Imagine you are an Iraqi former employee of the British government. The death squads with their power drills might be on your doorstep at any minute.

Frantic, you turn to the internet, the Yahoo search engine of all places, and type ‘where to apply for the assistance to iraqi locally engaged staff’.

Do you find the British Foreign Office website? A dedicated website offering reassurance, advice or hope? No, you find the blog of Alex Harrowell, The Yorkshire Ranter. Now, Alex is a stand up bloke - one of the good guys - but he can’t help you.

Is help coming or is this issue, like so many unfortunate Iraqi employees, dead? Or is the plan to dawdle until there’s nobody left to rescue?

UPDATE: As Philip points out in the comments, Early Day Motion 2057, which MPs were asked to sign in support of the Iraqi Employees, has gone. Google cached it on October 19 so it’s disappeared some time in the last four days. Anyone able to provide any information?

UPDATE UPDATED: It’s back. A “technical problem” apparently. Write to your MP and ask them to sign it.