I was surprised went went to the lavatory at Westminster, to discover that the three urinals had been boarded up, leaving only the two WC cubicles: a significant reduction of three fifths in service provision.
 Then I spotted the notice announcing that this was now a ‘gender neutral toilet’.
Change is usually for the worse.

The announcement that the Government is considering introducing a digital ID system for everyone, as a means of tackling the UK’s ‘pull factors’ which fuel the channel crossings, has prompted a large number of constituents to send me their objections.
I share their concerns and I opposed the last Labour Government’s proposals for ID cards under Tony Blair.
We would be sacrificing a great deal of our privacy and our right to go about our lawful business unimpeded. Once available, many more uses would be found for such technology, which would increasingly require us to account for ourselves.
I accept that levels illegal migration are overwhelming our resources and putting enormous strain on our social fabric. A further tragedy is that the endeavour to accommodate the migrants is being funded by our foreign aid budget, which should properly be being spent in the regions from which the migrants are coming, and where it would so much further in helping many more people.
Were I persuaded that digital ID’s were solution to our problem I could at least consider if such a surrender of our privacy and liberty was worth it. I am not so persuaded. Employers, banks and landlords are already under an obligation to check the bona fides of employees and tenants. Means already exist by which that information can be had.
The existence of a more convenient tool for checking will have no impact in the black economy where there is no intention of checking, in any event.

The reality is not that we can’t identify illegal migrants, we have hotels and other accommodation burgeoning with them. Our problem isn’t finding them, it is finding somewhere to send them.
The main effort must be to find a safe place to send them, which was the whole point of the Rwanda agreement that the Government scrapped before it was implemented, despite the fact that £700 million had already been spent setting it up. I believe that it would have worked: Even before we were anywhere near getting it up and running, the Government of Ireland were complaining that illegal migration was increasing sharply to the Republic as migrants sought to avoid UK with the possibility of deportation to Rwanda.
Now other jurisdictions are looking seriously at the prospect of Rwanda, including the facilities that British tax-payers provided before our government abandoned the endeavour.
 Digital IDs won’t go any way salvage the opportunity lost.

As the aggressor escalates the war, this Russian regime is no better than its Soviet predecessor in its determination to subjugate parts of Europe and enforce its malign influence throughout the world.
The tragedy is that we could have seen it crushed once and for all, only had we the will to do so. The reality is that we have forced Ukraine to defend itself with one arm tied behind its back: We forbad it to use our munitions to take the fight to Russia, and we consistently failed to implement a sanctions regime that would have brought its relatively small and hydrocarbon-based economy to its knees.

Even as things stand, there are enormous strains in Russia’s fuel markets as a consequence of sustained Ukrainian drone attacks on attacks on Russian refineries.  With the result that kilometre-long queues at petrol stations are not in Russia’s eastern Regions, and wholesale prices for petrol and diesel have hit record highs. Officially, the reasons are no longer hidden – refineries are shutting down after Ukrainian drone strikes. During peak summer days, up to 14% of processing capacity was idle. Some of the largest refineries have stopped receiving supplies of crude oil.

Ukraine’s drones are also targeting the export terminals and pipelines.
In addition, Russian refineries were constructed by Western oil companies and they are fast running out of parts, only some of which can be supplied by China

Russia’s problem is that its refineries are concentrated in closer to Europe, within reach of Ukraine’s drones, but industrial consumption had been growing in the east thousands of kilometres away, creating a logistical vulnerability, hence the queues at petrol stations.

Lest any Russian stuck in a queue at the petrol station complains, the state is increasing its surveillance of all its citizens.
Starting this month, the Russian Messenger Max will become mandatory for preinstallation on all devices in Russia. The app accesses the device’s camera every 5-10 minutes, even when running in the background. In effect, a smartphone turns into an Orwellian monitor for the security services, switching on without the owner’s knowledge.
The app collects all your contacts and text input, it tracks location. All the user’s conversations will be available to state security services.

And what might they do with recalcitrant Russians, and anyone else for that matter, caught expressing dissent?
Well, reports indicate that Russia is about to withdraw from the European Convention on the Prevention of Torture (not that its membership made any difference to the citizens of Bakhmut).

As the sell-out of plucky and resourceful Ukraine proceeds, we should reflect on the missed opportunity to remove the greatest challenge to world peace, prosperity, and freedom.

