Who's smiling now?
Which political party members are smiling after 100 days of coalition? The answer is a bit of a surprise.
The Tories have gorged on the Daily Mail diet of low hanging fruit. It will turn nauseous on them. Yes there is applause in scrapping speed cameras as part of the armistice of 'a war against motorists' that never was. When the increased toll of children killed in future accidents happens, the vengeance of the road safety lobby will be merciless.
Squeezing the poor and the scroungers are populist threats against the despised. When 20 million people discover they are being hammered, retribution will be fierce. Deluded, the Tories have leapt over a precipice. Like cartoon characters they will tread water in mid-air for a little while, then they will plummet to their doom.
The Lib-Dems have enjoyed an unexpected thrill of power. Clegg opened his first Question Time by reminding the Commons that he was the first Liberal since Lloyd George to answer PM questions. His euphoria was short lived. Clumsy, wooden-brained and hot=mouthed, his view on the Iraq war made our troops liable to charges of war crimes.
Even if Charles Kennedy is 'Liberal til he dies' many others of their MPs are on the edge of despair. Ming Campbell, Bob Russell, Mike Hancock and Simon Hughes are tormented souls. Not all of them will fight the next General Election under LibDems colours. Clegg has admitted that their local elections results next year will be dreadful. My view of the coalition Pantomime Horse is still a Tory head held high in the air to be admired and a LibDem rear end that delivers the crap.
Labour is broke and in impotent opposition. There are consolations. After thirteen years punch-drunk from repeated criticism, opposition is a heady brew of being right and virtuous of all issues. The coffers of the party will fill up. Even without a leader, Labour is level pegging with the Tories on 37 points. Seats that we lost in May will now be won handsomely if they fought now. Oh for a by-election.
Our annual conference will be the coronation of a very bright new leader with fresh ideas.
It's Labour that's smiling now.
Endemic cruelty
The latest propaganda ploy to shore up collapsing public support for the Afghanistan War is to claim that Nato is fighting for women's rights. The writer that I respect most on this subject is James Fergusson. He writes today:
The maltreatment of women is by no means exclusive to the Taliban, nor even to Pashtuns. It is practised all over Afghanistan, including by the state that Nato troops are currently dying to support. Witness the police chief, General Abdul Jabar, who remarked after Bibi Sanubar was killed: "This was not the way she should have been punished. She should have been arrested and we should have had proof that she'd had an illegal affair. Then she should have come to court and faced justice." As a contributor to arrse.co.uk, the informal Army Rumour Service website, remarked last week: "I'm guessing a guilty verdict by the Afghan courts would be followed by a stoning? What exactly are we fighting this war for?" The emotive observation on Time magazine's ghastly cover – "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" – was spurious, because it is happening anyway, while we are still there.
I am certain, after 14 years of encounters with the Taliban, that they are not beyond redemption. It seems a paradox, but in the 1990s the Taliban leadership did not see themselves as oppressors of women but as their defenders.