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Iraq and the wider Middle East

I will certainly do so in a moment. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, however, gives a figure of 34,452 civilian casualties. It is important for the House to get those matters straight. We know that a great deal is at stake. Given the importance of the issue and the strength of feeling in the House about it, I have no hesitation in saying that the Prime Minister should attend this debate. It is not acceptable to Conservative Members, and quietly unacceptable to many Labour Members—perhaps not so quietly, as they are nodding their heads—who worry about such matters, that the Prime Minister, having been so keen to lead such debates in the run-up to the war when things were going fine, now prefers, with the whole issue in the balance and 130 British lives lost in Iraq, to skulk out of the Chamber to attend to something else. According to The Sunday Times, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said:"““The Prime Minister never attends these debates, whatever the subject.””" We now have a Prime Minister who never attends debates, ““whatever the subject””. The Foreign Secretary indicated that there was hope for a turning point soon, and that the Prime Minister would then make a statement. Where would the House have been in the second world war if Winston Churchill had only come along when a turning point was in prospect or had been reached? It is sad that the Prime Minister prefers the mentality of the bunker to the open thinking of debate.