Iran

It is bad enough that the whole government is paralysed by Brexit dysfunction and a change of leadership. Add to that by using military force to seize an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar at the bidding of the United States, with whose policy on Iran we profoundly disagree, and you create inevitable problems, at a time when we are trying to help business  continue to work with Iran in spite of US sanctions. Not to mention trying to free Mrs. Zaghari Ratcliffe.

Now the Iranians have found a pretext to seize a tanker of ours. Great outrage, posturing and Cobra meetings. Once again it appears the government has misjudged the motives of the other side, failed to read the signs, blundered on and got itself in a fix. It reads like a bad TV drama where characters constantly do annoying and stupid things. The trouble is this is real. We cannot just switch it off.