I COULDN'T get to last weekend's game against Birmingham City, but in one respect I 'm not sorry I missed it.

I am not talking about what happened on the field. That was to Rovers' credit. It showed real character to come back from behind.

No, I'm talking about the appalling behaviour of a handful of alleged fans with their racist abuse of Dwight Yorke. This was abuse also of everyone on the field and in the stands who did not have a white skin and all of us who do, but who are equally offended by such poison.

For the direct targets, such bigotry is obviously horrible. But the damage goes much wider.

The transition of our borough from one which 50 years ago was entirely white, to where we are today with a quarter of residents of Asian heritage was never going to be without some difficulties.

But Blackburn is a special place. The problems found in some other cities and towns have been avoided here. And Rovers itself has had a good record in encouraging Asian families to attend games, and it's a long time since I heard any racist abuse where I sit in Ewood Park.

What happened on Sunday was the work of a tiny minority; but what's infuriating is that the town, and the club, gets besmirched.

Yesterday I was in Egypt. What came up on the continuous ticker tape on BBC World - a reference to the incident on Sunday.

As a result we in the town all get tarred with this brush. Reputations like Blackburn's excellent one take a long time to build up: and can be much more swiftly undermined.

I was in Egypt at Sharm el Sheikh for a conference on the future of Iraq, organised by the Egyptian government.

What was striking was that every country - the United States and Iran, Japan and Syria - were all united in the desire to leave past arguments about Iraq in the past, and to work together for a better future for the country, including the need to keep to the timetable for the national elections due on January 30, 2005.

I then travelled in an armoured vehicle Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, on the first day of a two day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, Palestine, and talks with veteran Labour leader Shimon Peres.

Apart from those with Mr Peres, my key discussions today were with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and Vice-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Then in Ramallah, the current administrative base of the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank, I will be seeing Abu Mazen, President of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Abu Ala, the Palestinian Prime Minister, Nabil Sha 'ath, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, and a number of other key figures.

I shall also be showing my respect for Yasser Arafat by laying a wreath on his grave.

Shimon Peres is a veteran of many efforts to secure peace between Israel and Palestine. He told me that he thought there was now the best chance to do so in decades. I hope, but also believe, that he's right.

A peace settlement here is of vital importance for the nearly 10 million people, of the Jewish and Islamic faith, who live between the Jordan and the Mediterranean in what should be two states of Israel, and a separate and viable State of Palestine.

But peace here is of much wider significance. Indeed, I'd place this at the top of my foreign policy agenda. For this terrible conflict over land fuels a burning sense of resentment right across the Arab and Islamic world, and indirectly contributes to Islamaphobia - the crude racist abuse on display on Sunday.

I'd like to thank the couple who took pity on me last Saturday during one of my open air meetings.' My hands had gone numb with cold. They popped into Marks and Spencer, bought me a fine pair of gloves, passed them to me, and disappeared. Whoever you are, thank you!