Together with France we announced our intention to recognise a Palestinian state. In this column on 26^th July I remarked that, although  this was ‘gesture politics’ nevertheless, I acknowledged that sometimes in politics a gesture is called for. Recognising Palestine – gesture politics?
Our gesture was to give vent to our growing despair at the consequence for civilians of the ferocity of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Equally, the accumulation of years of frustration at a growing policy of ‘apartheid’ in Israel’s stewardship of the occupied West Bank (this will be received as a controversial statement but, having once been the minister responsible for our assistance to Palestinians, I believe it to be justified: It is time to call a spade a bloody shovel).

For years the objective of our policy has been the implementation of a Palestinian state based on the occupied West Bank. Throughout this time however, Israel’s actions have been designed to thwart any such prospect.
Now that we have announced our determination to recognise Palestine, Israel has brought forward its most controversial development: building some 3,500 dwellings in the East 1 corridor, linking East Jerusalem with existing illegal settlements, and cutting the West Bank in half. The intention is clear, and has been made explicit by Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich:
“they’ll keep talking about a Palestinian dream, and we’ll keep on building a Jewish reality…a reality that buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there’s nothing to recognise’.

How are we to respond?
Equally, how are we to respond to man-made famine in Gaza, as well as the continuing devastation of civilian life?
Every time ministers come to the Commons to face the anger at what is being done in Palestine, they reiterate that they are very cross about it; They refer to the actions that they have taken – some modest reductions in arms sales and the sanctioning of a handful of individuals. When MPs point out that these measures have had no impact, the Secretary of State, David Lammy refers to ‘further action’ that we will consider.
What action?
Well, I did ask:

 Hansard 20 May Column 934

Sir Desmond Swayne
The House wants to know, and Israel needs to know, exactly what the Foreign Secretary means by “further action”.

Mr Lammy
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consult the Oxford English Dictionary and look at the two words.

I think Mr Lammy demeaned himself with that answer, but I understand his difficulty. He is appalled and angry about what is happening in Palestine but he is at a complete loss. We are in thrall to the Trump administration and know that it will not tolerate any effective sanctions on Israel. We have other fish to fry. So, we stand and watch as Gaza burns and the West Bank is swallowed. We will be judged accordingly.

Some of the striking headlines indicating what the Free World’s media made of the Trump/ Putin Summit in Alaska:

— Sky News: “Putin behaved as if he was in control and running the show.”

— Politico: “Putin’s triumph in Alaska”;

— The New York Times: “President Trump gave President Vladimir Putin a warm public reception, effectively ending his diplomatic isolation”;

— Bloomberg: “The US-Russia summit showed how little Europe matters in Trump’s world”

— CNN: “Putin still achieved significant successes”;

— The Washington Post: “Putin won, regardless of the outcome”;

— Financial Times: “Negotiations ended without a ceasefire, despite the warm reception given to the Russian leader by the US president”;

— Al Jazeera: “A big victory for President Putin” at the summit with Trump in Alaska”;

— El País: “Trump ended Putin’s isolation without achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine”;

And my own assessment: I thought it was utterly revolting.
To have to watch the murderous assassin and war criminal, the abductor of thousands of children, the author of the atrocities in Bakhmut, being welcomed with pomp and ceremony, even the red carpet, it was truly disgusting.
Trump and Putin were all over each other like a rash. The way they flattered and complimented each other was grotesque. They clearly deserve one another. As my Granny used to say,  ‘judge a man by the company that he keeps’.
Contrast all that with the way that Zelensky was ambushed in the White House back in March.

So Trump’s advice to Ukraine is to ‘do a deal’ by giving up sufficient territory to satiate Putin’s appetite.
How can you do a deal with someone that has a track  record of breaking them?
And with someone who has made it clear that Ukraine should not exist as an independent nation at all?
Anyway, there was a deal: It was called the Bucharest Memorandum of December 1994. The deal was that Ukraine -then possessing the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons- agreed to give them all up, in return for a guarantee of its independence and territorial integrity. The deal was with Russia, USA and ourselves.
 Is Ukraine supposed to just shrug of the abrogation of that deal and trust Russia with another one?

*

The Alaska Summit was preceded at Chevening with a ‘love fest’ between David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary and the USA Vice-President. Mr Lammy has said some pretty uncomplimentary things about Trump in the past. In 2017 he called him a ‘tyrant in a toupee’, and much worse.
I gently reminded him about this in the Commons on 25^th February (Hansard column 526):

Sir Desmond Swayne
Does the Secretary of State regret recanting the views he originally expressed in assessing Trump? When the time is right—it is certainly not any time now—can I urge him to consider following the example of Archbishop Cranmer by plunging the offending hand first into the flame?

