...for members of the Oxford Union to vote tonight in favour of upholding the invitation to neo-nazis David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak next week comes with the news that Des Browne, Dennis McShane and Chris Bryant have said they will boycott future events at the Union if Monday's debate goes ahead with those two participating.

Me, I'm not a member so it's not my decision, and I am in two minds, having caught the bug and objected strongly when Irving was last invited in 2001 and I was on the City Council. On that occasion it was cancelled the night before when it became clear that events outside the union might make the city centre unsafe for ordinary folk going about their lawful business and leisure as Irving's supporters and Anti-Nazi League demonstrators promised to fight it out in the street outside and the police decided that it would be a public order problem.

My preference is for open and free debate - though I suspect that the two main protagonists on Monday do not really share that preference, and in a private member's club it should not be for anyone else to dictate who they have to speak to them. In a private member's club moreover made up of some of the most intelligent people in the land one would expect those members to be as well qualified as anyone to make up their own minds about the views of two of the country's most obnoxious people.

But if it's going to prove again, as I suspect, to be a threat to public order outside the Union, out of earshot from the privileged membership supping with the devils in their hallowed debating chamber and bars, they need to be told and not go ahead.