Look what a bastard Stalin was, does that mean Churchill was wrong to form an alliance with him against Hitler. These aren't pleasant choices, but it was a privilege to have those choices - unlike countries like Poland that went to the wall.

I can't see why you idolise these people who live in a sort of moral vacuum. They have the ability to get elected and the plausibility to fight their way through party machinery (and there are hundreds of well meaning decent folk, who just don't have that kind of charisma) - but when push comes to shove - the real choices that lie at the helm of political power don't interest them.

They're in it for the ego trip, the status, the big jobs, the money, the fame..........but I can't see an honourable explanation for this chorus of dismay at every turn of events after 9/11.

I do respect politicians of conscience walking way from power - Hesseltine over Westland, John Macregor when he told Thatch that the national curriculum was a load of expensive shite signifying nothing.

But I don't understand, why you are saying what you are saying. Are you really surprised that any of these terrible things are going on? It seems very insincere.