Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown united today in condemning three retired members of the defence establishment who have a letter published in today’s Times attempting to frighten voters away from voting Lib Dem with crude warnings what perils await Britain if the party gains power.
The letter has just three signatories: Peter Clarke, Sir Richard Dearlove, and Lord Guthrie. Former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown issued a masterly put-down of the trio in the Times:
Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Lib Dem leader who helped to draw up the party’s defence and national security policies, responded to today’s letter, saying: “This is a last-minute election stunt to frighten the electorate into voting for the Tories.” He said that he was surprised by the signatories because Lord Guthrie had agreed a report on long-term security needs that Lord Ashdown wrote for the IPPR think-tank and which had formed the basis of the Lib Dem manifesto. He said of Sir Richard: “He does have to understand that the world has moved on from when he supplied Tony Blair with his intelligence about Iraq and WMD.”
And Nick was no less damning in his critique:
I care passionately about the national security of this country but I am not going to take any lectures from a bunch of retired establishment figures about the security of this country, some of whom actually made the biggest mistakes in the run up to the Iraq war. And I am not going to apologise for calling for an inquiry in to the allegations that somehow British security services might have been complicit in torture.”
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12 Comments
From the letter: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7115062.ece
…we have serious questions about other key planks of their programme, which we believe deviate from that broad cross party consensus.
“Ooh! Deviants! How dare you disagree with anyone else.” Surely they can come up with a better criticism?
The Liberal Democrats make no reference to North Korea in their manifesto and pre-emptively rule out military action against Iran, the two greatest threats to the international system today. Cutting off options unilaterally seems to us precipitate.
North Korea doesn’t appear in the Labour or Conservative manifestos either, so that’s an odd criticism to make. As for Iran, is military action actually a credible threat anyway given the horrendous cost (human, economic, reputational) of the invasion of Iraq? Ruling out threats that are not credible is not actually cutting off any options, and may improve the tone of negotiations slightly. Economic levers still exist against Iran, such as their lack of refining capacity that means that they need to import much of their petrol.
Several senior Liberal Democrat frontbenchers have indicated that they might want to scrap the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent altogether, a colossal gamble in a dangerous world.
Some people would call spending £100 billion on a weapons system that few people can imagine firing at anyone to be a colossal gamle as well. Post-Cold War, what credible circumstances would their be in which the UK would wish to launch a nuclear ballistic missile at someone? If terrorists are “the No 1 threat”, who are we meant to retaliate against? Nuke the North West Frontier?!
The Liberal Democrats appear shy of putting forward serious new proposals for combating terrorism, the No 1 one threat to the safety and wellbeing of the United Kingdom.
They obviously weren’t listening when we suggested allowing intercept evidence in court, to help convict dangerous terrorists among others.
The Liberal Democrats’ unilateral abandonment of control orders, with nothing to replace them, would leave the United Kingdom exposed to some of the most dangerous individuals in the country, who could then be released onto our streets.
If they’re so dangerous, why have they not been convicted? Allow intercept evidence in court and this objection should fall. (Unless these men are willing to lock people up on the basis of hearsay alone?)
A thoroughly badly argued letter. No wonder they couldn’t get Blair to see that there was not enough evidence to invade Iraq if all their memos were like this!
I thought five generals had come out in support of not replacing Trident with a like for like weapons system. Five beats three, unless you’re a Tory trolling in The Time.
Do one welcome the views of retired establishment figures when they validate certain of one’s own views, and then petulantly dismiss them as retired establishment figures when they decline to?
Good one, Nick.
That violent jihad has been inculcated in British universities and other establishments is incontrovertible. D’you have any evidence of the assertion in parentheses? As it stands, it looks like an a priori assumption.
Blair’s case for the invasion (which I disagreed with) never was predicated on ‘WMD’ (which, I assume, is what this evidence refers to).
Alec, your opinions are so unfounded and such an obvious troll, everyone has decided not to feed you!
😉
You cannot tell me what to do, Paul. I have just as much right to be here as you do.
Troll =/= disagreeing with Paul McKeown.
Plus, it would have been better to wait more than eight minutes – or until a series of remarks which did avoid referring to mine had been made – before trying to deperson me.
There’re two points which which I raised. Why are you reluctant to address them?
One would assume because it becomes an argument only you benefit from. Defending an opinion is impossible on the internet.
In what way? The others in this thread seem pretty strident in their choice of words.
