Tim Walker

Mandrake

Stollar’s Tours

A safe distance before Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, MP Tim Farron headed a Liberal Democrat delegation to Israel and the West Bank. He obligingly wrote a piece afterwards for Jewish News which showed all too little compassion for the people of Gaza.

“Even the most liberal of politicians has no appetite for extolling the virtues of a separate Palestinian state at a time when fear, grief, anger, and a determination to ensure security at all costs hold sway,” the former party leader reported from Tel Aviv. “I found also a deep sense of betrayal from many that western liberal democracies had been so quick to condemn Israel, and so reluctant to understand.”

Others on the trip were MPs Calum Miller and Victoria Collins (lately entrusted by the party with promoting ethnic minorities) and peers Sarah Ludford and Monroe Palmer.

Unmentioned was that it had all been paid for – at an estimated cost of £3,000 per person – by Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.