Foreign Office must help these Brits

IN Dubai a British man, Jamie Harron, has been charged with public indecency because he touched another man on the hip to stop him spilling drinks in a crowded bar. If lightly touching a person to prevent having your toe trodden on or your scalding hot tea spilled is indecent then I have been both the perpetrator and victim of indecency many times.

In India six Britons who were blown by bad weather into that country’s waters on an anti-piracy vessel have been languishing in prison for three years facing charges of entering Indian waters bearing arms, despite all their paperwork from Her Majesty’s Government being in good order.

So why do we still send aid to India and recommend the safety of supposedly liberal Dubai, a country I always thought completely sensible?

The Foreign Office says with depressing predictability that it is providing “consular assistance” which means very little in practical terms. How about providing a few diplomatic fireworks?

Return power to constituencies

JOHN MAJOR called them the dispossessed and the never possessed, meaning those MPs who had been sacked as ministers and those who had never been made ministers. Memorably he also called them baskets or a more explicit word to that effect.

Now Theresa May, who does not even have the tiny majority of John Major, is under siege from exactly that group of disgruntled people.

You might have thought that a serious politician would put the good of the country first but the collection of undistinguished nonentities which now fills the green benches is the result of decades of manipulation of the candidates’ list by the party’s hierarchy, who have been more concerned with sexuality, gender, telegenic looks and politically correct views than with common sense and ability.

It is time to return power to constituency selection committees, which will in turn put quality back into Parliament.