IT is not logically possible for anyone to have “gone off script” during an “unscripted appearance”. That Labour leadership contender David Miliband can construct a sentence accusing Prime Minister David Cameron of such an offence is unfortunate proof that the control freak mentality that characterised New Labour throughout the “on message” mid-Nineties is alive and well.

The occasion for the outburst came on BBC Radio 4’s World at One last Thursday, in which the former Labour foreign secretary discussed Mr Cameron’s suggestion that elements within the Pakistani state are complicit in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and India.

The involvement of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with the Taliban is not something that has only just come to light thanks to the classified material published on WikiLeaks earlier last week. Nor will the idea that the ISI covertly backs Kashmiri militants shock many observers of south Asian affairs.

The spluttered denials from sources in Islamabad lack even a semblance of conviction. To hear a senior official of Jamaat-i-Islami – a party of clerical authoritarian war criminals – warn Mr Cameron that his words might foment “anti-American, anti-West”

sentiment only compounds the irony.

There may be grounds for Labour politicians to attack Mr Cameron: this isn’t one of them.

Thomas Byrne, Sacriston, Durham.