[Acrylic-bob]

In what is shaping up to be a re-run of last year's tragic events in Iraq another Briton finds himself in captivity this evening along with colleagues from the USA and Canada.

Norman Kember is 74 years old and is a committed christian. His captors claim that he is a spy and that unless the Iraqi Government and the American occupying forces agree to release all detainees by Thursday they will execute them all!

For the love of God, when will all this madness end? How many more decent, caring people have to be traumatised and die horrible deaths before these pea-brained dick-wavers get the message - no one is going to negotiate with them and no one is going to take their ridiculous demands seriously. Prancing around in combat fatigues is so, like, twenty years out of date!

But that is not really the point is it? The real point of the kidnapping is sour the Christmas season and sow dissention and discord in the helpless populations of allied nations to keep up the pressure for a disengagement in Iraq so that these clowns in balaclava's can drag Iraq and her people back to the fourteenth century.

That Norman Kember and his colleagues have their faith to sustain them in their extremity is perhaps a small crumb of comfort. And I am sure that the thoughts and prayers of many fellow Britons, Americans and Canadians will be with them and their families over the next few days.

I am also sure that the governments of Great Britain America and Canada will be doing whatever thay can to secure the release of these men. All that we can do is to hope for a favourable outcome but we must also stand firmly behind our governments in stating and re-stating that there can be no negotiation with terrorists. Change is won through the ballot box, not through the barrel of a gun or on the edge of a blade.