On War

I was debating a friend on the subject of Blair and his legacy. The only thing my right wing opponent was interested in was the standard trope from the right that he's a war criminal, despite him having been exonerated by Chilcot and most of the blame being laid at the door of the security services for telling Blair what they believed he wanted to hear and using a dodgy source.

His intentions were honourable (the removal of a ghastly dictator), but the follow-on was cocked up by Bush. No mention of unprecedented funding for schools and education, no mention of the minimum wage, no mention of the GFA. The debate was shaded by the colour of my opponent's blue scarf and not historical fact.

The majority of the UK supported the Iraq war, before any dodgy WMD dossier, and the majority of those were Conservatives (war is a favoured tool of the right, as it instils paroxysms of mindless flag waving, patriotism and unquestioning loyalty - my country, right or wrong). Blair had more problems persuading the left to support him, than the right, as the anti-war stance is predominantly a left wing phenomenon. However, given that the war was eventually a failure in terms of the outcome, many on the right have had an attack of selective memory and can no longer remember supporting it, as a YouGov poll proved.

If Blair stands accused of being a war criminal, then Thatcher too must be similarly accused, especially as the government was considering the sale or lease of the Falklands to Argentina just prior to the war. The sinking of the Belgrano didn't exactly cover Thatcher in glory in the eyes of the international community.

As a consequence of the argument, I thought about how war is used by politicians in times of adversity - a war is always good for votes. Carl Von Clausewitz said, in his seminal work Vom Krieg; "War is merely the continuation of policy with other means." This can be adapted to; "War is the mere continuation of electioneering with other means," and I take full credit for coining that phrase.

The Falklands victory gave Thatcher a huge boost and reversed the terminal decline the party and Thatcher were in at the time. Thatcherism, massive privatisation, Big Bang and the demolition of the unions was enabled by her sudden rise in popularity - but only because her war was successful. It also led to a hole in the defence budget which has still not been plugged.

That's the difference between Blair and Thatcher and provides a salutary lesson - win a war and you'll be forgiven anything; lose it (or cock it up, as Blair did) and you'll be labelled, rightly or wrongly, a war criminal by those who actually supported you at first.

As an aside, I watched the Brexit Party political broadcast last night and not a single reason to leave the EU was articulated, nor a single policy, except for leaving the EU. There was some crap about healthcare lottery and the need for investment in jobs, but those are domestic issues and nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. It was a tour de force of total bollocks.