Arrest Lord Levy! Arrest Blair! Arrest the lot of them

Let me begin by saying that I have no objection at all to the decision to arrest Lord Levy. I am sure I speak for millions when I say that it is high time that the fuzz moved in on the Blairite high command, and they might as well start with his tennis partner. As far as I am concerned, the whole lot of them deserve to have their collars felt. If the cops decide to launch dawn raids on all the other arch-toadies of the regime, they will find many of us prepared to hold their coats.

Winkle Mandy from his lair! Arrest Alastair Campbell and haul him out from under whatever stone now conceals him. Let's nick them all, sarge! Go, boys, go! And if Sir Ian Blair decides to haul his namesake in, I am not going to stand in his way.

What joy it must be for the cops - and yet what an amazing spectacle we must present to the world outside. Here is the Prime Minister's chief financial fixer being hauled in for questioning about a suspected crime that is quintessentially British, and unknown to any other jurisdiction on earth - the sale of peerages. Huge numbers of detectives are involved. Expensive new software is being installed to track down any deleted e-mails.

I would not dream of pretending that the matter is unimportant, since the swoop on Levy perfectly illustrates the decay of the Government and the putrefaction of the honours system. I merely ask you to contrast this frenzied activity by the police and their total indifference to the case that was discussed in Parliament yesterday.

As the minister did not hesitate to remind the House, the allegations against the NatWest Three are very grave indeed. They relate to the biggest financial scandal of the past few decades, in which a company worth billions was destroyed and thousands lost their jobs, and in which a British bank was (allegedly) defrauded of millions of pounds. The NatWest Three, like Lord Levy, are to be found in Britain. Like the noble lord, they are British citizens. It is suggested that their alleged offence was against British interests.

The tennis partner-in-chief is being questioned about an outrage to the British constitution, namely Labour's suspected cash-for-coronets scheme. The NatWest Three are accused of what amounts to theft from a British bank - a matter that you might have thought was of equal interest to our criminal justice system. But it is the silver-quiffed Lord Levy who has the exquisite shame and embarrassment of being arrested, and who is forced to issue a statement alleging that this is a gross abuse of police powers.

And what do the police do to the NatWest Three, for all the terrible accusations against them? They do diddly squat. They move not a muscle. They go into spasms of excitement about the corruption of the ermine and, in the face of the NatWest allegations, they turn into monuments of marmoreal motionlessness. No emanation of the British criminal justice system has taken the slightest interest in prosecuting these three, and yet we are happily sending them for trial in America.

It is bizarre. It makes us look like a banana republic, or some backward and unselfconfident province of the Roman empire.

It is as though we don't do white-collar fraud, except when it involves peerages, and we contract the big stuff to our American overlords.

I don't know whether David Bermingham and the other members of the NatWest trio are guilty or not, but I do know that when he boards the 9.30am flight from Gatwick today, the British Government will be conniving in a serious injustice.

It is a measure of this Government's panic over the 2003 Extradition Treaty with America that Tony Blair has simultaneously dispatched Baroness Scotland to plead with the American authorities. She is to scurry around Washington, reminding people how staunch we were in the war on Iraq and inquiring whether they might see their way round to ratifying this treaty. She will point out that we have been good boys, as usual, and put it into our law. She will ask whether they might consider doing the same. She will be given the bum's rush. She will then join the Prime Minister in begging the Americans to use what clout they have with the courts in Texas to give the men bail, and allow them to return to England, so that they don't spend the next two years in Guantanamo conditions while preparing their cases.

What a truly incredible state of affairs, and what a devastating comment on the workability of this treaty, that senior Labour ministers should be obliged to rush around Washington begging the American authorities not to use the powers we have given the Americans, and which the Americans refuse to give us.

As I have said before, the first problem with this Extradition Treaty is that it is unbalanced. Contrary to the rubbish peddled by the Prime Minister, it gives the Americans the right to demand suspects from Britain with virtually no evidence, while American suspects wanted by Britain have the protection of a hearing in which the evidence against them can be tested and contested, in court, by the defence.

That asymmetry would apply even if the treaty were ratified and would be reason enough to drop it. What makes it even worse is that the 2003 treaty takes away the right of any British authority to decide in which country the case should be heard.

