On Second Thoughts

If Idle were the hon member for Goodwood and the Downs, as he clearly ought to be, he has no idea how he might have voted last night. Boy Assad is poisonous, just as Old Assad was, but there is something rather comforting about the fact that they are Shia Alawites who run a secular Ba’ath Arab autocracy in an overwhelmingly Sunni state, rather than religious nutters who would have us Europeans all dead or enslaved and a Caliphate in place. ‘Rather comforting’ may be the wrong expression, but you see what I mean.

Obama wanted the retaliation to the chemical atrocity to be ‘a shot across the bows’ of the Assad regime. What? Does he know what a shot across the bows means? It means a warning from which no one gets hurt. Where was he planning to lob his missile - into the ornamental lake in the presidential compound, injuring nothing except the prized collection of carp? I don’t think Obama knows what he is talking about, or what he wants to do. Maybe the story that Cameron has been lobbying Obama for months to get angry with Assad is true. Maybe Sam Cam’s visit to the refugee camp really did set this all rolling.

Cameron doesn’t know what the outcome of the Syrian civil war will be, nor has he expressed a preference, just that there should be no NBC weapons (it’ll take ‘em longer to kill each other with conventional stuff, but what the hell). Intervention will almost certainly not result 100% in the outcome desired by Downing Street and the White House, so the Law of Unintended Consequences will be unleashed (idle, in his 52 year span on earth, has discovered this law to be a bugger). Where is the British interest in all this? It is hard to fathom, though Cameron said he was clear in his own mind. He had reached his ‘judgement’ and he expected to have it supported by Parliament.

If we wondered what esteem Cameron is held in by his own party, let alone his coalition partners and Labour MPs, we now know.  Above all, last night’s vote established that the Prime Minister has neither the trust nor the confidence of the country to go wargaming on our behalf.

Mostly, this is Blair’s fault. His dishonesty and conceit will be remembered for as long as history books are written. Only ten years after his Big Lie, even strong prime ministers with working majorities (ie not Cameron) would have had difficulty winning a Commons vote on an issue as vague as Syria.

Cameron tried to square Miliband and thought he’d succeeded, but Miliband welshed on him, mostly for cynical reasons, but also because Miliband is another leader neither liked or respected by his MPs. Miliband is a strange creature – all earnestness and apparent honesty and bleeding-heart empathy, but with a fatal flaw in his character, which seems always to make him re-think after he has shaken hands, and to be dishonourable.

Well, the Ed Miller Band is one big step closer to Downing Street after Cameron’s folly of the past week, so we had better get used to the idea that this buck-toothed, goggle-eyed, camel-nosed Old Labour socialist is a probable, rather than possible winner of the next general election. Time to check that your passport isn’t about to expire.

Moving Day

Finally the house we wanted came on the market. It's a bit close to the town as you can see and is a flood risk, but one can't have everything. I'd love to have you all over for the weekend housewarming, but we're pushed for beds.

Idle is up to his ochsters in dust, boxes, spirit bottles less than a quarter full, ties he had forgotten about (some collectors' items from Hong Kong with appalling photographs on the inside of the wide bottom bit, as it were), and wardrobes full of clothes that he last managed to squeeze into a decade ago. Will any be thrown away? No. When the grim reaper starts clearing his throat I can see myself losing a few stone like my poor old Pater is suffering right now, and I want to avoid the mournful late-dotage look of a decrepit old gentleman in a collar four sizes too big for his shrunken neck. Same goes for kilt jackets, tennis shorts, lurid summer holiday trousers and cricket sweaters. I have unearthed a splendid collection of trouser braces that are a legacy of the 1980s City look. No, none of it will be binned; Lady Idle raises the eyebrow and curls the lip almost invisibly, but just enough to spell imminent danger and withdrawal of privileges. It is a risk that has to be run, however.

Three days after touchdown in the new gaff, we are off to the highlands to help them with their wildlife problem in the rivers and moors. Planned months ago, nothing one could do. Hurrah!

Enjoy the summer.

Courtside to Quality

I can't tell you how thrilling it was to be on Centre Court yesterday. The papers won't tell you this, for Andy Murray won a match at 9.30pm last night to reach the final, but before that, best player in the world narrowly defeated a huge, languid, talented, gutsy Argie called Del Potro, who charmed the crowd not just as underdog but as a great character with an ironic sense of humour. Idle has been lucky enough to get to Wimbledon most of the past twenty five years, and this was comfortably the highest-quality match he has seen. The sportsmanship was wonderful as well.

The serving was brutal and consistent - just seven double faults in 57 games, the return of serve astonishing, and the groundstrokes - well, I've never seen the ball hit so hard, so consistently, long rallies so breathtaking. Every now and again Del Boy, as some of the crowd insisted on calling him, unleashed what my host and I started calling his 'bazooka' - a forehand of extraordinary power, always crosscourt, barely clearing the net. Djokovic only once got his racket to it, which was an edge, taken at deep third man by a spectator in Row Z. The synchronised gasp and applause of 15,000 people when he did this, three or four times a set, was memorable.

