It is also in the best interests of our status as a fair and decent nation.
We've tried to pour money into Iraq, to build a decent nation and then hand it back gift-wrapped to the Iraqi people.
What does it do to a country to accept that we are condemned by every decent nation in the world, along with the UN, the UNHCR in particular?
Politicians believed the British or, rather, a significant segment of the population, wanted the country to be Blair's tolerant, decent nation.
"A sense of compassion is in the best interests of these families and our status as a fair and decent nation," the motion said.
And what is on the table, ready to go, is legislation that is fiscally responsible, takes major steps toward dealing with rising health care costs, and would make us a better, fairer, more decent nation.
That is why I beg honourable members to turn their backs on this most ugly chapter and realise that if we are to live in the world and are to be regarded as a decent nation, decent citizens in the world, we have to act up to different standards than the one that we have been following in the last few weeks.
But Britain was a liberal country – "a tolerant decent nation", as Blair put it – which was proud to have provided a home to the Huguenots fleeing Louis XIV, the Jews fleeing tsarism and Nazism, the Poles and Hungarians fleeing communism and the Ugandan Asians fleeing Idi Amin.
In ascending order of selfishness because we're a rich and decent nation, because tackling disease globally prevents future outbreaks here, and because AIDS is massive drain on the world's economy, which we're a part of, and because it boosts Britain's medical expertise and reputation.
