Editorial: It is past time that UK ministers hit back at Irish criticism of Britain

On page 14 we run an article by the director of a highly influential Westminster think-tank on Ireland's failure to pay for its own defences.

Lord Godson, whose centre right organisation Policy Exchange is well regarded in Conservative government circles and is also respected by moderate Labour Party politicians, notes not only the Republic's "skin-flintery" on defence, but its Anglophobia.

These are points that this newspaper has been making for a long time, urging the government to hit back at the intermittent but not infrequent criticism of Britain, sometimes led by Ireland's almost comically self-righteous president, Michael D Higgins.

Ireland has been one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of Israel since the Hamas mass murderous attacks on Jews in early October. After what seemed like a cursory criticism of Hamas, it has been sustained in its criticism of the Israelis.

As ever Leo Varadkar has been at the heart of it. He last week said that "the position of the overwhelming majority of the EU countries now is that there should be a ceasefire and everyone unanimous around a two-state solution".

It is true that the more ambivalent countries such as France have been lukewarm in their defence of Israel, with the French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna now calling for an "immediate truce" and moves to "a political solution".

A ceasefire would be a surrender to some of the worst barbarians of the modern era, the Islamic fanatics Hamas. Amid such demands, Israel's shooting of three Israeli hostages was a disastrous and tragic blunder that needs to be fully examined and explained – a mistake that has done grievous harm to the reputation of a country that has no shortage of haters.

Ireland at the moment feels it is line with western thinking, when often it isn’t. All the more reason for the UK now to challenge its critic, as Lord Godson suggests, and something we have long advocated.