That’s the whole concept of political blogging out the window. These are very simple points…
i. It is not consistent to appeal to the authority of such-and-such retired defense chief when he can be said to have validated the Party line, but when another doesn’t, petulantly shout him down (this wasn’t an opinion on the Internet, this was from the Party leader).
ii. Tony Blair’s speech to Parliament for the vote did not mention ‘WMD’.
iii. There are highly dangerous individuals in this country, and I still would appreciate any evidence that the defense chiefs support internment.
But, by all means, bandy around accusations of trolling to avoid answering these.
The defence chiefs are defending control orders which is basically house arrest without a conviction in court. Last time I checked this wasn’t Burma and we should defend the principal of innocent until proven guilty. Allowing intercept evidence in court should allow us to convict these people either that or we can’t prove they are guilty
Alec:
(i) is a fair point, but rather ignores the reality of electoral politics; yes, in the final stages of an often nasty campaign, a bit of slightly inconsistent ad hominem is pretty inevitable. Clegg’s a sight more sinned against than sinning in this case; and there’s no basis for your equating this with “petulantly shout[ing] him down”. Nobody’s stopped any of these retired establishment figures from being heard.
(ii) Well, if you say so. I don’t remember Blair’s speech to parliament for the specific vote; but the idea that you can reduce “Blair’s case for the invasion” to just what he said in that single speech is specious. Are you seriously suggesting that Iraq’s possession of WMD was not front and centre of the months-long campaign by Blair and the whole government of which he was firmly in control to secure support for military action?
(iii) There are indeed highly dangerous individuals in this country – including paedophiles, armed robbers, murderers, rapists… But we cling to the notion that for any particular individual to be deprived of their liberty by the state, that individual should be proved before a court to have actually done something illegal. That’s the whole point of this argument. Niklas’ aside “(Unless these men are willing to lock people up on the basis of hearsay alone?)” is clearly a way of indicating what he feels is the logical conclusion of the REFs’ arguments, not an accusation of a plan for legal internment, so it’s either disingenuous or naive to demand evidence for this non-allegation.
Peter, there may be some similarities between the military top brass here and the superstitious thugs in Burma (such as, they wear caps), but there are more differences. Plus, a common misconception about the concept of innocent until proven guilty is that it does *not* preclude discussing an accused’s guilt.
Athough I am not a prosecution counsel, I doubt you are a defence counsel. So, taking to its conclusion, your [erroneously] invoking the concept means you shouldn’t discuss their innocence.
Malcolm:
i. It reveals, I am sorry to say, Clegg’s difficulty in accepting that with attention/popularity comes a need to justify oneself. Just a month ago, the Party didn’t expect this sort of coverage and could rest smugly in the knowledge that it could say anything *nice* and which appealed to a vacuous Islington-set which assumed the rest of the country was there it entertain it (not me, I’m voting for a genteel 19th Century laird).
… now he’s having to explain away the many holes in both economic, social and foreign policy plans; whilst questionable views of represetatives become apparent. The Party’s desperately trying to sit on Jenny Tonge, and then up pops Madeline Kirk!
… and, of course, he was suggesting they shouldn’t be interjecting.
ii.I do. Here is the Hansard record of Blair’s speech to Parliament on the eve of the vote. No mention of ‘WMD’.
… the idea that it was predicated on their existence is, quite simply, the Rashomon Effect. Yes, he was prepared to create the impression, but it’s not what he *said*. People heard what they wanted to hear (evidence of his charisma), and have no-one to blame but themselves if what they thought they heard was wrong.
… I’d be willing to wager that those cock a hoop over Clegg were similarly cock a hoop over Blair in 1997 (if they were old enough to vote then). The youth vote we keep hearing about is less likely to actually vote, and more likely to change at the last moment (and there’s a lot of still undecideds today). People well into their 20s, and older than some MPs, have difficulty making an informed decision on voting at X-Factor;
… all the more reason for raising the voting age to 30. Okay, 25 for women, 30 for men.
iii. Good argument dictates that one takes the most favourable view of others in the absense of evidence to the contrary. All Niklas should be able to conclude is that the security [1] chiefs would approve of intercept evidence.
[1] I am guilty of taking this post article at face value. Only Guthrie is a former defense chief. Clarke and Dearlove were Police and spookery respectively… Clarke rose from the rank of Pc. Some establishment figure!
Well, thanks for the link, Alec, from which:
… and on and on, throughout Blair’s speech. How on earth do you interpret that as “Tony Blair’s speech to Parliament for the vote did not mention ‘WMD’.” Did you not understand what WMD stands for?