I'm so fed up with Lauren's bleating

Lauren Booth may mean well, but I doubt it. The hapless, self-styled human rights campaigner is trapped inside Gaza and has been refused permission to leave by the Israeli authorities manning the perimeter fence.

DISTORTION OF INFORMATION:
The article gives the impression that Israel mans the entire Gaza border, whereas it only controls the area that borders its country. The area bordering Egypt is manned by the Egyptian authorities. Ms Booth has been denied access to both countries, not just to Israel, because she lacks the relevant visas.

Miss Booth has expressed a wish to see her children, but stoically says: 'I do not want any pity.' Good.

For my reserves of sympathy for the half-baked half-sister of Cherie Booth have been running on empty for a long, long time.

The public and political chippiness she shows towards the Blairs, who have been incredibly kind to her, has always been an unedifying spectacle.

It can be no coincidence that her opinion of her brother-in-law, Tony, became more and more bitter the further she was pushed out of the Downing Street circle.

Now Booth is capering around the Middle East on a 'peace boat mission' to highlight how Palestinian territory is being blockaded. The situation is hardly an international secret, is it?

'Like everyone else, I am a hostage to fortune and may as well throw away my passport for all the use it has been,' she wails, like some B-movie actress in a sand-and-sandals epic.

Oh, woe, woe and thrice smote her with woe! Doesn't Lauren remind you terribly of a suffering Susan Hayward in David And Bathsheba? No, me neither.

Still, no matter how much Booth bleats behind the barbed wire, she is still managing to look quite pleased with herself.

This makes it hard to escape the suspicion that this whole adventure is less about highlighting the difficulties faced by Palestinians and more about embarrassing Tony Blair, the prominent envoy to the Middle East.