Brains, Brains Everywhere

Liam Fox, Minister for War and the Colonies, who is second only to most people in the brains department, is off to Sri Lanka, at the invitation of the Sri Lankan foreign minister's widow, whose husband was killed by Sri Lankan rebels, to give a speech which has "nothing to do with anything that's going on in Sri Lanka". Daveybloke's foreign minister and special envoy to Belize, Willem den Haag, is rather annoyed about this because "Britain wants to maintain pressure on Colombo in light of questions about its assault on the Tamil Tigers" in which, according to human rights groups, slightly fewer civilians were killed than have been detrimented during those little adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan to which Willem den Haag's party gave the big rah-rah some little time ago.

Fox, who accepted £3000 for attending the Sri Lanka Freedom Party national convention in November 2009, has extruded a spokesbeing to say that he will be paying for his flight and accommodation himself; though it is not clear whether this means that Fox will be paying for his flight and accommodation himself, or whether Fox's flight and accommodation will be covered by whatever fee he is receiving for sharing his wisdom about matters which have nothing to do with anything that's going on in Sri Lanka, or even, perish the thought, whether Fox's flight and accommodation will be funded by that ever-reliable mug, the British taxpayer. Anyway, Daveybloke's special envoy to Belize is aware of the visit, which is certainly encouraging given his annoyance about it; and another spokesbeing has said that Daveybloke himself may have to bring the full force of his character to bear upon the situation, or get Nick Clegg to take a message or something.

Labour have done their best to stir things, although like many Labour enterprises it hasn't come off too well. Jim Murphy noted Sri Lanka's "troubled recent history" and proclaimed that "Britain can have an important role there"; presumably because of Britain's arms sales to India and Pakistan and its important role in troubling the recent history of one or two other countries. Yvette Cooper, who was working in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2003 and was so principled an opponent of the Iraq war that she became a minister of state two years later, has asked whether Fox will impress upon the Sri Lankans "the importance of a credible investigation into alleged war crimes" with "an international element to the investigation".