Melanie Phillips

Coming from Britain to Canberra to interview members of the Australian government is like leaving a fetid malarial swamp to be douched with fresh cold water from a mountain spring. These guys are so onside in the great fight for civilisation against barbarism that they make ‘Bush’s poodle’ Tony Blair sound like a Harold Pinter wannabe on a bad day in Basra.

Dhiren Barot’s case faded because it revealed unbearable truths Dhiren who? Mention Dhiren Barot to anyone and the chances are that you’ll be met with a blank look. At best, some might say, ‘Oh, wasn’t he that guy who, er, that trial recently, yeah, bit worrying....’ Thus the British have somehow failed to register the significance of the conviction last month of a man who was one of al-Qa’eda’s biggest fishes, guilty of the most devastating terrorist plot ever known in this country and one which would have made 9/11 look like a minor warm-up act. This former airline ticket clerk plotted to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a series of synchronised atrocities in Britain and the US.

I am currently sporting a plaster cast on my left arm which is further encased in a sling. People wonder solicitously whether I have been attacked by enraged human-rights lawyers or serial adulterers. Alas, the truth is rather less heroic. Having had a swimming lesson, I slipped on the changing-room floor; putting out my hand to break my fall, I managed to break my wrist as well. Apparently, I have something called a Colles’ fracture, where one bone is pushed into the other. ‘We’re going to have to pull them apart right away!’ breezily announces the casualty doctor. I inwardly curse all those pieces I have written extolling stoicism and stiff upper lips, and wonder whether it is possible actually to die of fright.

The Turkish government recently announced that it intended to make adultery a criminal offence. This was not altogether surprising, since the Turkish government adheres to the principles of Islam, under whose laws adultery is a crime punishable by flogging or execution. Nevertheless, it caused such uproar among more progressive Turks, not to mention horrifying the EU, which threatened to tear up Turkey’s membership application as a result, that the Turkish government has now binned the proposal (perversely, along with a raft of reforms designed to impress the jittery Europeans; but let that pass). So far, so relatively unexceptional.

Colin Powell has said that he can see signs of progress over the Middle East road-map. Israel, he noted, had taken measures which 'constitute the beginning of the road-map process'. Well, that's just terrific, Mr US Secretary of State, because we all know that the big issue is that Israel has not accepted the road-map, which all right-thinking people praise, and is therefore the main obstacle to peace. So what were these Israeli measures? They released 180 Palestinian prisoners and opened up Gaza and the West Bank (closed to keep in mass murderers) as goodwill gestures. And what were the Palestinian goodwill gestures in return?