks below.  Download a PDF of David Cameron's remarks in full.

Cameron reaffirms special relationship

I'll report a lot more later on David Cameron's Washington visit.  The day began (photo above) with David Cameron paying respects to the American soldiers who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He's just spoken at the Brookings Institute about the Balkans.  A very authoritative speech and cleverly chosen.  Mr Cameron raised a neglected issue of looming seriousness but avoided the minefields of Middle East policy.

William Hague is accompanying the Conservative leader.  Andy Coulson is also here in a sign of the media importance of this trip.  The Tory delegation enjoyed dinner with Mike Bloomberg in New York last night and also saw Chuck Hagel, the most anti-war Republican Senator.  Meetings are also scheduled with Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley (National Security Adviser) and, I'm 99% sure, George W Bush himself.  Mr Cameron won't be meeting any Democrats but his choice of Brookings, a left-leaning organisation with little influence on this administration, to host his speech was interesting.  If Mr Cameron had chosen the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute, for example, he would have been guaranteed a bigger audience with better connections to Team Bush.  But if that was one 'Im-a-different-kind-of-Conservative' message, the overall flavour has been decidely pro-American.  These are the opening paragraphs of Mr Cameron's Brookings speech:

"This is my first visit to Washington as Britain's Leader of the Opposition.

I wanted to mark it this morning by paying my respects at Arlington National Cemetery, where so many of your country's heroes are buried.  Men and women who have served not just the United States, but the cause of freedom the world over.  In Europe, we will never forget the sacrifices Americans have made for our liberty.

I and my colleagues represent a new generation of leadership in the Conservative Party.   But the Party I lead today in Opposition, and which I hope to lead in Government, is proudly Atlanticist, proud of the ties of history and family that bind our two nations.  Britain and America have stood alongside each other in so many of the battles for liberty over the last century.  In two World Wars. My own grandfather landed with the liberation forces on the Normandy beaches and fought alongside our American allies before he was wounded and evacuated to Britain.

We stood together in the battle against Soviet expansionism.  And today we must stand together against global terrorism fuelled by a perversion of the Islamic faith.  I've seen our soldiers serving together in the deserts of Afghanistan and the dust of Iraq, and I pay tribute to their professionalism, their courage, and their comradeship.

The relationship between our two countries is indeed special.   And it will remain special for any British Government I lead - grounded in the long history we share together, and the ability to talk freely to each other as only old friends can.  My view is clear: the cause of peace and progress is best served by an America that is engaged in the world. And the values we hold dear are best defended when Britain and the United States, and the United States and Europe, stand together."

David Davis: Met Chief Blair's position "untenable"

About an hour ago we learnt that the Metropolitan Police have been found guilty of endangering the public in pursuing Jean Charles de Menezes.

Sir Ian Blair has just been on TV promising to learn the lessons of the trial and vowing to continue to lead the Met.  That is not enough for Shadow Home Secretary David Davis.

Mr Davis has followed LibDem calls for Blair to go:

"There is something wrong with a process of accountability that, two years on, continues to prevent the publication of the review of the events leading up to 22 July 2005. Health and Safety legislation is an inappopriate mechanism for scrutinising a counter-terrorism operation - and risks a counter-productive impact on policing.  However, the trial has shed light on the serial failures that led to the tragic death of Mr De Menezes. They include failures of organisation, command and operations. The failures were systemic, falling within the clear responsibility of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. His position is now untenable, in light of these findings and the overriding need to restore public confidence.  We think the jury is right to say Cressida Dick should not be blamed for this failure. Neither, should the frontline officers, because this was a serial failure of organisation, training, tactics and resourcing. Only one person can be held overall accountable for that.”

3pm 2/11/07 update: Letter from Davis to Jacqui Smith...

You couldn't make it up

Today's Sunday Times:

"The Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other subjects with the potential to be applied to weapons of mass destruction.  In the past nine months about 60 Iranians have been admitted to study postgraduate courses deemed “proliferation-sensitive” by the security services. The disciplines range from nuclear physics to some areas of electrical and chemical engineering and microbiology."

Conservative Universities spokesman David Willetts, who uncovered this fact, commented:

“Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics. There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying.”

