Despite my reading about news and politics every day I have to admit that my knowledge of all things related to Afghanistan is at best patchy. For one thing, I vaguely recall the promise of a second round of elections a week or two ago after the clearly corrupt poll that took place in the country. However, over the weekend I read about Hamid Karzai's installation as President which presumably means that a second vote is no longer in the offing.I would warily suggest that the great British public have a similarly hazy knowledge of what's going on in that part of the Middle East and for that reason I would suggest that any nuanced, complicated policy on the Afghan War from any of the main parties would fall largely on deaf ears.
Putting it crudely, I suspect the Tories are seen as being strongly for the War, Labour in favour but less so, the SNP even more reticent and, for the the Lib Dems, no-one really knows for sure what they think. I don't like to see Politics dumbed down so I'll instead suggest that amending policies for our collective ignorance is merely 'meeting the people halfway'.
Nick Clegg recently drew praise from The Economist's Bagehot so maybe the Lib Dem leader is on the right path but I just wonder if his party, relentlessly punished in poll after poll on both sides of the border and finishing an abysmal sixth in Glasgow North East, would benefit from a clearer policy on the matter. Nick has the benefit of being able to adopt a policy that the Tories, Labour and, dare I say, even the SNP couldn't pull off successfully.
It may perhaps be cynical but with polls showing more and more support for an immediate withdrawal of UK soldiers from the region, more and more bodies being paraded through Wooten-Bassett and more and more money being haemhorrhaged into an unwinnable war, should Nick Clegg start the political clarion call to bring our boys home as soon as is humanly possible?
The Liberal Democrats won an impressive share of the vote in 2005 off the back of its oppposition to the Iraq War. A mansion tax policy will not reap the same dividends.
As the death toll rises in Afghanistan and the election date looms, an early stance on this issue on the side of public opinion could heave the 3rd party of British politics above that 20% mark.
2 comments:
Jeff,
Are you really, sincerely suggesting that a political party should decide its position with regard to war on the basis that it may help them in the next election. I emphasise the word 'should'. One of the many complex reasons we are in Afghanistan to try and build what was a failed state back up to where it can stand on its own feet again, as without that the Taliban would walk back in to power. You believe Nick Clegg SHOULD make his call on this based on the side he judges has most votes in it?
Bluntly, this is the strategy of a party that will never, ever have the ability to put its policy in place, because the voters would see it for what it was. It is (already) uKIPs stragtegy. It could easily be the SNP's strategy. Nick Clegg cannot do that, because he hopes to form a coalition government. He has to decide by taking the really hard decisions, like Brown and Cameron.
If Clegg does what you suggest, that will be the day we know that there will be no hung parliament, as the Lib Dems will have given up on it.
I'm a bit puzzled by some of your post to be honest, because I think that most of the general public (well the ones I know anyway) are very clear about the purpose of the action in Afghanistan. It is about securing routes from the Caspian region to deliver gas and oil.
And most people that I know are aware of the history of the region and are convinced that ''we'' don't stand a cat's chance in hell of any kind of ''victory''.
And I genuinely don't know anyone who believes the faux war on terror nonsense either.
What puzzles me is why the politicians seem to be so far behind the electorate here.
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