Brian Barder and I are deadly ideological rivals. He hews to a number of Old Labour-style positions which (for me) are like the sort of exhibits you find in the gloomier rooms of the Natural History Museum which no-one visits.

More foreign aid! No to swingeing cuts in public services! Russia must not be encircled! More foreign aid! Put Western leaders on trial for war crimes in Kosovo! Did I mention even more foreign aid?!

You get the picture.

But these diehard socialists often do have one great virtue, namely their ability to sniff out drivel and cant wherever they are found (usually of course in the ranks of New Labour). Hence Brian’s latest businesslike demolition of Craig Murray and his noisy army of echo-chamber elves:

I respect his moral passion and his furious energy and often admire his quixotic courage.  But on the subject of the use of information that may have (and sometimes probably has) been obtained by torture, the main theme of his post yesterday, he is simply and straightforwardly wrong.  The dozens of admiring and mostly uncritical comments appended to Craig’s post are in many cases even more misguided.

… those who (presumably deliberately) misrepresent Sawers’s speech by juxtaposing what are in fact separate and unrelated extracts from it have some pretty awkward questions to answer.

Constant repetition of half-truths, misrepresentations and downright untruths doesn’t make them valid or reputable.

Who are we mere libertarian conservatives to disagree?