WOKINGHAM TIMES ARTICLE
Posted by John Redwood, MP for Wokingham, at 13:47, Thu 12 October 2006:
Parliament went silent on July 25th and does not meet again until October 9th. This is quite wrong in the current circumstances. The war in the Lebanon presents a serious challenge to international governments which requires urgent attention. John Reid tells us we face the most serious threat to our security since 1945, yet he will not submit himself to Parliamentary cross examination of why and what he is doing about it. As I sat in my Westminster office this week dealing with the emails and letters of constituents rightly worried about these events, my frustration grew as all the things I wanted to point out and ask could not be said in Parliament. I want a recall – so do many other MPs of all parties – but the government has so far refused.
Some of you have written to me saying you are angry that the UK government has not demanded an immediate ceasefire in the Lebanon. I share your horror at the pictures of civilian families being killed and maimed by Israeli attacks on residential areas of the Lebanon, and the pictures of Israeli families struggling with the death and wounding of their loved ones by Hezbollah rocket attack. Unfortunately I do not think our government calling for an immediate ceasefire would have had any impact.
I have concentrated on asking our government to work through the UN and to persuade the USA to work through the UN. That seemed to me to be more achievable, and to offer the best hope of creating a ceasefire and peace settlement. I have been disappointed by the performance of the UN in many world crises like Zimbabwe in recent years, but feel that in this situation above all the UN is the best placed of all the diplomatic players to make a real difference. The Security Council can seek to reconcile the divergent views of France, the USA and Russia towards Israel and the Arab world, whilst the larger assembly includes all the important regional powers in the Middle East as well as the Lebanon.
I am pleased that both the UK and the US governments have been prepared to work through the UN, but like many of you am impatient about the time it is taking and the problems international diplomats are encountering in bringing matters to a peaceful conclusion. It is a situation fraught with danger for both Israel and the Lebanon, where the worry is that the moderates on both sides will be squeezed by the hardliners. It is time the UN showed some true leadership. It is an important opportunity for this body, as here we have a live and explosive crisis where all the main players accept the need for UN initiative to secure a peace.
Given intelligence that there is a more immediate threat to the safety of people flying from the UK’s airports, the government was right to impose stricter security. It does seem, however, that the execution was well below the standards we should expect. Anyone arriving without hand luggage other than the specified items should expect a normal passage through the security channels. It took too long on the first day to get the message out about hand luggage. As everyone now has to be hand searched that means putting in a lot more people to do the hand searching, and cordoning off a suitable area of floor space to accommodate such searches. People who work hard all year deserve good service when they go away on holiday, and people flying on business have enough to contend with without extra delays. The government did not seem to give the airlines and airports the right information in a timely way, leading to chaos on the first day of the restrictions.
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