The Sketch: A manful display of amiable impotence
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Your support makes all the difference.The tradition of amiable impotence in our Foreign Secretaries is continued manfully by Jack Straw. Goodness knows what he does all day. It's clear what he doesn't do.
The smart sanctions against Robert Mugabe, for instance, what do they amount to? What effect have they had, the Tories wanted to know?
We heard sanctions stopped the old African Grendel from shopping in Spain (but haven't stopped his wife). The Zimbabwe Foreign Minister was prevented from going to Germany for a wedding. And the Mugabe overseas bank accounts have been seized. Guess how much has been recovered: £76,000. The man probably has a billion hidden away, and smart sanctions have seized the cash he uses to buy air fares for his snake.
The other side of the balance sheet was put by Menzies Campbell. Inflation in Zimbabwe at 112 per cent; two thirds of the workforce jobless; foreign investment 1 per cent of what it was five years ago; maize product down 77 per cent on 2000. In a refugee exodus, would the Foreign Secretary honour commitments to the fleeing?
This question, the Speaker said, was too long. The old booby (I'm not talking about Mr Campbell) rarely gets through more than 10 questions an hour because the answers, the dreary, threadbare, monotonous, adenoidal answers (yes, MacShane, I'm looking at you, Denis MacShane, stop plodding on the spot and get a move on) are too long, not the questions.
Mr Straw's answer to Mr Campbell was: "Britain would stand ready as it has always done to honour its obligations." That should chill the heart of anyone over there relying on Britain for anything.
The Foreign Secretary told us 300,000 acres of prime farming land had been given to 10 cabinet ministers, seven MPs and Mugabe's brother-in-law, called, appropriately, Reward Marufu. That's cronyism on a scale that dwarfs even New Labour's.
I'm not sure that Mugabe nationalised the railway system and refused to pay compensation to the shareholders, did he? Who taught him that, I wonder?
Oona King called for a reduction in double standards. About terrorism, she pointed out that Ariel Sharon had served under a Prime Minister who'd organised the bombing of the King David Hotel (death toll 91).
Mr Straw said: "What I have to deal with is now and for the future, not the history." New Labour hates history. It loves the future. The past explains why people hate each other. The future is where everyone gets along implementing strong, strategic, community-based action plans celebrating diversity and joining international coalitions to act together in an effective consensus (had enough yet?) to validate the tough, effective and necessary action alongside a political process to. I'm sorry, I can't go on.
But Oona King is right. If terrorism weren't effective, Gerry Adams wouldn't be in the Palace of Westminster. But that's "now and for the future. Not the history." The Doctrine of Straw. Or the doctrine of straw. Maybe both.
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