Joan Ruddock and the Iraq war: an unusual self-description

By Mark Pack | Sun 11th April 2010 - 7:50 pm

Joan Ruddock didn’t vote in four of the six key Parliamentary votes on going to war in Iraq used by the independent Public Whip website (which sorts and reformats the official Parliamentary voting records) to analyse MPs’ voting records on the war.

So how do you think Joan Ruddock describes this two-thirds absent record in a target letter to voters?

This is how:

I have always acted with integrity and stuck to my principles – voting against the government going to war in Iraq.

As local Liberal Democrat blogger Max puts it:

So, I don’t think she’s being straight at all by saying that she voted against the government going to war in Iraq. She didn’t do a Robin Cook or even a Diane Abbott, at the crucial moment she wasn’t in the room.

Something that voters should know, and that can potentially affect her chances for the forthcoming elections since it’s not just an embarrassing statement but also a great way to remind people of the clear position that Lib Dems took against the Iraq war.

She’s the incumbent with a large majority, but the debate is just starting. Lib Dems were the second party in Lewisham Deptford in 2005 and with the redrawing of the constituency boundary to include Lewisham Central ward (where Lib Dems are the first party) our chances have increased.

The Liberal Democrat candidate is Tamora Langley.

6 Comments

Alec 11th Apr '10 - 10:40pm

Something that voters should know, and that can potentially affect her chances for the forthcoming elections since it’s not just an embarrassing statement but also a great way to remind people of the clear position that Lib Dems took against the Iraq war.

It really depends if voters care about it.
Jane Leaper 12th Apr '10 - 12:29am

I voted Liberal Democrat for the first time in 1992 when I was living in Joan Ruddock’s constituency. It was a protest vote because I did not think she, or local Labour councillors, had been honest about issue of the channel tunnel rail link. They had suggested that they did not know that it was planned to go through the constituency (which suggested they were unable to draw a straight line on a map with a ruler). In fact the information about the rail link had been available for some time and I think they actually supported it and just hoped the residents of Lewisham who were affected wouldn’t notice. So I’m not at all surprised by this latest example of Ruddock spin, but I can thank her for getting me to reassess my political values because I’ve been a Liberal Democrat supporter ever since.
Chris 12th Apr '10 - 11:09am

Alec says “It really depends if voters care about it”
She wrote about it in her letter to local people so she seems to think that voters care about the Iraq war.
Alec 12th Apr '10 - 11:52am

Alternatively Chris, she’s become convinced by those who’ve become convinced that their obsessing about the invasion for the past seven years that it amounts to a hill of beans. Would that not be post-modern?

I don’t know what notional majority she now has in the new constituency, but in 2005 she sailed home… as did Briget Prentice and John Dowd, in Lewisham, both of whom supported the invasion. By accepting that most people just don’t care about Iraq (and, when they did in 2003, there was majority support), you’ll become a happier person. I did.

Jane’s anecdote about Ruddock’s slipperiness rings true for what I know about her, and I ain’t really surprised at this. Yet, boring local issues like the Channel Tunnel link are relevant to voters and what they’re likely to base their choices on, not high falutin discussions about wars which have been over for no less than five years.

And, enough of this ‘principled’ position the LibDems took “against Iraq”. A couple of votes in Parliament, or a day out on a bright February morning before returning to life as normal (not least when those in disagreement on this topic just ain’t as *emotional*) ain’t a sacrifice! Apart from the likes of Paddy Ashdown, how many LibDems (indeed, any politician) has committed to working directly with peace negotiations?
Matthew Huntbach 12th Apr '10 - 9:46pm

Yet, boring local issues like the Channel Tunnel link are relevant to voters and what they’re likely to base their choices on, not high falutin discussions about wars which have been over for no less than five years.

I think you will find LibDem campaigners in Lewisham are pretty clued-up on what’s relevant to local voters. I’ve just been delivering in my old ward of Downham in that borough. I remember 1997, Downham Way was covered in Labour stake-boards, though I held my seat comfortably in 1998. 2010, it’s covered in LibDem stakeboards. Most of the council seats in Bridget Prentice’s old constituency were won by the LibDems in 2006. Not surprising she’s stepped down.
Max Calò 24th Apr '10 - 1:06am

Thanks for highlighting the story.
I was now given the opportunity to tell it in today’s Guardian CiF:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/23/general-election-2010-labour

And reading the comments one jumps out:

mathanai

23 Apr 2010, 8:17PM

I was a candidate for final selection at the Deptford Labour Party when Joan Ruddock was selected for the first time as candiate. Many of my friends urged me to adopt a more left wing posture than I was prepared to. Having moved away from some outlandish policies the Left in Deptford was demanding at the time I was not prepared to oblige whereas Joan posed as the former chair of the CND and a confirmed radical. When she got into parliament all she wanted was to be a minister. Therefore, I am not surprised she lied about her anti-war votes.