No comparison with sleaze and criminality

I AM grateful to J E Stretton for his/ her response on setting the record straight (“A few facts to balance partisan letter views”, Mailbox, May 6).

S/he is correct that many have called the invasion of Iraq illegal and it is correct to see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 as predating Brexit. Full marks in chronology. This all misses the ethical dimension as it may be assigned to the two main political parties.

The invasion of Iraq was considered by many to be justified on the basis of regime change – from a tyrant who persecuted people of a different background and who was deemed to be an international threat. This could be considered an action by Blair at the time much to be supported. JE Stretton should talk to some of the Kurds now resident in our city.

In contrast, the failure of Tory voters and the Tory Party to bind the democracies of Europe together around economic and political union in the 2016 vote, demonstrated a complete abdication of a commitment to peace and prosperity in the face of Putin on our borders. If Brexit played no role in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine why then does the Tory government refuse to publish its report on Russian interference in both the 2016 and 2019 elections?

I am grateful for the examples of Labour MPs who have been “imprisoned”. Of the examples given, s/he has to scrape the barrel for an example from 2011 (not this parliament which was what my letter referred to) and to scrape even further for O’Mara who was not Labour MP at all at the time of conviction. We really need to move beyond assertions that there is remotely an equivalence between the two parties in terms of sleaze and criminality.

Dr Andrew Golland,