As I never tire of saying, the natural forum for this case is obviously Britain: the evidence is all here, the men involved are Brits, and the allegedly defrauded entity was NatWest. The Americans are scooping them up because American telegraphic equipment was involved. Well, you might as well ask the Americans to try Lord Levy on the grounds that he used American Microsoft programmes to send his e-mails.

The best thing would be to renegotiate this treaty, not just for the sake of British justice but for the sake of America, whose reputation is suffering terribly as a result of the scandal. I have faith in the fundamental goodness of America. I hope relations will improve. We must have faith, hope and parity - and the greatest of these is parity.

Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley) (Con): I begin by saying how much I share the views of the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) and by reminding him of the many times we have shared platforms in defence of our respective constituents.

Mr. Khan: I exclude completely from previous remarks the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) who has become a friend--with a small f--and who has been consistent in his concern about the issue before us.

Mr. Johnson: I am grateful. I think all of us agree, on both sides, that this issue has nothing to do with what kind of person may be involved or what kind of constituent presents himself or herself before us. It is an issue of justice and reciprocity, and that is why it is arousing such strong passions across the country. We are all starting to see those feelings expressed in our e-mail in-boxes, and the Minister should be aware of them, as I am sure he increasingly is.

The feeling prompting the rage and fury that surrounds this issue, and which has actuated many comments in the debate, is, I am afraid to say, a certain anti-Americanism. On that, I agree with the Government: anti-American points are sometimes scored in this debate, and that is a great shame. It is sad and regrettable, and it is all the more reason why the best and kindest thing we could do for the special relationship, for which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) has laboured so long and on which he has spoken so eloquently, is to remove injustice and asymmetry and to restore confidence in the British people that their extradition arrangements with America are fair to them.

David T.C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con): I thoroughly agree, but does my hon. Friend not also agree that the Americans could send an even more positive message about the importance of the special relationship not only by offering reciprocity but by returning to Britain some of the IRA murderers who live freely in the United States at the moment?

Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; that is the very reason why the Senate has, as has repeatedly been said, been so tardy in ratifying the treaty, and why, indeed, I think it highly unlikely that it will ratify it.

I promised to publicise this wheeze and hope everyone will join Mr Pope in his protest.

I pledge to do the same.

Boris

"I will form part of a human chain around the Westminster no protest zone but only if 6,000 other people will join in."
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It cannot be right that British citizens should be handed over so casually

Blair should intervene and put this unjust and one-sided treaty [2003 Extradition Treaty] on hold

The only way to ease the strains in the relations between England and Scotland, and strengthen the Union, is to end the injustice by which Scottish MPs can vote on English laws, whereas English MPs cannot vote on many provisions affecting Scotland. And it would certainly ease transatlantic tensions if people thought we were no longer being pushed around in our extradition arrangements

America defends its citizens, so why don't we defend ours?

Look here, Blair, which country do you think you are running anyway?

When the people of Britain choose a government, they assume that their government will regard their security as its number one priority. They assume that if a foreign power should try to treat British citizens unfairly, then the government will intervene. They assume that the government will think it a sacred trust to protect British citizens.

'Any extra money set aside specifically for community hospitals is to be welcomed.

However it is hard not to feel that we have been here before. It is vital that this time round the Secretary of State's rhetoric is matched by action. Previous pledges of support have too often failed to result in practical help materialising on the ground.

We don't want a community hospital regeneration plan that involves closing community hospitals. It is no use investing in infrastructure if services are not funded to match.

PCTs must be helped and encouraged to access this money. In the meantime there must be a moratorium on any further closures'.

Ends

Yes, but why? Why are we so pathetic? Britain is so grovellingly submissive to America as to make lapdogs look positively butch and poodles like keen independent spirits. We are all, by now, familiar with the craven manner in which we have decided to hand over British subjects for trial in America.

The baffling question is why? We beg, we fetch, we sit, we look up adoringly and wait to have our mangy old ears tickled by Uncle Sam, and it is not at all clear to the casual observer what we are getting in return.

In two weeks, my constituent David Bermingham intends to be at the Goring and Streatley regatta, and I hope he takes a fond last imprint on his mental retina of the delights of the English summer: the picnics, the blazers, the girls in their filmy dresses, the blissful trailing of fingers in the river.

