Now we very nearly find ourselves very much in the �or else� situation, and I guess that everyone can put down a marker or two before all hell breaks loose. But then, that�s the Internether for you: a great place for the John Q Citizenry of the planet to broadcast to the world � and then be ignored by it. Except by his mother. Perhaps.
We are all spectators to history, but sometimes it pays to try to get a better view of it as we rubberneck our way to oblivion. To this end, I spent four hours of Monday 17th March in the Strangers� Gallery of the House of Commons in order to watch Robin Cook, the former Foreign & Gnome Secretary and Leader of the House make his personal statement following his resignation over the impending war.
It takes a strong bladder, and a willingness to sit through interminable debates to survive in the Stangers� Gallery, and move oneself strategically into the best seats, low down in the gallery, and opposite the Speaker�s Chair. One visit to the gents will almost certainly result in losing your seat (this is something that more than one MP must have reflected on, but that is another matter entirely), but my normally squirreline renal system was adequate to the task, and it was only the matter of withstanding the Second Reading, Committee Stage and Third Reading of the Northern Ireland Elections Bill that stood in the way of my goal.
Ulster Unionists of varying depths of orange held the House to ransom for a purgatorial hour and a half. The Democratic Unionists, Peter Robinson and the Rev. Ian Paisley decide to remain out of sight, if not out of mind, just under the eave of the gallery. Perhaps this is not such a bad thing, as straining to see the bald pate of Paisley floating above a gesticulating Order Paper may not be really worth the effort, but in the end, we are released as the Unionists force a cliffhanger of a vote, which they narrowly lose by 326 votes to six.
We then arrive at the curtain-raiser to Mr Cook: the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw comes to the House to make a statement on the failure to get a second United Nations Security Council Resolution following Resolution 1441. Not that anyone should get the idea that one was actually needed. Perish the thought. And even, speaking hypothetically, were one to have ever been needed, it was a pity that the F$!%*h made it impossible anyway�.
This new F-word is uttered with such contempt that I can almost smell the verbal ordure as it flew past me as it wings its way across a Channel that has become another Gulf. Far be it from anyone to suggest that Britain, America and the Spanish (whose presence in Kuwait may well be limited to a Tapas bar or two), had been unable to persuade Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Pakistan, Mexico and Chile to face down France and at least get a majority in the Security Council had anything to do with it. Someone had shown his cards, and they weren�t going to risk even calling a bluff.
Well, they say diplomacy is like poker. Now we were told that Britain and America are acting in accordance with the real desire of the United Nations. In which parallel universe is Mr Straw living? Is he having fun with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, I wonder?
Robin Cook,however, is mightily impressive. Standing in the dead sheep�s place on the back benches, he praises a scandalously absent Prime Minister (whom, I feel may have been having an urgent appointment throwing up in a toilet, or else over Claire Short), before trying to bury this whole terrible escapade by force of logic. There is no consensus in any international body, he points out, and were it not for a few hanging chads in Florida in that faraway November 2000, we may never have been hijacked to this American misadventure at all. He ends with an appeal for the House of Commons he had led to once again become the fulcrum of national decision, and urges a vote against war the following day. He sits down, and that rarest of Commons noises, applause rings out, the Labour Left, various Lib Dems and Nationalists rise in appreciation. The frightening-looking Commons attendants try to quell the applause in the gallery. My hands do not join in, but all across the land I can hear the sound of many minds clapping.
John Prescott scowls for England; the house starts to disassemble; the Speaker calls for order and tries to pass the draft Asylum (Designated States) Order 2003 through the house on the nod, but no-one listens.
Well, I don�t know. I may be wrong, my fears may be unfounded. We may find out that Britain and America are found ex post facto, not to have broken international law; that the war will be over quickly; that thousands of innocent Iraqis won�t die; that international terrorism really is set back by this carnage; that the Palestinians get a state to call their own, that peace and democracy will reign over, and milk and honey will flow through the Middle East, and maybe, just maybe, George W Bush won�t win re-election.
You heard it here first. Now it is ten to midnight. Goodnight.
Read and view a video of Robin Cook�s personal statement by clicking here, courtesy of the BBC.
Robin Cook�s website may be accessed by clicking here.
