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Defence Policy

I was not going to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he made me do so. As I am sure he will know, the headline in The Daily Telegraph was not exactly the headline that I aimed to create. Let me make it absolutely clear that I am not in favour of anything being done, anywhere and at any time, that undermines or compromises our commitments to NATO and our special relationship with the United States. It is not my view that that was accurately reported. I know that the hon. Gentleman has firm views about everything European, and we have had a taste of that today, but he can afford to be less paranoid about some of these issues. May I pick up on one of the hon. Gentleman's points about Somalia? He referred to Combined Task Force 150, which is, as he knows, an Operation Enduring Freedom deployment. He will know that many NATO allies will not, given the context, have their forces serving alongside it. The European security and defence policy anti-piracy mission to Somalia is exactly the sort of example he was looking for. It is a complementary deployment that will boost the effectiveness of the anti-piracy operation in the horn of Africa, not undermine it. I hope that he will have another look at that.