Brigadier John Lorimer

I don't know what you think, but as far as I am concerned Brigadier John Lorimer is the hero of the hour for taking care of business in Basra. The incontrovertible fact is that the two soldiers who were freed are alive today, who can say what would have happened if he didn't have the balls to act.

Here are some old words from Teddy Roosevelt which are as true now as ever they were and which I always try and remind myself when looking at the results of any official enquiry into anything.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt was an amazing man. The news that Martin Scorsese is to direct Leonardo DiCaprio in a film of his life fills me with foreboding. The African proverb that he applied to foreign policy is also apt.

Speak softly and carry a big stick