The call Labour didn't answer

 

Mossad isn't in the habit of crying wolf. When Israeli intelligence, probably the finest in the world at what it does, passes on a warning, you'd expect Whitehall to sit up and take notice. Last month it told the British government that an Iranian-sponsored group based in London was planning an attack on the RAF base that's been all over the news this week.

You'd have thought that would concentrate a few minds. You'd have been wrong. The very next day, the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, was photographed shaking hands with Iranian government employees. That cosy little meeting was followed, promptly enough, by sanctions, on ISRAEL, if you don't mind. Not, you'll have noticed, on Iran.

The warnings from Mossad were treated with such disdain that an American base came within a whisker of being attacked.

Somebody did eventually remember to warn local residents to keep their eyes peeled. They were given a special telephone number and told to ring it at any time of day or night if they spotted anything suspicious.

You can probably guess what happened next. The member of the public who spotted this mob sniffing around the base dialled the number they'd been given. It rang out. Nobody answered. They tried 101. Still nothing. In desperation they dialled 999, and it's only thanks to that final, frantic call that the country has been treated to the news we've seen this week.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't trust this Labour government. There's a whiff about this whole business that isn't pleasant. It reeks of somebody being content to let this run, to be gift-wrapped with a terrorist attack on British soil. For what reason? I couldn't tell you. But the telephone rang, and nobody picked up.