I asked in my earlier blog whether “David Cameron wouldn’t, would he, take the country to war with half an eye on further dividing an already divided Labour Party?” His astonishing comment tonight to his MPs suggest that is exactly what is happening. The BBC reports as follows: The prime minister called on them not to “sit on their hands” and side with Jeremy Corbyn and others he labelled “a bunch of terrorist sympathisers”.
There are only three possible explanations for this:
– He made his comments not expecting them to be repeated outside the room.
– His comments were “off the cuff” and he didn’t really mean them.
– He knows the Labour Party is bitterly divided and he decided, quite deliberately, to deposit the entire contents of an oil tanker into the already fiercely burning flames.
I’m afraid it was almost certainly the latter and we have reached a new low in politics, right down there with John McDonnell’s quoting from Mao’s little red book last week.
Cameron, you may recall, decided some years ago to ditch the “Yah Boo” element to politics, but he has been one of its worst protagonists ever since. Corbyn, meanwhile, promised to bring in “new politics” which turned out to be nothing other than a rehash of the old politics.
And what an astonishing coincidence that the debate on whether to call for air strikes on Syria should happen the day before a by election in a seat that Labour is defending. Of course, it’s not a coincidence, this is cynicism of the lowest order. Playing politics with the lives of our armed service personnel, no less.
Just when I thought politics couldn’t sink any lower, it sinks lower. Labour, under the bungling incompetence of Corbyn, lurches to the wastelands of permanent opposition, whilst Cameron deserts any principles he may have had left in pursuit of point scoring.
Perhaps it’s the mood I am in, but I am utterly disillusioned with politics tonight. I finally decided to oppose military intervention in Syria this time because I was not convinced of the merits of the argument. The I see the prime minister apparently playing party games whilst men and women are being sent to war.
I don’t trust Cameron and I don’t trust Corbyn and I never trusted the Lib Dems who, tonight, have – surprise! surprise! – thrown in their weight behind the Tories, as they always do when times get tough.
It’s a new low.