Blair will walk only with a flame-thrower at his back

I say, "Gah." I say, "Pshaw."

I say pull the other one, baby. Yesterday's Daily Telegraph announced that Tony Blair would leave Downing Street in the spring, and my normal response would be to say that, if you can't believe The Daily Telegraph, what can you believe?

In the mystifying minestrone of the modern media, the news reports of this great paper must count as the few croutons of fact; and yet, in this case, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

There are about a thousand reasons why this human limpet will remain barnacled to the furniture of Number 10 for as long as he possibly can, and I have space for only a few of them here.

The first is that it would be an outrageous insult to the constitution and to the British public. It was only a few months ago that the people rightly or wrongly (make that wrongly) re-elected Mr Blair with a healthy, if gerrymandered, majority of 66.

I inadvertently condemned Salford City Council for enforcing a ban on flying the England flag when this is in fact not the case. The council is not only flying the England flag throughout the duration of the competition, but also inviting residents to submit photos of their flags to a dedicated photo gallery on the council website.

It is not fashionable these days for politicians to extol the judiciary, but then this column is not meant to be fashionable. Today I salute the genius of a judge. If I had anything to do with the honours system I would be advising that the next list should contain a special medal for Mr Justice Ognall, and that the citation should recognise his conspicuous gallantry under fire.

A very intelligent decision

When her mother, who has Parkinson's disease, said that she wanted to donate her brain for research into the illness, Rachel Johnson decided to find out exactly what would happen to it

'Would you like to see the dissection now?" asked Professor Andrew Lees, his eyes lighting up in anticipation. He hustled us out of the seminar room in the smart new premises of the Institute of Neurology at University College, London, and into a lift taking us to the Queen Square Brain Bank.

Prof Revesz shows a part of his research to Rachel, her brother Boris and their mother, Charlotte

For further information, contact Susan Stoneham on 020 7837 8370, e-mail or log on to website.

Look at her in the Tube opposite. No, you fool. Look at what she's reading.

You've made it through to the middle of the Telegraph and, if you are anything like me, you have scaled your personal intellectual Everest for the day. But look at the girl over there, and that damn thick square book on her lap. She must be on page 181, and when she turns the page she's going to be on 183, then 185, 187. It's unbelievable. Where does she get the hunger, the concentration?

Look at women in airport lounges, and look at their men. The men loll and scratch. The women are transfixed, with the glassy expression of souls fled to a happier world. Men mooch off to have a drink or flip through the DVDs. Women read, and read, and read; and I do not believe we have sufficiently considered this growing difference between the sexes.

Surrender! At last! For you, Blair, the culture war is over. Downing Street yesterday ran up the white flag - the one with the red cross on it. For the period of the World Cup, said a cowed Labour spokesman, the emblem of St George would fly from No 10.

Across England yesterday there were still Leftist forces that were keeping up resistance, oblivious to the Hirohito-like capitulation of the high command. In the country's Labour-controlled urban jungles, the culture warriors fought on with the pointlessness of Japanese privates lost in Burma in 1945.

Now if you were an average overworked overtaxed [..] parent of a university student, I think I know how you would feel about this lecturers' strike. I think you'd be fit to be tied. You would be chomping the carpet and firing off letters to the editor about the Spartist whingers who were prejudicing your daughter's future.
You would be ringing up Radio Five phone-ins after midnight, and raving about how these degrees were life-defining moments, and how unthinkable it was that papers should go unmarked. You would find it incredible that the Labour government has said nothing in defence of the students. Exams are being scrubbed! Vital academic credentials are melting away! For months, years, students have been bringing themselves to the intellectual boil, and now all their efforts are going to waste.

If you looked behind David Cameron at yesterday's Question Time, you would have noticed something odd. Several MPs were wearing similar and very garish ties, decorated with the kind of motif you might see on a pavement on a Saturday night. This Jackson Pollock baby-vomit neckwear was, in fact, a sign of respect.

It was to mark the passing of our colleague Eric Forth, the knuckle-dustered and fob-watched libertarian Tory, whose death is being mourned by people more deeply than they might have expected while he was alive.