Airstrip One

Poor David Trimble has been saved! Hurrah for the nice guys. Well not so fast. Firstly he could only be saved by the switch of a number of the non-sectarian Alliance Party to labelling themselves as Unionist, which may be strictly correct as they want to maintain some sort of link with Britain, but they are not a solely Protestant party. So the idea that the Unionist community is behind the peace process has been shattered.

Then the Alliance demanded that the whole position that brought this shambles be dismantled, meaning that the whole idea of "power sharing" - meaning that both communities would have to agree to any decision - is now thrown out. It may suit the nationalists this time, but the Prods are still a majority in Ulster. And finally it has missed a legal deadline, meaning that this will be challenged by the courts.

Better get Plan B dusted down.

Historical Document's speech

Blair's speech to the Welsh assembly

The Duncan Smith article, on which he was accused of "wobbling" on the war. If only. Obviously they hadn't read it.

And the Parliamentary debate on the war. Good contributions from Bob Marshall-Andrews, Gerald Kaufman and Andrew Tyrie. Note the threat of menace when the Conservatives dare to question the conduct of the war.

Prize for silliest suggestion must go to Joan Ruddock who says that we should fight for Afghan women cabinet ministers. It must be noted that she used to be chairman of CND, so she's obviously changed her mind on questions of war and peace.

Doublethink

Some classic doublethink from the Commons Debate on international terrorism:

Paul Flynn (Newport, West): My question arises from an earlier intervention. Will my right hon. Friend now kill the myth that the conflict will have some effect on the flow of heroin to this country and confirm what the United Nations has just said--that the Taliban have reduced their poppy cultivation by 91 per cent, but the Northern Alliance has increased its poppy cultivation threefold? A great deal of the heroin coming to this country comes from Burma, Pakistan and other countries. Whatever the outcome of the conflict, it will have no effect whatsoever on the flow of heroin into this country.


Mr. Hoon: I am afraid that I do not agree with my hon. Friend, and I caution him against relying on the argument that, somehow, the Taliban regime had reduced the supply of heroin. In fact, the Taliban regime prohibited others from producing heroin so that they could exploit substantial stockpiles of heroin. Indeed, they were seeking to raise the price to derive further cash from that appalling trade. So I do not accept that there would not be a significant disruption of the heroin trade; it would certainly prevent the regime from trading in other people's lives to sustain its own appalling activities.

So, let's get this straight - the Taliban have stopped the vast majority of opium production because they want to drive up the price. Furthermore their stockpile was built up as a business assett, rather than from confiscating the stuff in a major crackdown funded by the United States. Sheer madness, and yet we are expected to believe this.

In my opinion the effectiveness of the drug eradication policy shows that the Taliban regime were far more susceptable to Western pressure than we are told.

Looks like poor David Trimble is about to be chucked out of his position of power. My feelings on this are split. On the one hand I think that Trimble is a decent man on the other the peace process is a farce which tries to paper over the fact that Northern Ireland has two mutually antagonistic tribes both of whom will be deeply unhappy if the other rules them. But our leaders, responsible as always, have decided that there should be "no plan B". Back to the drawing boards?

Two new web logs, one by Natalie Solent, which should be good judging by her contributions to the Libertarian Alliance Forum. And another by Perry de Haviland which looks quite glitzy. Hopefully they will update their web logs more frequently than I do. Welcome to anorak land.