Last week at Policy Exchange, the think tank of which I am chairman, General David Petraeus gave a fascinating lecture about what we are now not allowed to call the War on Terror. He spoke tactfully, but between the lines I thought I read a feeling that the fight in Afghanistan is in the balance. This made him emphatic in his praise of British troops: he can see the political dangers if we withdraw, he needs more of our men, and he wants this to be clear to a new Tory government. Now the Washington Post has leaked the views of the general on the spot, Stanley McChrystal. He sounds almost desperate for a greater US effort. The fact is that the Obama administration, having tried to reassure those anxious about withdrawal from Iraq by saying how important Afghanistan is, has not really followed up. It backed the re-election of Karzai despite British anxieties about his uselessness, and now appears not to have the will for what is needed next. Many welcome the retreat of American power after the Bush era, but what is actually happening is that small countries that want to be free are suffering, and big nasty ones — China, Iran, Russia — breathe sighs of relief. It is beginning to feel too much like the Carter era repeated.
The oddest thing about the case of Lady Scotland and her Tongan housekeeper is the speed with which it was ‘settled’ by the Borders Agency. A quasi-judicial process was all sorted out in a couple of days. Would anyone who is not a government minister get that sort of service?
In the new biography of Alan Clark by Ion Trewin (Alan Clark, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £25), there is mention of a correspondence about how to write between Alan and his father, Kenneth (of Civilisation).
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