Nobody’s Policy: the Invisible Hand of War

Last night, Britain’s MPs voted 285 to 272 against any military action in Syria. The press has thus far interpreted it as collapse in Cameron’s support and a guarantee that there will be no British military action in Syria. They couldn’t be more wrong.

The startling vote happened by accident. Iraq’s shadow looms large in the minds and on the lips of the public. Both the PM and Miliband know this – it is for this reason that Cameron recalled Parliament early. Labour, seeking public redemption for their Iraq disaster (and probably to score political points), sought and got various assurances, lengthened the timescale, tabled an amendment and ultimately rejected the motion.

And despite all the checks, balances and assurances, many Conservative and Lib Dem MPs weren’t convinced either. The motion was defeated. What we have now was nobody’s policy.

This is because a deep feeling pervades that all these caveats are only ceremonial – that the invisible hand of war is at work, pulling strings and loading missiles onto warships.

And the likelihood is that they’re right. France’s Hollande has alacritously announced that le vote brittanique ne change rien. Obama – who pundits have accused for months of being too slow to act – has got to do something. The red line he set out has been crossed.

Two things have become clear. One is that military intervention would be deeply unpopular both in Britain and abroad. It would also stand a strong chance of making things worse. The other thing is that intervention is not what the US – or Cameron – are mulling. They want a limited ‘punishment’ strike to deter Assad from further chemical weapons strikes.

The trouble is, out here, any strike at all would be seen as the former, not the latter. The situation is highly volatile. It may be that Parliament’s vote will be enough to stop the drums of war.

But more likely is an American strike at the weekend. If this happens, the ramifications cannot be foreseen. Russia has moved warships into the Mediterranean and Syria is murmuring about a counter-strike. British bases would be a possible target. Any such strike would demand a British response.

This could be a unique historical moment in which war is democratically averted – political realists could have to rewrite their doctrines. But an attack without Britain is more likely. That invisible hand is an insistent one.

And if such an attack goes ahead, the consequences are utterly unforeseeable and potentially catastrophic. If people think that the risk of Britain being sucked into a wider conflict has disappeared, they are gravely mistaken.

Syria isn't Iraq, Bombs aren't Boots & Cameron isn't Blair

If you want to read about my own views & the thoughts of some Syrians & Turks, I wrote this longer piece for politics.co.uk a few days ago.

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This is a short post being rushed out - in the spirit of the moment, I suppose - in the comforting knowledge that nothing I say has any bearing on events. (Ah - the comfort of irrelevance!) 

Time Running Out?

In Downing St. the stakes are high, as they are in Washington, Damascus and - lest we forget - New York. This urgency, though, is something of an illusion. Chemical weapons have been used in Syria by someone. Assad or Iranian 'help' seem to be the likely culprits.

The West want to 'punish' this step because they (we) are terrified of chemical weapons. They're vile and unethical, for one thing. But also they're a weapon that liberal democracies like us effectively can't use, so they set a precedent which puts us at a strategic disadvantage in future conflicts.

The rush, then? There is a window of something under a week to declare armed response. After that, the moment quite literally passes. Retaliative attacks have to be hasty. This is a structural problem in international politics that weighs against comprehensive evidence gathering & analysis.

Iraq & Kosovo

Plenty of usually intelligent political pundits are offering extremely simplistic and populist views to the world via Facebook statuses and tweets. Let's do a quick recap.

• Iraq in 2003, Kosovo in the 1990s, Libya in 2011, Sierra Leone in 2000 and Syria now all constitute different countries at different times. The scenarios are therefore different. Anyone who has a basic grasp of geography and a watch should be able to understand this.

• Bombing raids of the kind seen in Libya & proposed in Syria are inherently different to full invasions of the kind seen in Iraq. Anybody who has a basic grasp of the principle of aviation should understand this.

• Unilateral, bilateral and multilateral declarations of war are different to the tabling of motions to the UN. Everybody should be able to understand this.

The Same Mistakes

None of this negates the fact that the US and France are now marching towards intervention at top speed. The UK is following, perhaps more reluctantly (interestingly, we had been at the forefront of diplomatic 'threats' but now seem to be having second thoughts). France is talking openly about punishment, the US is finally using its classic hung-ho language (Obama conspicuously absent) ...and the UK is tabling a UN resolution. 

This is a markedly different UK policy than seen under Blair - a sign perhaps that the Special Relationship is receding, that Hollande is seeking a bigger international role or that the Coalition is cautious about repeating the politically toxic distaster of New Labour in 2003.

Still, ships are manoeuvring and missiles are being primed. Western rhetoric makes an attack look likely despite - as I wrote recently - this being hugely unpopular in the Muslim world and the fact that Britain would, in effect, be aiding Al-Qaida and other radical Islamic groups, by bombing Damascus.