Cameron distances himself from liberal interventionism

David Cameron has just addressed a conference of the CDU/CSU in Berlin.  He has used the speech to distance himself from the liberal interventionism of Bush and Blair.   The speech should not come as a surprise.  David Cameron has not visited Washington since becoming Tory leader and has ridiculed the idea that “you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft.”

There are good sections in the speech.  There is a reasonably strong statement on Afghanistan.  David Cameron announces a new security dialogue between Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and the German interior ministry.  He emphasises border protection and greater integration between domestic and foreign security policy-making.

But the speech is confusing overall.  First of all is Mr Cameron's promise to put national security first.  This, he says, is a change from Tony Blair: "To help protect international security, any state must put its own national security first."  This, surely, is a false choice.  Every sensible state will always do what is necessary to protect national security (clamp down on extremist groups, police the borders, invest in the intelligence services etc) but why does that have to be in tension with international security efforts?  Distancing the Conservative Party from Blair and Bush may be good politics but what does this 'putting national security first' really mean?

Those who are willing to believe that Cameron is not shrinking away from external threats can take some comfort from his commitment to "apply sanctions which really target Iranian financial institutions and trade."  There's not much else to go on, however.  The speech is most notable for what it doesn't say.  There's no commitment to increase investment in our armed forces.  There's no words about Saudi Arabia's export of subversive propaganda.  Nothing on missile defence.  There's no commitment to reform of the United Nations.  Instead we get a commitment to increase the size of the Security Council which only risks making the UN more unwieldy and less likely to intervene in places like Rwanda and Darfur.

Cameron says that he is against "liberal interventionism":

"We should replace the doctrine of liberal interventionism, famously propounded by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech in Chicago in 1999, with the doctrine of liberal conservatism – conservatism not in its narrow party political meaning, but in the sense of a sceptical attitude towards the ability of states to create utopias."

All of us are wiser about nation-building after recent years but my overall view is that interventionism is often necessary, although sacrificial.  Many, many more people have died when we have not intervened (Rwanda, Darfur, Srebrenica) than when we have (Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan).  I am not in favour of the kind of badly-prepared interventions that characterised the Bush and Blair years but more responsible leaders - McCain, for example, said from pretty much day one that many more troops were needed in Iraq - would have avoided the situation that Petraeus is now beginning to redeem.

The loss of life and chaos in post-Saddam Iraq has rightly horrified the world although the situation may finally be turning around.  I emphasise "may".   What we cannot afford, however, is for the world to be blind to the situations in Pakistan, Iran, Syria and other nations.  There's plenty in Mr Cameron's speech that points in the direction of a more isolationist Britain but the text is confused enough for liberal interventionists like myself to still have some hope.

Trimble: Hamas must renounce violence before talks can begin

Earlier today the Conservative peer and former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Baron Trimble, launched a paper entitled Misunderstanding Ulster.  Published by Conservative Friends of Israel, the paper warns against learning the wrong lessons from the NI peace process- a process for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

David Trimble is particularly concerned at the ways in which certain individuals are reading the process.  Former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has said dialogue with the most intractable of people and without conditions was one lesson of the process.  David Trimble strongly disagrees with that conclusion.  The NI process, he states, was based on clear preconditions - established in Article IX of the 1993 Downing Street Declaration.  Parties to talks about NI's future had to commit to non-violence and to exclusively peaceful means.

Lord Trimble believes that it is perfectly legitimate for Israel to insist that Hamas must first sign up to the principles of The Quartet before any negotiations are possible.  Those principles are recognition of Israel, repudiation of violence and recognition of past agreements.

The former leader of the UUP fears that Hamas may be more in the frame of mind that the IRA were in the 1970s than became true by the 1990s.  In the 1970s the IRA saw the British government as weak and thought they could achieve victory.  A 1972 secret offer of unconditional talks by the then Tory Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw confirmed in the IRA's minds that Britain wanted to "surrender".  This only emboldened them.  A weak Israeli acceptance of unconditional talks may only feed the same feeling within Hamas, Trimble warned.

In a Q&A period, David Trimble (pictured with CFI's James Arbuthnot MP) emphasised the importance of foreign states.  The Irish government was faithful to the Downing Street principles, he said, throughout the process.  Unfortunately there are too many states in the Middle East who are always ready to give comfort to Hamas.

Conservative MP Michael Ancram has made the case for talking to Hamas in an article for ConservativeHome.