Mr Lammy, Secretary of State
Er—[Laughter.] This is a serious debate and a serious discussion. As I have said, that is, in a sense, old news; there is so much news before us, and so much history to be forged, which requires diplomacy …

There is something grotesque about watching elderly ladies and gentlemen being hauled away by burly policemen, for doing no more than peacefully displaying a piece of card expressing their opposition to genocide and their support for Palestine Action.
At the same time, a retailer displaying a card in his shop window, expressing his contempt for shoplifters, was ordered by a policeman to remove it.
What on earth has happened to freedom of expression, that we are being rightly reprimanded by both the President and Vice President of the USA during their visits here.

Following the demonstration at the weekend, consider the enormous police and crown prosecution time and effort that will go into processing the 534 arrests on charges of terrorism.
Really?
…For displaying a poster?

Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation following their penetration of an RAF airfield and causing millions of pounds worth of damage to military aircraft: one might say of the ban, that they had it coming. Nevertheless, there were already serious offences, with custodial sentences, with which the perpetrators could have been charged. And which would not have put the police in the ridiculous position of having to arrest hundreds of entirely peaceful protestors.
We are told that there are more serious concerns that led to the banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, so serious in fact, that we cannot be told what they are.  Which, in my estimate, is an intolerable abuse of secrecy in a liberal western democracy.

The events of the weekend are only the latest in a long litany of heavy-handed police intrusion into our rights to express our opinions and concerns. Notwithstanding that some others will find those opinions offensive. Putting up with having to take offence, is a proper price to pay for living in a free society.

I have no doubt that chief constables and individual policemen have made errors of judgement when interfering where lawful expression has fallen well short of incitement or harassment.
The principal culprit, however, is Parliament itself. MPs have not been vigilant in defending liberty and have left sufficient ambiguity in the law as to put the police in a dilemma and provide scope for the ‘woke’ tendency amongst their number.
Parliament has all the power necessary to resolve these issues. Alas, the composition of this current Parliament ensures that there is no will to do so.
As a proud democracy we are shamed by the criticism of President Trump and Vice-President Vance, and we should hang our heads accordingly.

The 30% reduction in graduate recruitment this year has been attributed to the substitution of artificial intelligence (AI) in those roles that graduates might otherwise have filled.
I’m not entirely convinced. Recruitment is sharply down across the board and may well be a measure of the impact of the steep increase in employment costs brought about by the Chancellor’s budget, and its impact on overall business confidence.
I was told by one large recruiter that, having previously given over to AI the entire process of sifting the curriculum vitae of all its applicants, it was now having to hand it back a human process because the AI employed by graduates, when crafting their applications, had proved more than a match for the AI system that was designed to score them.

The key thing to keep in mind about AI, is that the intelligence is artificial. Its strength is that it can handle huge amounts of information, vastly more that our brains can. But it still has to be told exactly what to do with all that information by algorithms designed by human minds. Accordingly, it can be trained to detect patterns across enormous data sets at lightning speeds. These were once functions that we struggled to do ourselves, taking much longer and with a greater propensity to make mistakes.
AI can work very hard for us when we are clever enough to harness its possibilities, but it cannot think. Which is what only we can do.

Elon Musk believes that AI is ‘summoning the demon’ and in 2015 he signed an open letter together with Stephen Hawking and others warning of the pitfalls of AI development.
I’m reminded of Hal 9000, the name of the computer in the 1969 film A space Odyssey, which decides to end the mission by blowing up the spaceship and its crew.
The danger is not that AI can be intrinsically good or evil, only that its applications can be developed by stupid, negligent, thoughtless, even evil but nevertheless, very clever people.

The two great dystopian English novels of the last century are Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. The late Neil Postman, a trenchant critic of digital technology, pointed out that In the former, the regime deprives us of our liberty by harnessing technology to deceive us, withhold information from us and monitor our every movement and conversation.
But by contrast, Huxley paints a picture where truth is drowned in a sea of trivia and irrelevance, where we have so much information we are reduced to passivity.
“Orwell feared those that would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one”.

I wonder which of these dreadful visions AI better lends itself to.
Perhaps it is a danger of the worst of both. Certainly, the mass surveillance society developing in China, assisted by AI, is the most obvious oppression. But then the development of social media and online retailing, which influences what we do, buy, and desire, is an equally frightful prospect.

In what remains of the summer my suggestion is to turn off our screens, read books, and think for ourselves.

