A quarter century ago Bobbie Sands was the first of the IRA hunger strikers to fast to death. IRA hunger strikers at the Long Kesh jail outside Belfast protested the lack of political status afforded paramilitary prisioners in the north of Ireland. The figure of Bobbie Sands attained international recognition with his widely circulated image projecting an attractive and cordial persona - not at all the picture of a "hardened terrorist". Sands' legacy lived on and even jumped up and bit Jack Straw's political posterior not so long ago. Jack attempted to "pressure" the Iranian government into changing the name of "Bobby Sands Street" in Tehran. Seems this is the street the British Embassy is situated on. How the British government must hanker now for such low impact diplomatic issues in Ango-Iranian relations! Perhaps the Iranian government should offer to rename the street in return for Britain agreeing to supply Iran with nuclear technology? Or perhaps the British authorities could offer to rename Hyde Park as "Khomeni Park" in return for Iran giving up nuclear ambitions?
