‘Do as we say’ won’t do

The Afghans would be entitled to feel a little aggrieved at the way the West has criticised their ‘fraudulent’ elections. Doubtless Hamid Karzai rigged the system to get the result he wanted, but in doing so, he was following a fine European tradition. The United Nations are suspicious that Karzai’s share of the vote was, in some areas, 100 per cent. But wasn’t this precisely same result Gordon Brown achieved when he was ‘elected’ Labour party leader after his character assassins had dissuaded all potential rivals from standing? Karzai may well have more support in his country than our leader does in ours. After all, no one outside Fife has ever cast a vote for the prime minister, and at the last Euro elections just 6 per cent of registered voters supported Labour. The rest of Europe has just as little right to criticise Afghanistan. The EU marches towards the ‘ever closer union’ by the simple device of holding and reholding elections until it gets the result it wants.