In Israel the other week an English radio station rang my mobile phone desperate for me to go to the nearest landline for an immediate interview on the Government’s prison policy. I politely informed the presenter that it would be difficult as I was standing on the Israeli-Lebanese border with the army overlooking a Lebanese village held by the fanatical Hezbollah militia. Undeterred and uninterested she insisted that the sound quality was good enough to go ahead using the mobile. Asking my military escort for a bottle of water I was instead given a can of lager and between slurps I managed to conduct the interview. Looking back I realise that this was one the most bizarre situations I have experienced in seven years of politics.