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In yesterday’s Sunday Times (£) there was a report of an interview with Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The interview was conducted by Tim Shipman and the report was entitled:

Dominic Raab: I saw off bully Slobodan Milosevic. Michel Barnier needs a softer touch

Now, I should preface this post with the proviso that The Times has form in regard to inaccurate précis via headline. It could be that the Sunday Times has now been infected with that dodgy headline disease.

Here’s what Raab is quoted as saying:

Back in the Hague, when I was doing my war crimes stint, I was in correspondence with Slobodan Milosevic. We successfully saw that off, although Robin Cook died before the subpoena could be properly determined by the court, and Milosevic died shortly after that.

That doesn’t entirely match up with the headline.

There seems nothing else in the article to elaborate on the first part of the headline, save the following box beside the article – and at this stage readers may want to reach for a stout brown paper bag, just in case. The juxtapositioning of Milosevic and Michel Barnier certainly “bigs up” Mr Raab to a ridiculous extent, the implication being that our brave Brexit minister, Dominic Raab, singlehandedly saw off the mass murdering ‘butcher of the Balkans’ so he can therefore easily take on Michel Barnier:

BALKAN BRUTE V GALLIC CHARMER

Slobodan Milosevic
Job: Deceased tyrant
Negotiating style: Brute force
Likes: Eliminating Balkan borders
Likely to say: “Serbia and Kosovo are indivisible” (they weren’t)
Unlikely to say: Anything else, since he’s been dead for 12 years

Michel Barnier
Job: Eurocrat factotum
Negotiating style: Suave Frenchie
Likes: Eliminating Irish borders
Likely to say: “The four freedoms are indivisible” (they are)
Unlikely to say: “Another drink, Jean-Claude?”

All this nonsense has received very short shift from our Paddy Ashdown, a man who knows a thing or two about “Slobo”:

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear. Dominic Raab may or may not be a good Brexit Secretary. But is he really so desperate for credibility that he has to claim (Tim Shipman in today's Sunday Times) that he saw off Slobodan Milosevic with a junior lawyers letter. Pity he never met the man!

— Paddy Ashdown (@paddyashdown) August 26, 2018

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.