The terrible anguish when your child is abducted

I suppose it happens somewhere, sometime, every day of every week but here in Britain, the nation has been absorbed for 12 days in the search for four year old Madeleine McCann, abducted as she slept from her holiday villa in Praia da Luz, Portugal by person or persons unknown.



This is not the place to vent my opinion on what I would do to anyone who committed such a heinous act but my heart goes out to Gerry and Kate McCann the child's parents who have maintained such a dignified and brave face over the 12 days of their child's disappearance.



Parents all over the world suffer tragedies and sadness with children - illness, disability, sometimes even death - but there must be a unique dimension to having a dearly loved child taken away from you and you not knowing if she is dead, alive, suffering....what? The distress that must cause is almost inconceivable unless ..heaven forbid...it ever happens to you.

Meanwhile as I write the police have arrested three people, we are not yet sure whether they are responsible, accomplices or just witnesses, nor is there any clue as to whether the child is safe somewhere or not.

I am not a religious man but I can only hope with all my heart that there is a happy outcome to all of this.

The King is (almost) dead! Long live the (presumed) King!

So Tony Blair finally made his much anticipated resignation speech yesterday sounding almost as if he had chosen to go, a speech full of the Blair mix of the apparently sincere and the sentimental. I thought at one point he was going to burst into 'I did it my way' or when he spoke with hand on heart of his devotion to Britain, 'I did what I did for Maria' ( anybody recall Tony Orlando?). Anyway Britain's king of the hammy exit has finally laid down an exit date amid gasps of relief from many of us.

Barring a miracle, for which many in the Labour Party have unsuccessfully prayed, Gordon Brown will move into the top job on June 27th, the date Blair hands his resignation to the Queen.



What can we expect from a Brown premiership. Well, dealing with the cosmetics first, it will be almost a breath of fresh air to see the dark, brooding, glowering face of the ultimate political professional on our screens in contrast to Teflon Tony's toothy Colgate grin as he tippy toes to his next photo opportunity.

Brown is not glamorous. He can also be awkward, surly and downright bloody minded. But he is a tough politician. Whether he is Prime Minister material is a question which is yet to be answered. His competence with a brief is beyond question. For one man to be the supreme finance Minister in British politics for ten years is unheard of. Now he has to translate his perceived dour Scottish competence into a figurehead who can win another General Election.



One thing which will undoubtedly change, to the relief of many on the British Left, is the relationship with the United States, and in particular this current Administration. Oh there won't be a severing of ties and diplomats will be beavering away just as keenly in the background to ensure that Anglo American relations remain sound but Brown is keenly aware of the irritation felt by many Britons - and particularly those on the left of the Labour Party - at Tony Blair's effusive endorsement of every American political/military initiative, particularly under the Bush administration and the Republican Party.

In truth the British left distrusts all American politicians as being somewhat to the right of any concept of 'Left' known to Europe and as such was somewhat suspicious of Blair's love in with Clinton. But Bush and his neo cons have been the last straw.

Brown knows full well that his personal rating, important at the start of his Premiership, will go up several notches over here if he is seen to be less enthusiastic about embracing every American cause. I believe the Americans are well aware of this and may well expect a lot more British caution in future, particularly if attention is turned to the likes of Iran and North Korea.

The other factor of course is economic policy. Brown has been Chancellor for so long that his is the ONLY fiscal stamp on this government. Now he will have to let go of the reins or risk constantly losing Ministers if he insists on maintaining a hands on approach to the economy himself. These are interesting times.

How much of Brown's undoubtedly more socialist past still lingers in his soul and how much has he been pandering to the Blair 'New Labour' label. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown has not had to make many statements on national social policy. It will be interesting to see if, and by how much, he leaves Blair's shadow behind.

Tony Blair's supreme achievement

I have said many things about Tony Blair, much of it affected by my anger over the Iraq debacle, but I have to say that his supreme achievement as a politician has been the historic event that took place today, namely the re-constitution of the Northern Irish Assembly with the Protestant Rev Ian Paisley as First Minister and with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein as his deputy.




This is an achievement, after thirty years of bloody struggle in Northern Ireland, which is little short of miraculous and something which no one, even a year or so ago, could ever see happening. Paisley, the extreme Protestant, whose anti-Catholic marches nearly 40 years ago first compelled British troops to occupy the Province. A man whose hatred of the IRA is visceral. A man who raged long and hard, his body shaking with emotion against those 'Republican savages who had brought death and destruction to Northern Ireland'.




And now, serving with him, maybe the arch 'Republican savage', Martin McGuinness, former active IRA chief, whose personal involvement in acts of terrorism and murder, of Protestants and British soldiers too, is not in too much dispute. Alongside him in Stormont sits Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein senior spokesman, the 'brains' of Republicanism.



Of course this re-constitution is just the first tentative step to power sharing and the whole thing might fall apart before the first bill is discussed but simply to have got this far is amazing.

