LABOUR'S DEFECTIVE MEMBERS GO TO WAR

26-08-2006

The Iraq conflict isn't the only war Tony Blair's involved in - members of his party are fighting amongst themselves as Andy Goff reports...

Up to 40 Labour party members have defected from Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's Derby South constituency to the Liberal Democrats over the government's delayed intervention in Lebanon.

Well about time Labour party members started showing some integrity!

Writing in The Grauniad David Clark, former Labour special advisor at the Foreign Office said: “The absence of legitimacy and necessity applies particularly to the government's acquiescence in America's support for Israel, which along with Iraq is the main source of Muslim anger”

The Government line is that there is no connection between British foreign policy in the middle east and the increased threat of terrorism in Britain. That line would normally have ended with “UK” But that would be pandering to the policy of dissociation between Great Britain and the UK., two different entities and yet subtly the same.

72% of the “British” people agree that our foreign policy has made us less secure. 1% agree that our foreign policy has made the British people more secure. Those statistics from a Grauniad/ICM poll.

Sir Christopher Mayhew in his book DC Confidential sparked controversy when it portrayed a starstruck Tony Blair failing to stand up for Britain in the run-up to the Iraq war and described senior ministers as "political pygmies".

While I object to the use of the word pygmy in a derogatory sense I understand what he means.

We are burdened with a government filled with ministers lacking worldliness. Ms Beckett goes caravanning while Lebanon burns, Tony Blair goes off to Cliff's gaff while the troops die in a war he was instrumental in starting, various government departments fail to make ministers available for interview in the news media while we are at undeclared war.

These are the actions of people who don't take responsibility in the roles for which they sought office.

Thus they are Ostriches not Pygmies.

Heads buried in the trough of celebrity, writing their memoirs and planning their lecture tours, caught up in the mire of celebrity with no thought to consequence.

Perhaps we should only allow people to stand for office if they have actually fought or lived through a war.

Then they may be a little more circumspect in starting them and feel a little more pressed to stop them.