Airstrip One

Competing Treacheries

So the Tories have this magic formula on the war. They'll back it so hard that they'll enrage the anti-war tendency within the Government. And then... well what?

The fact is that war is opposed by the majority in this country will presumably be dismissed as mere populism. Opposing (or advocating) a war on the grounds of popularity is perhaps not the most honourable course - although with the utter loss of the concept of national interest amongst our political elite one would have to ask just on which basis one should support the war.

A suddenly popular war will still benefit the Labour Party, as demonstrated by Iain Murray's admission of Blairism. All credit will go to the farsighted one. An unpopular war will see the opposition go, if anywhere, to the Liberal Democrats.

Perhaps we are at a situation comparable to 1688, when the political classes where competing in treachery, with a legitimist faction loyal to the servant of the King of France and a parliamentarian faction aiding and abetting the creation of a Dutch vassal state. Of course they dress their their post-patriotism in a messianic belief in either a corporate Europe or an imaginary Anglosphere - however the motive is the same, the wish to subject Britain to a foreign power.

They simply disagree about which one.