The Prime Minister has received another letter from MPs, of all parties, demanding the official recognition of ‘Palestine’ as a state.
A constituent has emailed to express her surprise that my name was not among the signatories.
The Simple answer is that I had already sent just such a letter to the Prime Minister in May, signed together with the ‘Father of the House’ , Sir Edward Leigh.

The Government’s reluctance to comply with the request is based on the two arguments. First, one can only play the ‘recognition card’ once, so you need to be sure that you wait and choose the moment when it will have maximum impact. Second, UK policy is to recognise legitimate governments rather than ‘states’ and that, at present, there is no government of anywhere called Palestine.
That we want such a government and state, is not in doubt: it has been the cornerstone of our policy in the region for as long as I can remember. Parliament has already voted for it, but the Government, like its predecessor, continues to wait and watch, notwithstanding that France has now stolen a march, by beating us to it.

Will France’s action make any appreciable difference?
It is too soon to tell, but I am not optimistic.
I accept that were we to announce our recognition for a Palestinian State it would amount to no more than a political gesture. It would be a measure of our anger and frustration at the current state of affairs. Nevertheless, sometimes in politics such gestures are called for.
The reality is that, such has been the pace of illegal settlement by Israelis in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan, any glance at a map, will show that the prospect of an economically viable and geographically contiguous Palestinian state is now almost zero. When I had ministerial responsibility for this brief, I fulminated against the Government of Israel, but to no avail.

Were there to be a Palestinian State there would have to be very extensive rolling-back of Israeli settlements. Those of us who can recall the vicious opposition to the dismantling of some twenty Israeli settlements in Gaza under the orders of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, will know how difficult it will be to secure Israeli abandonment of the Occupied Territories to accommodate a Palestinian state. Particularly so, when the settler movement, including elements of Israel’s Government, are motivated by an ideological -even ‘divine’- belief in the restoration of ‘Greater Israel’.

I am deeply Pessimistic.
Hamas chose its moment when it launched the calculated barbarity of its grotesque attack on Israel: It knew that, having sown the wind, Gaza would reap the whirlwind; It did so, in order to scupper the rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, and to radicalise a new generation.
Israel, by the ferocity of its own response, has fallen into the trap laid by Hamas. I fear that Israel will now be subjected to another generation’s worth of terrorism, and I’m afraid that we are going to experience it too.

On 16^th January, in this column, I raised the danger that taxpayers may have to pay compensation to Gerry Adams as a consequence of the Government’s decision to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.
On Wednesday I asked the Prime Minister about it. He had just previously answered a question about it from his own backbenches, in which he explained that the Government was bound to proceed with repealing the Act because the courts had struck down it down as being unlawful.
When I put my question, I pointed out that he was quite wrong to state that it had been ‘struck down’, nevertheless he repeated those word for a second time in his answer to me.

I don’t believe the PM would deliberately mislead the House of Commons, but it is very odd that such a senior and experienced lawyer should describe the outcome of the legal process so incorrectly: No court can strike down an act of Parliament, the courts enjoy no such power: The ‘High Court of Parliament’ is our supreme law-making body: No court trumps it

[To be fair, there was a time when the PM’s terminology occasionally would accurately describe events: For the 48 years between the enactment of the European Communities Act 1972 until its repeal on 21 January 2020. During those years the courts were empowered to disapply an Act of Parliament if it was found to contravene European Law (and they did so in the Factortame case when the 1988 Maritime Shipping Act -designed to protect our fisheries -was overturned). That constitutional abomination is ended however, as the supremacy of Parliament was restored by BREXIT.]

I believe the PM’s confusion arises from his imperfect understanding of the Human Rights Act 1998. That Act makes provision for the courts, when they encounter an act of Parliament that breaches human rights protected by the 1998 Act, to issue a ‘declaration of incompatibility’.
But it is only a declaration. It does not disapply the ‘offending’ law, it certainly doesn’t strike it down. It merely declares that, in the opinion of the court, that it compromises a European Convention right. The declaration does not alter the law passed by Parliament.

Of course, Parliament may choose to address the incompatibility identified by the court and amend the law, but there is no obligation, or even expectation, that it should do so.

The situation is that the Government has chosen to repeal the Northern Ireland Legacy Act and it should not seek to transfer the blame to a decision by a court. The Government must take responsibility for its own choices, particularly when the choice it has made, opens the door to the grotesque possibility of compensation paid to terrorists, whilst placing aging former British soldiers back in the dock for actions they took to defend the public from those very terrorists.
It’s nothing short of diabolical.