This morning in an interview with Andrew Marr, William Hague admitted that there was no prospect of Military Intervention in the dispute between President Putin and what remains of the Ukraine Government. Although this risks portraying impotence in our proud and powerful Government and their armed forces, it was at least a level of honesty that is all too often missing from our national debate. When MPs were proposing to authorise some form of military action over the appalling violence being meted out to Syrians in their own home, the real limits of our influence and the best ways of bringing lasting peace into that region of the world seemed to have left the discourse. William Hague is part of a Government that is willing to commit around £20Bn to replace Trident, and other commentators suggest this is about half the cost of that exercise. Yet the existing trident system is clearly of no greater value in the context of the Ukraine, than our non nuclear military forces.

Meanwhile away from the Marr show David Laws appears to be pleading with the media to stop their extensive research into the nationality of the daily helps, nannies, and cleaners of the Government front bench and senior members of the coalition parties. This is because despite the depressing rhetoric on immigration emanating from the coalition, they had failed to appreciate that their own household arrangements would come under scrutiny and inevitably look very strange to the rest of us.

Like our national position on defence, we have lawmakers who speak publicly about immigration in ways that their own experience or instincts should be screaming out as lacking credibility. Even for those who do not employ foreign nationals as household workers, surely they know from the filling stations, public transport or hotels they visit that our nation is dependent on men and women who travel to the UK to work as part of our economy. Our place in the world cannot continue to be described in the terms that people such as Nigel Farage and some others within UKIP choose without challenge from the rest of the Political establishment. We remain an Island in geographical terms, yet 520 years ago at the founding of the British Empire we began to look at the world in a different way. Just because the Empire is now a historical concept, we should not try to retreat into an island of isolationism. We need a national political leadership that is helping to make and keep peace in the parts of the World such as Syria and the Ukraine as well as having the integrity to speak about immigration in a manner that is good for the community and reflects the way we live our lives, without stigmatising men and women who are clearly working in the homes of our leaders as well as in our service stations. The phrase ‘one nation’ gets applied to various political movements, is it possible that we could have the opportunity to elect some ‘one world’ politicians whose commitment to these issues and wider concerns such as Fairtrade and the wellbeing of the environment can go beyond the occasional stunt ride with Huskies?