This was TOP sport. Djokovic deserved his narrow victory. Del Potro deserved his own standing ovation. He will be a very popular man at Wimbledon for as long as he keeps coming here.

Filthy Lucre and the Greasy Pole

A gathering of honest MPs at Westminster

Like the old tale of the man who asked an Irishman for directions and was told ‘well, yer wouldn’t wanta be startin from here’, I suspect the answer to the question ‘should MPs be paid more’ is, ‘yes, but not THESE MPs’.

In other words, we want a much higher calibre of MP and we’d be prepared to pay enough to attract him or her. But much of the current lot deserve to be banged up for fraud rather than paid more.

There is a solution – fewer MPs, equal sized constituencies and open primaries. Make every single one of them go through a gruelling local selection by open primary. Allow no party placement or union sponsorship.

As in many other areas, Dan Hannan is clear and succinct:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100005603/open-primaries-will-eventually-become-the-norm/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/5680487/You_want_a_British_Obama_Try_open_primaries/

Jeff Says

Jeff Randall writes as clearly and as pithily as anyone on the subject of British business and HM Treasury. Here he is, putting very succinctly what everyone in Westminster knows, yet almost none of them are prepared to acknowledge:

When the government talks of “ring-fenced” spending, it is referring to health, education and aid. But, in effect, the protective cordon extends well beyond these areas. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, despite forecasts of higher employment and lower unemployment between now and 2017-18, social security spending – in cash terms – is not coming down. Neither is Britain’s interest bill, as it would be unthinkable to default on our sovereign debt (currently £1.3 trillion and rising).

Add up all the “untouchable” expenditure – social protection (£220 billion), health (£137 billion), education (£97 billion), debt interest (£51 billion) and international aid (£11 billion) – and £516 billion of the Chancellor’s annual outlay of £720 billion is hermetically sealed. Thus, if he is to make a dent in his £108 billion deficit, i.e. the annual difference between tax receipts and state spending, he has only £204 billion to shoot at. This, given the constraints of political realities, is a mathematical impossibility. It simply cannot and will not be done.

I think he is correct in his analysis and conclusion. Until or unless a credible politician leads one of the two main  parties and treats the electorate as grown-ups, we will continue to explore the area of the map marked 'Delusion'. I fear that the 2015 election is already set to be a bully-off between three parties who wish us to believe that a shade more 'austerity', or a shade more 'investment' will tip the scales. 'We care about ordinary working families more than they do!' - 'They got us into this mess!' - 'We can protect all public spending AND create an enterprise society!' Yadda, yadda, etc, etc. Ya boo sucks and how's my gold-plated pension pot doing?

2020 will be the election for grown-up politicians (maybe from one side only). Neither Cameron, nor Osborne, nor Balls or the Ed Miller Band will feature. A little bird in the Upper House who is close (by dint of his cheque book) to Number Ten tells me that Theresa May is the one to watch. She is running a tight Home Office, and has the respect of much of her party. I agree that she needs to work on her universal attractiveness, but she gets how bad things are. You may laugh. Just sayin'.

The Argument Against Intervention

I'm inclined to believe what Our (former) Man in Damascus has to say on the matter:

All this spin reflects a fundamental failure to understand the nature of the situation in Syria. Bashar al-Assad is a figurehead, not a dictator on the pattern of Saddam Hussein, or even his father.  If he were to leave for any reason he would be replaced in a twinkling of an eye by some Alawite general.  What some outside observers fail to realise is that the Alawites, having run a very tough police state for 40 years, simply cannot afford to lose power. If they were to do so, they believe that they and their families would be massacred. They may well be right.

On the other side, the rebels fear that, if the present regime were to be left in place, then the secret police would be after them in a flash and they too would suffer a terrible fate. Quite apart from this mutual fear there is, regrettably, now a deep seated desire for revenge by many of those on both sides who have suffered so terribly.

Let those who still think Western intervention could be remotely helpful in this dreadful situation make their case on Monday evening.  I suspect that they will struggle to do so.

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Sir Andrew Green is the former Ambassador to Syria. He will be speaking at the next Spectator Debate on 24 June, debating the motion ‘Assad is a war criminal. The West must intervene in Syria’ with Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Murray, Dr Halla Diyab and more. Click here to book tickets.

Aussie Electioneering

The Australians go to the polls in September and things are hotting up. The race is between a Welsh woman and a bloke who is famous for being photographed in his budgie smugglers. The last election was a dead heat between the two, with the winner decided by which of them offered the most money had the more appealing 'local infrastructure policies' to a couple of backwoodsman Queensland MPs who belonged to neither national party, but to the remnants or variants of the party founded by the remarkable Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

This is in pretty poor taste, but I feel it my duty to pass on to you the latest news from the stump:

The Liberal Party (led by Tony Abbott, he of the banana hammock) had a fundraiser recently at which the menu featured "Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail - Small Breasts, Huge Thighs and a Big Red Box".