Download a PDF of Misundertanding Ulster.

PS The image on the cover of Misunderstanding Ulster is a real photograph from Northern Ireland.  In the 1970s the IRA became political allies of the PLO and loyalist areas started, in reaction, to fly the Israeli flag alongside their own patriotic colours.

4.25pm: Melanie Phillips has written about Lord Trimble's paper here.

Tory Muslims' report defends Iran's nuclear ambitions and offers comfort to extremists

The Telegraph highlights a number of recommendations from a recent report on security by the Conservative Muslim Forum.  Having had a chance to look at the report (that appears to have been written last month) I fear that The Telegraph's report is an accurate summary.  I've also discovered other troubling recommendations.

The Forum, chaired by Lord Mohamed Sheikh, enobled in 2005 by Michael Howard, offers comfort to Iran and its ambition for nuclear weapons: "Given Iran's position in the Middle East, facing a nuclear armed Israel, Iran appears to have legitimate reasons for seeking nuclear weapons for defensive purposes."  Let us never forget that Iran's President has spoken of wiping Israel off the face of the map.  Last year Iran hosted a conference that gave comfort to Holocaust-deniers.  There can be no equivalence between Israel and Iran.  Although not without fault, Israel is a democratic nation - besieged by totalitarian states.  Iran is a sponsor of global terror.  It is a great shame that the CMF could not have begun to made this clear.

The Forum rejects Dame Pauline Neville-Jones' suggestion that “foreign preachers and scholars advocating the rejection of the institutions and values of democracy” should be denied entry into Britain".  The Forum suggests that "If a political party wishes to campaign, constitutionally, for the abolition of democracy in the UK and its replacement by a totalitarian system, why should it not be free to do so?"

The CMF then criticises David Cameron's support for 'Zionism'.  On 12th June the Conservative leader, asked if he was a Zionist, said:

“If what you mean by Zionist, someone who believes that the Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel and a right to their country then yes I am a Zionist and I’m proud of the fact that Conservative politicians down the ages have played a huge role in helping to bring this about” and “There is something deep in our Party’s DNA that believes in Israel, the right of Israel to exist, the right of Israel to defend itself and that a deal should only happen if it means that Israel is really allowed to have peace within secure borders and real guarantees about its future”.

Nothing wrong with that but the CMF is displeased.  "Pro-zionist statements only damage relationships with Muslims nationally and internationally," the Forum concludes.

The Forum concludes that "the Muslim Council of Britain is well-respected by many Muslims and non-Muslims" and encourages the Conservative Party to recognise that.  Paul Goodman is just one of many Conservative MPs who worry about the MCB's tolerance of extremist attitudes, including its unwillingness to support Holocaust Memorial Day.

The report then defends Yusuf al-Qaradawi - a Muslim scholar who has made unacceptable remarks about homosexuals.  Conservatives have rightly criticised Ken Livingstone for having rolled out the red carpet for al-Qaradawi when he visited London.  It is deeply troubling to learn of a group within the Conservative Party giving comfort to this extremist.

4.45pm update: LGF has now picked this up and is quite depressed about the state of Britain, as has "Islamophobia Watch" which has a rather revealing tongue-in-cheek headline: Conservative Muslims back Ahmadinejad shock!

Brown's Iraq visit is strongest indication of autumn election

Gordon Brown promised to go to Parliament to make any announcement on troop withdrawals.  But today he's in Iraq announcing that 1,000 of "our boys" will be home for Christmas.

Liam Fox has accused the Prime Minister of using our troops as a "political football":

"A week ago Gordon Brown gave only around a minute of his 67 minute speech to the issues of Iraq, Afghanistan and our Armed Forces combined; but today he is happy to use our Armed Forces for a pre-election photo opportunity. Most people will see this cynicism for what it is. Our troops should not be used as a political football."

I've also learnt that no newspaper journalists were permitted to travel to Iraq with Mr Brown - only PA and television cameras.  That's all Mr Brown is interested in - television pictures.  He wants to avoid the scrutiny and background reporting of print journalists.

Newspapers are afraid to complain about these exclusions as they fear they'll lose access as a result.  They need to come together and expose this typically Brown-behaviour.  I fear they won't.

