Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs) sees Cameron flounder for about the third week running while Ming does good. He goes on the dreadful situation in Palestine. Why oh why doesn’t Tony Blair roll up his sleeves and work at the Middle East situation the way he did for Northern Ireland? The political will of Blair and Bush just doesn’t seem to be there to sort this out. The people of both Palestine and Israel deserve peace. It is the people who have been completely let down by the rulers – now and before. If the USA and we have muscle – then for goodness sake use it to force the road map through to peace before more generations grow up in fear or poverty and hatred.

After PMQs I am leading on the front bench on a Statutory Instrument on the floor of the House. They are usually done in committees but this is about bringing into being detention without charge for 28 days. It’s the issue on which we defeated the government’s push for 90 days. There has been a delay until now because Dominic Grieve (a Tory) suggested that we needed a new code to cover the treatment of those being detained under this new order.

It has taken the Government all this time to come up with it. Considering the indecent rush with which they pushed to get the time without charge extended, it is a bit of a rum do.

We are all supporting the code, but I raise issues around how this is likely to affect a community (the Muslim community) which is already extremely tender from the mistaken crude associations that some people make that Muslim = terrorist. Anyway, the Minister acknowledges the points I raise – and the statute is made.