Peter Oborne is back in his David-Cameron-is-not-Disraeli-he’s-mad mode this week. He accuses the Prime Minister of losing the plot over Syria. As always, the ghosts of Iraq stalk this debate even though the two problems are scarcely comparable. For that matter, I’m not sure it is fair on Cameron to suggest that, after Libya, the Prime Minister has become war-crazy.
Yet I was also struck by something the estimable Tim Shipman reports today:
Mr Hammond was recently present when backbenchers suggested that the Tory leadership could do with ‘a small war’ to distract attention from party discontent over Europe and gay marriage. ‘It had better be a very small war,’ the Defence Secretary said.
Needless to say, this is a very silly way of talking. Even in jest. Banish too the unworthy thought that the Defence Secretary can appreciate how an intervention in Syria would burnish his case for resisting further cuts to the already squeezed defence budget.
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