Giuliani lifts depressed Tories

Yesterday evening some of the Conservative Party's top donors mingled with MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, and journalists, including the Editor of The Sun, at the inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture - hosted by Liam Fox's Atlantic Bridge.  Before the Mayor spoke all of the reception talk was of an autumn election and people were very downbeat about the party's prospects.  The mood was much improved after Rudy Giuliani had spoken.  It was not a great speech and the former New York Mayor went on a little long, but his remarks were rich in content and a tonic to British Conservatives who hear too little from their own leadership about security and defence issues.

Giuliani began by paying handsome tribute to Baroness Thatcher - who looked magnificent at the main table (Liam Fox pointedly told his guests that he had enjoyed a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation with her over dinner).  The frontrunning candidate for the Republican nomination also said that he had been inspired by her leadership and conviction.  Thatcher and Reagan were the golden years in the very special relationship between Britain and America.  He joked that he was lucky she wasn't running for President.  She would certainly win!  He spent some time saying how much he also admired Nicolas Sarkozy and said that he hoped that he would do for France what Thatcherism did for Britain.  The speech also included tributes to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.  They understood the challenge of terror, he said.  The longest and warmest applause came when he paid tribute to all of the British troops that had "liberated" Iraq and Afghanistan.  They should be so proud of what they did and it was now for all politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure the job that started with those liberations is properly completed.  Pointing to Margaret Thatcher, this is not a time to go "wobbly", he said, and there must be no going back to the appeasement of pre-9/11.

His speech was built around four main themes:

1. The need for institutionalisation of intelligence-sharing. Both nations had much to learn from each other and he hoped to introduce a 'TerrorStat' intelligence system that would monitor 'precursor activities' of terrorists to act as early warning signals for the authorities in the same way that lesser crimes were used as a warning of a larger propensity to criminality in his New York war on crime.
2. Expansion of NATO.  Any nation with military readiness and a commitment to global responsibility should be able to join NATO.  He mentioned Australia, India, Israel, Japan and Singapore.  These nations might encourage existing European members of NATO to take their own responsibilities more seriously.
3. A bigger military.  All armed forces (and intelligence services) were cut too deeply after the end of the Cold War.  We need new capacities including the capacity for a large war with a nation state.  Gulp!  'Prepare for the worst but hope for the best,' Giuliani said.
4. Winning the war through ideas.  This area of ideological warfare had been neglected, he implied.

At the end of the evening Giuliani went up to Liam Fox and hugged him.  I liked the humanity in that.

PS Ben Brogan has posted this report.

***
Earlier in the day the Mayor had criticised the British system of healthcare:

"Healthcare right now in America, and I think it has been true of your experience of socialised medicine in England, is not only very expensive, it's increasingly less effective.  I had prostate cancer seven years ago. My chance of survival in the US is 82%; my chance of survival if I was here in England is below 50%.  Breast cancer, very similar.  I think there's something to the idea that there are many more private options driving the system that create altogether better results."

Noon update: Photographs of Giuliani with Blair, Brown and Thatcher

Hague responds to Petraeus report

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has obviously hired Sir Humphrey Appleby to be his new speechwriter.  Here's is civil service-speak response to General Petraeus' report to the US Congress on the progress of President Bush's surge strategy:

"It appears that the US troop surge has had mixed results so far, but it is clear that there is no purely military solution available to the situation in Iraq. The surge was intended to give a breathing space to the Iraqi government to allow it to make progress towards national reconciliation. It is of paramount importance that efforts to achieve that progress are now redoubled.
 
It is healthy that the US congress receives regular reports on the political and military situation in Iraq. As long as British troops are in that country there should also be a full, quarterly report to our parliament from the British government on the progress made.
 
Any decision concerning US troop levels is a matter for the US, although we would hope that decisions on US and UK deployments in Iraq are always made in consultation with each other. We support the reductions in British troop levels announced so far and believe that British forces should remain in Iraq only so long as they are needed for the political stability of the country, the security of Southern Iraq, and have a defensible military position. We look forward to the Government’s assessment of these factors as soon as possible, and in any event when parliament returns."

See BritainAndAmerica for much more.

8.30pm: Fraser Nelson - over at The Spectator - wishes William Hague had been more Giuliani-like.  That's a big part of the Tory problem.  We don't have a Giuliani character.