And, indeed, credibility gap.
John Woodcock has said that he would resign his seat, which he has not yet held, if Labour did not build four Trident successor submarines.
Those submarines would be built in the constituency that he is seeking to retain. But vastly more British industry has been allowed to go to the wall without any of this.
People with Woodcock's foreign policy views are wildly out of step with his generation, which is my generation. But they are all over politics. How the hell did that happen?
As my own generation starts to become politically prominent, the two main parties have managed to find a grossly disproportionate number of people who were in favour of the Iraq War.
Hardly anyone in the country was, including almost no one born in the 1970s. Yet anything up to half of the latter who were Labour MPs in the last Parliament not only were, but remain at least broadly liberal interventionists to this day.
Woodcock, one of the supposed rising stars, even abstained on Syria, and later used Prime Minister's Questions to criticise the Government's defeat on that issue. Are there no Whips these days?
(The proudest achievement of my life is to have guaranteed that another such will never be an MP. That is what I have instead of children, and I should fight no less hard in order to protect it, although I am most unlikely ever to need to do so.)
The same is true of almost all of my vintage who are now Conservative MPs; I am open to correction, but I can think of only one exception, and he is as good as certain to lose his seat.
To put the matter no more strongly, this is most unrepresentative.
John Woodcock has said that he would resign his seat, which he has not yet held, if Labour did not build four Trident successor submarines.
Those submarines would be built in the constituency that he is seeking to retain. But vastly more British industry has been allowed to go to the wall without any of this.
People with Woodcock's foreign policy views are wildly out of step with his generation, which is my generation. But they are all over politics. How the hell did that happen?
As my own generation starts to become politically prominent, the two main parties have managed to find a grossly disproportionate number of people who were in favour of the Iraq War.
Hardly anyone in the country was, including almost no one born in the 1970s. Yet anything up to half of the latter who were Labour MPs in the last Parliament not only were, but remain at least broadly liberal interventionists to this day.
Woodcock, one of the supposed rising stars, even abstained on Syria, and later used Prime Minister's Questions to criticise the Government's defeat on that issue. Are there no Whips these days?
(The proudest achievement of my life is to have guaranteed that another such will never be an MP. That is what I have instead of children, and I should fight no less hard in order to protect it, although I am most unlikely ever to need to do so.)
The same is true of almost all of my vintage who are now Conservative MPs; I am open to correction, but I can think of only one exception, and he is as good as certain to lose his seat.
To put the matter no more strongly, this is most unrepresentative.
I can't see any link between Trident and the Iraq War.
ReplyDeleteNuclear deterrence is an essential component of national defence whereas the Iraq invasion was an unprovoked war of aggression.
Countries with nuclear weapons don't get invaded.
Ask North Korea.
Iraq was invaded precisely for having them. In point of fact, she didn't. But that was not the point.
DeleteBritish territory has certainly been invaded since the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The territory of most non-nuclear states has not been.
No one has any desire to invade North Korea.
Don't mess with Mr L (maybe Lord L of L soon!!) -- he knows a lot more than you.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know anything about that.
Delete