Is it the Economy, Stupid..?

One alternative view is that Western powers may have felt unable to intervene before now as domestic economic woes made any attack unjustifiable at home or to markets. With modest economic improvements, leaders may now feel they can 'get away with it' where before they couldn't.

Finally, lest we forget, plenty of military intervention is already underway in Syria - Islamic hardline groups, Iranian help and even Western jihadists have descended on the Civil War, distorting its dynamics and committing disgusting atrocities as they go along. 

Syria is increasingly a pawn in the wider fights of Russia/China vs. the 'West'; in extreme Islam's attack on anything less (presumably to the horror of Syrians, who are mostly as moderate as the average COI Christian) and now, it seems likely, in our moral crusade against chemical weapons.

I'll close as I closed my other piece: tread lightly, tread very lightly. It will be difficult to do much good, easy to do damage and both the stakes and the body count are rising every day. Until we know exactly what we're doing, let's not make the latter any higher.

A Bulldog's Best Friend...

It transpires that the European Union may be set to become, in at least the case of the present altercation between Britain and Spain, the Great British Bulldog's best friend.

Spain has been beset of late by unbelievable unemployment, economic stagnation and a painful near-irrelevance in supranational EU politics. Frustrated and no doubt influenced by the approach of the next general election, the Spanish government must surely be looking out for vote winners.

And one of the great laws of modern history (along with 'Don't Invade Russia') is that if you want to court popularity at home, pick a fight with Britain abroad.

Thus Spain has embarked on a give-us-Gibraltar campaign of lengthy border checks, threats of steep new charges and incendiary rhetoric. Britain has responded… well, how? By grumbling gruffly about Franco? Of course. By pointing out the obvious fact that Spain's economy is a mess, and that this may well be motivating their fractious behaviour? Well, quite. By sending a warship? Incidentally, yes.

But not as big a ship as we sent to Argentina.

In fact, the UK's main response has been to go to the European Commission for mediation. This is curious for two reasons. Firstly, half of the Cabinet rather worship the late Baroness Thatcher, who famously reacted very firmly indeed to Argentina's 1982 invasion of the Falklands. They must be positively itching to send one of our vastly superior warships out there to 'make our point' to 'the Spaniards'.

Secondly, the semi-governing Conservatives are hardly the biggest fans of the EC. In fact, some of them would quite like to remove Britain from its jurisdiction. Yet their leader, the centrist David Cameron, has chosen to use EC-level dialogue as his policy method of choice.

It's a strongly pro-EU statement from the PM and a bit of a gamble. If the EC essentially come down on Spain's side, anti-European sentiment in Britain will grow. Certain disreputable dailies will, no doubt, be outraged. Backbenchers will bawl Itoldyousoooo and UKIP will achieve party-wide collective orgasm at Cameron's PR own-goal.

If, however, the EC takes Britain's side in the row and Spain is forced to back off, this could be a turning moment in Britain's Great European Debate. The most patriotic and militaristic elements of the press (sadly also the most well-read) will be torn between churlish triumphalism and their traditional antipathy towards all things EU.

Either way, this is both a sagacious and a laudable move from the Prime Minister. Once again, however things pan out, I am impressed, Mr. Cameron.

Oh, and by the way - good luck with the bad back.

It's the cheap beer talking

This is a post I wrote months ago, only to neglect to click 'Post'. Which is ironic, given the title.


It is a while since I have written anything. The topic which prompts me to break my silence - a minimum unit price for alcohol - does so because it is subject to so many misapprehensions and misappropriations of liberal doctrine (particularly the writings of JS Mill, Smith, Paine). I will throw a few brief observations into the ring in the hope that they may add a degree of… how can I put it… common sense...

Government Caves In

Judging by the industrious leaking of government plans to drop the minimum price proposals, it is likely that this post is a waste of time. I say this partly because I support a minimum price (read on…) and therefore feel as though I am on the losing side of this particular battle.

Also, though, I am aware that many far more authoritative voices than mine are urging Cameron to hold firm with the plans; I hardly expect my adjunct to these compelling arguments to be (drunkenness pun ahead) the pea in the mattress. Still - I'll give it a go.

Out-of-Touch Memberships and In-Touch Leaderships

Since long before the beginning of this Parliament, mainstream British parties have largely accepted that we have a national problem. Many British cities become dangerous, unpleasant and frankly ugly places to be at night. The 'civilised' night-time atmosphere of some of our neighbours is not to be found in Britain.

It costs a huge amount in NHS bills - but more fundamentally, it is a problem in and of itself. We should take pride in our cities. Mine is not so much a last-century, draconian viewpoint (as I have heard members of all three major parties proclaim) as an acceptance that we have a collective responsibility as a society. Our public spaces should not be places where the old, the meek or the sober are afraid to go 'after hours'.

