To be fair, or perhaps because he's on his 'hols', Dave has not indulged in too much triumphalism over the vanquishing of another tinpot dictator in north Africa. This is just as well because we have yet to see just how much of a celebration it is worth. It seems to me that the Arabs are in a state of flux with most of them completely mixed up over what to do and how to do it. This makes them easy pickings for the small minority who know exactly what they want and how they intend to get it. It was ever thus with revolutions. Even so, I suspect that Dave is quietly puffed with exultation that, despite the warnings from the Tory Right not to interfere, he did and he won! This, I fear, could go to his head and end up with him suffering a severe bout of the 'Blairs', a deadly disease derived from an intoxicating cocktail of halucinatory ingredients which leaves you feeling omniscient and all-powerful.
You are not all-powerful, Dave! You are the leader of a severely weakened, 2nd-rank, verging on 3rd-rank, country which, if you indulge it, will "strut its hour upon the stage" until the onlookers realise that it is stark naked in the high chambers of the world, at which point, you and it will receive a right good kicking! I urge you to go back and study your predecessor, good old 'Uncle Bob'! Er, that's Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, to you and me and the inspiration, when his nephew took over as prime minister, for that old saying "Bob's your uncle!" He, as they will have taught you at Eton, is famous for his policy of 'splendid isolation' in which he refused to involve this country in various adventures in which he could see no interest or advantage to Britain. Obviously you are better informed than me but I have yet to see a single advantage in our adventure in Libya. Of course, their oil is useful but they are going to sell it whoever rules the country because, apart from several zillion tons of sand, that is all they have!
In fact, whilst I'm on this 'glorious isolation' kick, Dave, perhaps you could return to your Tory roots and try isolating us a bit more from Europe. And while you're at it, you can also tell that prat who runs your exchequer to stop pushing the idea of euro bonds because we do not want an even stronger and united EU, what we want is to revert to the old Europe of sovereign states who can combine on those matters in which there is common interest and not be subject to orders from Berlin!
"Obviously you are better informed than me"
Ah, but it's what he does with the information and who has his ear and what they want him to do with it and how much information they let him have in the first place and the spin they put on it and the risks they don't tell him about and the rewards they exaggerate and all the stuff he can't possibly check himself because he never has the time.
Probably.
Posted by: A K Haart | Tuesday, 30 August 2011 at 20:26
I am not unsympathetic to the blizzard of information that is hurled at him but I am reminded of Churchill's memo to the First Sea Lord which went something like this: 'Pray, let me have your thoughts on the development of the Royal Navy over the next 10 years - on one side of A4 paper.'
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 30 August 2011 at 20:54
Well, I don't think Churchill would have mentioned A4 paper. It would have been quarto or foolscap, possibly even octavo.
Yes, I know. Picky, picky, picky.
That's life!
Posted by: Andra | Wednesday, 31 August 2011 at 07:03
I stand corrected, Miss, and I'll write my 100 lines out later - on a sheet of foolscap, naturally!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 31 August 2011 at 15:22