Paddy Ashdown and Labour MP send joint letter on Syria

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Paddy Ashdown and Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, have written a joint letter to David Cameron calling on him to involve the RAF in getting aid to the starving inhabitants of the of Madaya in Syria.

The letter begins:

The images and stories from besieged Madaya in Syria are truly shocking. 

According to reports, in the past month alone 31 civilians have died in Madaya as a result of starvation or attempted escape, while the UN estimates that 400,000 remain besieged across the country. 

We find it astonishing that so little has been done by the international community to break these sieges when life-saving medical and food aid are often only minutes away,

And they conclude:

We urge you to push the UN, in particular the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to be far bolder in its aid delivery and stop asking unnecessary permission from the Syrian government. 

In the case that the UN continues to be denied access to these besieged areas by the Assad regime, the UK should strongly consider airdropping aid to those communities at risk of starvation. In some of these areas, the RAF is already flying anti-ISIS missions, and if necessary this is something we should press our European partners to support. 

Like the airdrops by the US in 2014 to the Yazidis in Iraq, and the leadership shown by the last Conservative Government to save lives with similar action in Northern Iraq, there are immediate steps we can take to stop more vulnerable people dying needlessly of hunger. We cannot sit by and watch this happen.

Read the full letter.

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Paddy Ashdown meets himself coming back

There is an edition of Meeting Myself Coming Back currently available on the BBC iPlayer in which Paddy Ashdown looks back on his career with the help of some archive recordings.

It was first broadcast in 2012 when we still hoped  the voters might reward us for entering government at a time of severe economic difficulty. As it turned out, in politics (as in the rest of life) no good deed goes unpunished.

One of the recordings comes from 1983 when the Liberator spread above was not not only on the front page of The Times but was also the lead item on the BBC evening news.

It is characteristic of Paddy's generous spirit that, unlike his predecessor as Liberal leader, he said nice things about the magazine.

A hedgehog snorts: "Generous spirit"? He ate my Uncle Ernie.

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Paddy Ashdown, Malcolm Saville and eating hedgehogs

Today in someone's review of the year I came across an interview Nick Clegg gave to the Evening Standard on the eve of the general election:

Looking back at the campaign, it is the comic moments he remembers. For instance, his first visit was to a hedgehog sanctuary, with Paddy Ashdown. Ashdown muttered under his breath to Clegg: “When I was in the Special Boat Service we used to eat hedgehogs.”

Talk of eating hedgehogs inevitably reminds those of us who grew up on Malcolm Saville of his second Lone Pine story Seven White Gates.

At the beginning of the book Peter (Petronella) Sterling is cycling to her mysterious uncle' farm under the Stiperstones.

On the way she comes across a Gypsy caravan whose horse is running away with the little girl driving it (Fenella) after being frightened by a tank (the book was published in 1944). Peter risks her life to bring the horse under control.

Later she eats with the Gypsy family:

Peter stood by and watched the other gipsies rake away the hot embers of their wood fire, until two cylinders of baked clay were exposed. Fenella ran for a dish from the Reubens' van and one of the glowing cylinders was poked on to it. Then, with mutual expressions of good will, the cooks and the Reubens with their guest parted. 

Round their own fire, Peter watched how the baked clay was cracked and peeled off, bringing with it the spines of the hedgehog and leaving him bare but beautifully cooked. From the pot came a stew of gravy and vegetables, a generous helping of which was piled on to the plate of the guest of honour.

She didn't see how Reuben divided up the hedgehog, but her share was certainly tasty - something between rabbit and chicken - and she was so hungry that she finished her plateful almost as soon as Fenella.

I don't know if that is how they cooked hedgehog in the SAS. And, though this method would deal neatly with the spines, Saville does not mention what has happened to the giblets.

As to the taste of hedgehog I am reminded of Jonathan Meades' comment:

People say frogs' legs taste of chicken. They are wrong. They taste of frog.

Read more on Malcolm Saville and Gypsies.

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Film of the young Paddy Ashdown serving in Sarawak

I have seen this clip a couple of times before. It turns out to come from one of the Look at Life films - I have featured a few of them here in the past.

The BBC once put them together to form 30-minute programmes. The video above should play just the relevant segment of this one, where you will see "Marine Lieutenant Ashdown". (Unfortunately, someone has added a rather clunky label telling us who he later became.)

Lord Bonkers suggests that unrepentant headhunters are just what you need in a closely fought by-election.

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