I don’t want to be too unkind about poor old Baroness Warsi but her departure was like so much of her political career, a badly timed stunt. The real question that should occupy David Cameron for a nano second is not why she went but why she was ever appointed to high office in the first place. Well, that one is pretty obvious. She is a woman and a Muslim. And that is about it.
I will now be accused of besmirching the name of a principled woman who wrestled with her conscience and could take no more of Cameron’s support for killing Palestinian children. She will be feted in her community and will be lauded by the usual suspects. There will be glowing articles about her brave stand by those who should know better. Brave? Personally, I thought that it was an act of political cowardice. One of the things one has to learn as a grown up politician is that sometimes it is necessary to hold your nose. She would have been better served if she had told the painful truth to the Muslim community and it is a truth that they don’t really want to hear. Hamas is not just a government, it is a terrorist organisation. It is committed, like so many other other arab states, to wiping Israel off the face of the earth. They murder anyone who disagrees with them. They send terrorists through specially constructed tunnels to kill Israeli civilians. They kidnap and kill teenagers. And most wicked of all they use Palestinian innocents, particularly children as human shields. And they have no stomach for peace.
Does that mean that I, or for that matter the government, support what the Israelis have been doing? Of course not. Hamas, not the Palestinian state has to be destroyed. But any fool knows that history should have taught us that the Israelis regard the West as rather craven. After all we opposed the State of Israel purely so we could get our sticky fingers on arab oil. But megaphone diplomacy has always been counterproductive. No matter what we say or do Israel will protect herself.
There is also a rather bizarre suggestion that somehow the Foreign office is pro Israel. I would imagine that quite a few Sir Humphreys will be having a few belly laughs at that.
What Warsi should have been doing is not telling British Muslims what they want to hear but what the uncomfortable reality is; Hamas are an evil and the Israelis are behaving appallingly. That bringing either before a criminal court may make us all feel warm, fuzzy and self righteous but won’t bring about a settlement where both nations can co exist in peace. What as a Muslim she should be doing is warning of the horrors of anti semitism that is sweeping across Europe.
There has been a great deal of hysteria about Warsi’s departure on the twitter sphere and the delightful, but hopelessly misguided Louise Mensch has been burbling that the Tory Party have ganged up on her because she is a Muslim woman. What utter bollocks. David Cameron, like me is from the sort of upbringing that find it bemusing that anyone should be discriminated against by reason of their skin, gender, sexual orientation or beliefs. His mistake was appointing her in the first place for all the wrong reasons. I don’t want to to be too unkind to someone I am told is a thoroughly pleasant woman, but Warsi was the most hopeless and cringeworthy party chairman I have ever encountered. And the bar is not a high one. She was a walking disaster. So to keep her out of harms way she was shoved into the job in the lift at the FO. There I suspect lies the real problem. When that gothic gloom, Philip Hammond, descended on the place like a Dementor without the laughs, he thumbed through his first day brief and found the name Warsi. ‘Ah, so that what she does’, he would have murmured to officials. It will be interesting to see who fills the job as it has the responsibility for human rights which is a car crash waiting to happen.
But does anyone ever learn in the Tory Party? Of course not. It appears we are making Karen Brady, aide to Alan Sugar (doesn’t that ring alarm bells boys?) on a telly show a Baroness and give her a businessy jobby, thingy. Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
