Airstrip One

The mainstream anti-war coalition may be full of decent people, but as this piece shows they will fluff their chance.

The strongly Marxist-influenced campaign against the war really can not win this debate. Very few people care for Marxist revolution and will be turned off by neo-Marxist rhetoric like the following:

"I have never seen, to use an old fashioned phrase, the forces of capital as divided about a war as they are about this one. There is no sense of unanimity around this war," she [Dianne Abbott] told the meeting.

They then talk about disrupting traffic and calling transport strikes. Now that's one way to turn the public off.

Then we have this classic:

Sophie Bolt, of London Region CND, warned of the danger of a conflict in Iraq escalating into a nuclear war.

She said CND's top priority was now preventing war in Iraq and "ending the illegal action by Israel against Palestine".

Oh well, I thought that CND was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and not a Palestinian lobby group.

There's a lot of triumphant talk about how the British public are against this war, but there's precious little sign that they understand why.