Dear Jack Straw,

This week, a deeply embarrassed Lady Scotland was obliged to stonewall her Israeli hosts and admit that nothing had yet been done to close the loophole in British law allowing arrest warrants to be issued at the instigation of private individuals.

The question, Mr Straw, is why nothing has yet been done.

You yourself, when Foreign Secretary in 2005, actually apologised to your Israeli counterpart when General Doron Almog stayed on his plane at Heathrow rather than get off and risk prosecution.

We know that both Gordon Brown and David Miliband apologised to Tzipi Livni last month; we also know that the government has a ready solution at hand, an amendment to the 1985 Prosecution of Offences Act, deftly outlined in a legal opinion drawn up by Lord Pannick, QC.

So we wonder, Mr Straw, why you appear to be the stumbling block to solving this unnecessary problem.

It surely cannot be in any way connected to the fact that your constituency in Blackburn has one of the country’s largest number of Muslim voters, can it?

Please give us your alternative explanation. Yours faithfully, The JC