Allowing the nightly banishment of civilisation and manners from our streets is hardly taking this responsibility seriously. It is curious that while party leaderships acknowledge this, many members don't. Comments about turkeys and Christmas come to mind.

Nonsense about Liberty and All That

An argument that comes up periodically from liberals (like myself: Mill has pride of place on my bedside table) is that a minimum price is an 'affront to our freedom'. How dare the state tell us what we can and can't do? Nannying… big brother… who are they to say?

The answer, I'm afraid, is that sometimes it's the state's job to tell us what to do. Don't forget, fellow liberals, that law is, in a democracy, essentially a collective act of self-regulation. This applies to seatbelt law, for example, as well as food labelling rules, home production of alcohol, home maintenance of electricity wiring, illegal substances (another whole debate here…), dangerous or endangered pets, animal treatment, fire alarms… and to issues of civil order and public decency, within reason, too. And well it should.

Liberalism deals with freedoms of speech, expression, belief and lifestyle against the tyranny of state or social convention. Aha! you cry. Lifestyle… well, no. Moves to discourage harmful practices like restaurant smoking, junk-food school meals, binge drinking etc. - the latter often objectively damaging to those around you, even if you're enjoying it - are not illiberal. We all accept some limits on our lifestyles in order to safeguard diversity, cooperation and public health. The question is where to draw the line.

So if non-binge drinkers feel unable to walk the streets at night, if squeezed NHS budgets go on repeatedly pumping stomachs or patching people up after drunken accidents, if teetotallers or moderate drinkers are marginalised for not wanting to be a part of all this - then, Madams and Sirs, a minimum alcohol pricing may not be a panacea but it may do some small amount of good. As is it perfectly in keeping with Mill et al.

And I find it disingenuous of some of my fellow liberals to suggest otherwise.


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Interested in the factual argument for minimum alcohol prices? Check out this meta-study:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02438.x/abstract

Where is the Labour Party?

or One nation, but how many Labour Parties?

An article on The Backbencher entitled Why I'm Leaving Labour will delight supporters of the Coalition. Of course, for every Labour member snipping angrily at her or his card, there are probably three Lib Dems doing the same as well as cohorts of Tories. Nevertheless, Mr. Oliver's protest is one of a growing number of warning bells which must by now be reverberating quite loudly in the heads of the Eds.

The problem is this: people are starting to ask, where is the Labour Party? Miliband the Younger was neither the bookies' favourite to win Labour's 2010 leadership contest nor in fact the favourite of its membership. Trade Union votes tipped the scales and thus poor Ed - previously a loyal, centrist Brownite - was dubbed 'Red Ed' and the Tories had a field day.

But while the right wing of British politics and press were rolling about in the result like swine in mud, the left was asking rather more nervously, is Ed up to it?

Well, not all of the left: as a Lib Dem supporter, the defeat of David by Ed filled me with relief. The younger sibling seems very much the lesser sibling. The prospect of young Ed as Prime Minister brings to mind this fantastic scene from Blackadder - not a good sign.

But Ed worked hard to shed his 'lefty' imagine and has largely done so - he is now seen as somewhat obscurely centrist. This has not ended his woes: effecting to remedy the former charge, Ed only exacerbated the second. He traded lefty-ism for ineffectuality.

Even his own MPs are unimpressed. And polls consistently beat him up as the least inspiring, least consistent, least PM-worthy of party leaders. His 'flip-flopping' (a term originally reserved for Mr. Clegg) has been continuously pounced upon, yet his occasional boldness on issues like party funding and Europe has been largely ignored.

All this makes woeful reading for Labourites. Yet reading Mr. Oliver's aforementioned article, one realises that there exists a more fundamental disconnect. Many of Labour's members never really wanted the sort of centre-right politics of Blair et al. The party, although badly factionalised, still has decidedly 'lefty' instincts and might, one hopes, be proud of them. From thence Labour came and to there, some say, it should return. But having taken such pains to shed his 'red' image, can supporters really expect Ed to be the one to take them back?

So perhaps as well as asking where Labour is, we might also ask what Labour is. Leftist? Centrist? Pro-austerity? Anti-cuts? The sad answer, I think, is that Labour knows very well that British politics has become steadily less ideological and more 'Who's going to fix this?' in tone. Leaving behind the indignant militancy of times gone by, we have now entered an epoch of political trench warfare, trapped in the burrows of an anachronistic electoral system, stalemated, periodically trading lacklustre fire, nobody willing to go over the top first.

So Labour say only what they imagine voters are listening out for.

And maybe that's all they can do. Because - if we're honest - we all know that if any party can break this stalemate, it is not Ed's new-old-Conservative-old-New-Labour Party.