WHY did one Newport solider die in the first Iraq war in 1991 and none from United Arab Emirates?

The UAE would have been the next country at risk from a Saddam Hussein invasion if we had not expelled him from Kuwait. But why us?

It's the same question now. Why order British troops into a boiling cauldron of Middle East hatreds that are ancient and deep?

Last year Parliament refused the PM's plea to attack Assad. Now the Syrian President who gassed his own people has permitted the USA to fly over his country. Last year's enemy is today's ally.

Who will we be fighting next year? 632 brave UK soldiers lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both were American initiated wars. We obediently followed. We do not have an independent foreign policy. Of course the barbaric atrocities of ISIL must be stopped. But not by us. The neighbouring Arab countries have vast armies and thousand of war planes. They understand the ancient rivalries.

A Middle East war will be fixed only with a Middle East solution. That is why I refused to back the slippery slope to Iraq War 3. We should not ask our UK soldiers to risk their lives to satisfy the pride and vanity of a Prime Minister out to write his bloody page in history.

Following calls by the Home Affairs Select Committee, Theresa May acted promptly in humiliating the Passport Office for their summer of management by panic. I hope she will restore some of the jobs that were taken from Newport. This Select Committee is very influential. The disgraced Rotheram Police and Crime Commissioner was clinging to his job by his fingernails until he was severely reprimanded by the Committee. He has now gone.

The Home Secretary however has not acted on the impassioned objections that Newport should not be used as a dumping for criminals from London. If she dodges the issue in the replies she sends to my new letter, I will have a second chance to question her at the Select Committee.

Down with post-NATO depression? Cheer up. None of the apocalyptic warnings from doom-mongers on traffic chaos and violence came true. Newport did brilliantly. We are the best habitat in the UK for the largest and most prestigious events of this kind. It's time to feel pleased.