The patriots of New Labour are back in force.

The familiar call of Labour in office to observe the ethic of unthinking  patriotism, until recently the hallmark of Thatcherism, is with us again. As with the conscientious objectors of Ramsay MacDonald's time who became more intensely imperialistic and 'patriotic' as they found themselves in government, so New Labour turns to old-fashioned loyalty in its determination to ensure that we all pay homage to wars it entered into by fraud and lies.

It doesn't discriminate in its choice of lieutenants. Blair's pals are all still there, .including the coarse-mouthed Campbell; ministers are at one in paying homage to our troops as the dead and injured mount, as suicide in the ranks of the 'willing' becomes the order of the day and claims more victims than the so-called 'terrorists', and the public at large shows its contempt for official expressions of sympathy from the very people who sent Anglo-American armies to fight for an unpopular cause and unobtainable objectives; even actresses, fresh from pyrrhic victories in their fight for the Ghurkhas rights (which showed, incidentally, just how contrived New Labour's patriotism is), were paraded to lecture us on the virtues of loyalty and the need to praise our fighting men. No word of apology for acts of aggression by Britain and its allies, no words of understanding for the two-million displaced Iraqis and Afghans driven from their homes and homelands; no expressions of sympathy for the limbless children of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. And, of course, no suggestion that Iraqis, Palestinians and Afghans might have their own loyalties, their own sense of patriotism. The last refuge of the scoundrel has become an Anglo-American-Israeli prerogative.

Only President Obama retains clean hands. Let us hope he will end this farce of patriotic gesturing before it consumes friend and 'enemy' alike.

Victor Winstone