On Saturday, October 13, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is holding a debate in Central London with all the usual suspects, and quite a few unusual ones.
CND has been around since the 1950s when it campaigned for a nuclear free Europe, its idea being for us to disarm, rather than the Soviet Union. Now that the Evil Empire is gone forever though, a nuclear free Europe doesn’t sound such a bad idea, and a nuclear free Middle East sounds positively enchanting.
Their meeting next Saturday was drawn to my attention by a printed card which was picked up by my colleague Mark Taha, who has been known to have a thing or two of his own in print.
The meeting is offering free admission, free wine and a chance to meet Jeremy Corbyn, one of the aforementioned usual suspects. In case you are not familiar with this left wing Labour MP, he was an apologist for convicted murderer Satpal Ram - who remembers him now? He was also a supporter of the Centerprise Trust, and in June 1996 he branded me a terrorist in the House of Commons (without actually naming me). My colleague was the other person alluded to, “terrorism by far-right groups” indeed.
Notwithstanding Mr Corbyn’s somewhat liberal interpretation of the word terrorism, he will be joined by some rather unusual suspects including “experts and activists from Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain”. As most of these nations seem to hate each other, that is a not inconsiderable feat. There will also be a special guest, the Finnish Ambassador. Pardon my geology, but I didn’t realise Finland was in the Middle East.
Talking of geology, or topography even, let’s hope the people from the Middle East don’t travel two and a half thousand plus miles to turn up at the wrong address, which is 30 Guilford Street, not 30 Guildford Street as stated on the card.
[The above was first published October 7, 2012; the original wasn’t archived.]
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