It is like, in American terms, Malcolm X agreeing to work with the Ku Klux Klan, so polarised have been their positions, so much hatred having existed between the two camps.

After thirty years of para military groups on both sides of the religious divide targeting their opposing communities, often with dreadful bloody consequences like the Omagh bombing, few would have seen this situation coming about. Since 1969 there have been over 1000 British soldiers killed in the province and nearly 2000 civilians on both sides of the religious divide

It was the first task Tony Blair set for himself and his Ministers on taking office in 1997 when the late Mo Mowlam was Northern Ireland Secretary and she and Blair pushed hard and often aggressively for what turned out to be the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. So much hope was placed in that agreement but thanks to the delicate politics of Northern Ireland and the deeply entrenched differences even within one side - the Protestant community deeply divided over whether any concessions should be made to the Irish Republican movement - the Good Friday agreement fell by the wayside and the Northern Irish Protestant leader, David Trimble, was eventually forced to resign.

The situation looked hopeless, particularly when the arch enemy of any truck with the Catholics, the Democratic Unionist Party and its leader Ian Paisley, won the highest share of the Protestant vote. It looked like a stalemate for Paisley refused to believe any promise an IRA man made.

But Blair, together with his ministers, and Bertie Ahern the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic, worked hard, often at snails pace to get these two sets of glowering, hating politicians to the conference table. It often seemed a doomed unrewarding task, yet step by step, promise by promise, they succeeded in inching forward and overcoming fundamental and intense distrust to the point that has proudly been reached today. Northern Ireland has a new government with former arch enemies, Catholic and Protestant, Empire preservationists and One Ireland Republicans all sitting round the same table to bring a new enlightened and peaceful face to Northern Ireland.

And as he makes his announcement this week about resigning as Prime Minister, Tony Blair can justly and proudly look at the Stormont into which he has put so much work and say 'This was my finest hour'.

French vote for a new direction - or do they?

Now that the smoke has cleared, Nicolas Sarkozy has won the French Presidential election for, as I write, although the votes are still being counted, the Socialist Segolene Royal has already conceded defeat.

It is not a surprising result given that Mr Sarkozy has always been ahead in the polls but the French appear to have taken a giant leap out of the cocoon in which they have been embedded for many years. While Mme Royal promised more of the same - more state investment, protected salaries, higher pensions etc, Mr. Sarkozy has promised to make the French work harder, has said he will take away a lot of the protectionist benefits which France has enjoyed for many years, reduce taxation and get tough on immigration. In fact a classic right wing agenda.



The French, in a nutshell, have voted for someone they don't like all that much but whose ability inspires their confidence, while rejecting a woman whose views and personality they like a lot but in whom they have no faith.

Whether the 'wind of change blowing through France' will be quite as strong a gust as Mr. Sarkozy originally promised is highly doubtful. In reaching the magic figure on the second ballot he has had to wheeler deal, primarily with Francois Bayrou's centre party, and it is highly doubtful whether the French will be totally made to 'live in the real world' as he originally promised. It will be interesting to see if Mr.Sarkozy's performance, once he is in the Elysee Palace, matches his rhetoric on the campaign trail. My suspicion is that the innate, protectionist comfort zone in which France has long been wrapped will smother him as it has his predecessors.

'The best laid schemes o' Blair and Brown gang aft a-gley'

This morning Tony Blair is sitting in Downing Street looking at a Britain potentially in ruins. The local election results across the whole of the UK yesterday produced some dreadful reverses for the Labour Party though maybe not on the scale Blair himself had feared. However where the damage has been greatest has been where it carries most importance, in Scotland, which returned the Scottish National Party as the largest party in Scotland, to the Scottish Parliament. The SNP and its leader Alex Salmond have as their ultimate goal complete independence and they plan to hold a referendum on that issue within three years.



Blair must be thinking he is better off out of it, due to announce his resignation as Prime Minister next week, and what a bitter legacy he leaves behind. The man who came in on a wave of joyous enthusiasm ten years ago, who enhanced his image at the time of Princess Diana's death and at 911, is leaving his post as a reviled leader, the architect of British involvement in Iraq, the collapse of pension schemes and now the angry butt of doctors who see the National Health Service collapsing around them.

For his presumed successor, Gordon Brown, Blair's attempts to put a brave face on the electoral disaster will have a very hollow ring. "I don't think the results are that bad," warbled Tony, "I see them as a springboard for a future General Election victory."

Brown must be looking at those words with a baleful glare. Springboard for who he may well ask? Certainly not the Labour Party on the evidence of yesterdays vote. But for Brown, himself a Scot, the grim future must be north of Hadrian's Wall. In Brown's own parliamentary constituency, the SNP took the seat so in a General Election could the the Prime Minister-elect lose his own parliamentary seat? Its not beyond the bounds of possibility.

Worse is the situation regarding a future relationship with a Scotland led by the SNP. If Scotland does vote to rip up the Act of Union, then apart from the other consequences to the United Kingdom, all the Scottish Parliamentary seats at Westminster will, at a stroke, disappear. It is those seats which have kept the Labour Party in office. Without them the chances of a future Labour Government in what would be left of the UK would be almost nil.

