Jack Straw: Firestarter

Not long ago, when he was a confident foreign secretary, little thinking he was about to be replaced by a none too bright caravan owner, Jack Straw entertained Condoleezza Rice in his Blackburn constituency. This was an odd thing to do but it did say, "Look at me!" For years, we had hardly noticed this man with his curiously bobbing head when being interviewed and his large-nosed, greyish features surmounted by that 1956 Angry Young Man haircut. Now he's shouting, 'Look at me!' again with his suggestion that the Muslim veil is socially divisive and his request that they remove the veil when discussing Blackburn stuff in his surgery. He prefers to talk face to face. That profoundly repellent slimeball George Galloway has, of course, intervened to interpret Straw's request as 'a male politician telling women to wear less' - as laughably transparent a manipulation of language as one would expect from a losing Big Brother contestant. But what is Straw up to? Of course, in a sane world there would nothing faintly controversial in what he said. In this neurotically short-tempered world, however, it is plainly a little match that could start a big fire. But whose house, apart from his own, is threatened?
4.14pm: Now he's said nobody should wear veils. This is definitely a Muslim macho match with John 'You'd better get that seen to' Reid. I propose everybody should wear veils and have done with it.