GET OUT THE GUNBOATS!

India and Pakistan have only recently achieved an uneasy peace in the dispute which has been raging, at times more or less violently, over their territorial claims to Kashmir, since Britain's colonial adventures in that part of the globe ceased over sixty years ago.

So it was with mouths agape and eyes popping that the world witnessed our clod-hopping new PM, colonial foot planted firmly in imperialist mouth, choosing India as the venue to issue a firm telling-off to these damned natives in Pakistan, who were just not playing the game properly. "Harbouring nasty people within their boundaries while claiming to be allies in the war against terrorism is just not good enough - don't you agree, Indian politicians?" Thus any diplomatic progress in that region, over any disagreement on any matter whatsoever, over however many years, is now at threat.

Now they're burning effigies of DC (who is obviously taking George W Bush's strategy in world affairs a stage further!) on the streets of Islamabad and other Pakistani cities, and any progress on co-operation on matters of terrorism has been nullified at a stroke. Well done, David! I think I'll pop down to the Lerwick branch of Effigies R' Us and get one to burn myself.

Talking of gunboat diplomacy, I see that Iceland and Faroe have held two brawny fingers up at the EU over their mackerel quotas for this year. Hurrah and well done! They're doing what Britain should have done decades ago, especially over our whitefish quotas. Now all sorts of sanctions are being threatened against our Nordic neighbours. No doubt Britain will support these, as it supports every other mind-blowingly ridiculous edict to emanate from the undemocratic plutocracy which is the EU.

As things are, our fishing industry has been decimated, with the tacit collaboration of our negotiators, over the last twenty years, while, year after year, our pathetic politicians have still returned from meetings with the clueless and mandate-less bureaucrats of Brussels with ever-decreasing quotas and disregarded representations (especially from Scottish representatives, who are ignored as a matter of EU policy!).

It is time to join with Iceland, Faroe and Norway (not an EU member state) to formulate a sensible system with regard to what can or cannot be caught where and when, and regain control of our own waters. Then our fishing rights will no longer be a bargaining chip at the gaming table of European big business, but will be properly regulated in the interests (long and short-term) of the nations inside whose territorial waters the fishing stocks are located. Then fishermen of other nationalities who want to catch fish in these waters will have to negotiate with US!