Blair must be surveying the wreckage all around him and asking himself what went wrong. Ironically it is his reforming measure to allow the nations of Scotland and Wales a limited degree of independence through their own parliaments which has given the Scots the necessary confidence to vote for the possibility of one further step - complete independence. Rather than showing the gratitude through the polls that Blair had confidently expected from this measure, the voters of Scotland have kicked him in the teeth with it.




And the tartan disaster was not confined to the political effects on the UK. On a day when the most important Scottish election for over 200 years took place, Scottish officials decided to hold their Parliamentary and local council elections on the same day - using two different voting systems. The result was a disaster. In a nation of 2 million voters, 100,000 voting slips were declared invalid because of mistakes in filling them in. On a day of such importance, to attempt such a stupid cross pollination of two systems is absolutely disgraceful. Whether the lost votes would have meant a bigger victory for the SNP or Labour retaining control of Scotland we will never know, but it must have put the tin lid on an appalling night for Tony Blair and for the future of the United Kingdom.

We can't always pretend it's cricket!

The United States indicated yesterday, to the apparent distress of the British Foreign Office, that it may review the situation regarding British visitors to the United States within the 'Visa waiver' agreement. The U.S. has said that it may demand visas from British citizens who have any links to Pakistan.

This of course follows the trial and conviction of five men found guilty of planning massive explosions in Britain, all of whom had family links to Pakistan and all of whom went to Pakistan, ostensibly on family visits, but were trained by Al-Qaeda in the art of assembling ammonium nitrate bombs.



Naturally the cry has gone up over here of 'racism' and 'racial profiling' and, while nobody wishes to see any ethnic community made a scapegoat or singled out for suspicion, surely the United States has every right, given the recent evidence of hard line Jihadism among some British Muslims with Pakistan based connections, to protect its own citizens from harm from outsiders in any way it legally can.

It is a shame that such measures will appear to ostracise a section of Britain's Muslim community, most of whom offer no threat to anyone, but surely there comes a time when it is no longer appropriate to worry about sensitivity when there is a potential threat from some people who do have links to Pakistan and who are prepared to blow up tube trains, buses and shopping malls.

The alternative would seem to be that the Visa Waiver programme is withdrawn from British citizens altogether, and while that would seem to be 'fair and sporting' it would also be bloody ridiculous. The threat is clearly from a particular direction and it seems reasonable to me that the U.S. does what it can to minimise any potential risk from that area.

I am all for human rights, after all I am a committed member of Amnesty, but there are times and situations when I think the overall concern for human lives HAS to transcend any worrying about treading on peoples toes. This is not a cricket match where we all have to be jolly good chaps and be fair to everyone. It's a grim business of life and death and, until the British can give assurances to America that it has this extremist situation under control, I don't blame the United States one whit!

History repeating itself?

The scenes in Estonia this week, following the removal of a Russian war memorial statue from the city centre of Tallin, have grim echoes of the activities of the old Soviet Union.

The row blew up because the war memorial, a statue of a Red Army soldier apparently held sacred by those of Russian origin in Estonia, is to be moved to a military cemetery on the outskirts of Tallin. The Estonian authorities claim that its continued presence in the town centre was a constant reminder of former Soviet occupation while Russian speaking Estonians, backed by Russia itself, have claimed that the action is 'defiling the memory of the Russian war dead' and is a 'hostile act'.



The consequence was a riot instigated by Russian speaking Estonians and supported from Moscow. The Estonian embassy in Moscow is currently under siege from angry demonstrators and the issue has been blown up, both in the Russian press and parliament. Estonia has been deluged with attacks from the Russian based TV networks and the internet.

The Mayor of Moscow, presumably not acting without Vladimir Putin's blessing, has called for a boycott of all things Estonian ahead of the World War II victory celebrations on May 9th.

A permanent source of concern to the Estonian government is that well over a quarter of Estonia's inhabitants are of Russian origin , though many are denied citizenship because, say the Estonian authorities, they are families who were brought in during the years of Soviet occupation as technicians and military personnel. There is a genuine fear within the country of a riot or uprising, assisted by Moscow, which would justify the Russian government sending in 'help and assistance to its beleagured conmrades'

It may sound a far fetched fear, now that the Soviet Union is gone and the former Republics and satellite states have gained independence but it is well known that President Putin bitterly regrets the demise of the Russian empire. It is not too long back that both Hungary and what was then Czechoslovakia saw the consequences of Russian 'assistance' justified by the actions of 'a few dissidents'.

Estonia is currently appealing to the European Union, of which it is part, for a concerted response to the current Russian psychological bullying of its small neighbour. Whether Estonia obtains the degree of support it wants is arguable. After all Russia is important to the EC both politically and economically and there will not be an enthusiastic rush to confront them.

But we should all be wary. The Russian bear may not yet be on the attack but its certainly waving its paws in angry fashion.