Coalition in confusion as deputy prime minister pronounces invasion 'illegal' at dispatch box (Guardian)
The Deputy PM of the UK, standing in for the Prime Minister, twice pronounced the Iraq war illegal at Prime Minister's questions today. The constitutional convention of "cabinet responsibility" is now in disarray as they say he was speaking as leader of the Liberal Democrat party and not as Deputy PM. Problem: the government he is supposedly near the top of (actually he's only a messenger boy) does not admit the war was illegal.
Corporal Clegg also took the opportunity to stick his foot even further down his own throat by coming back unbidden and "clarifying" declaring an absolute date for pullout from Afghanistan. Yes, pull out a.s.a.p. but keep the other side guessing to avoid a more deadly military situation. Different matter if it was happening this year but he has cast his idiotic pall over the next five years. Straw tried to do Clegg a favour by inserting the word "conditional" in his summary of Clegg's answer about the withdrawal but wee Cleggy was too thick to take the hint and came back full of the hubris of a junior clerk who has just been promoted to line manager.
At least it means Labour now has the left field to itself, since it must be safe to assume that the LibDem's are toast. Straw hammered on and on about the cancelled grant to Sheffield Forgemasters versus the half billion married tax allowance that Clegg had derided before the election. I couldn't work out why Straw was so hot on it till I remembered Clegg's constituency is in Sheffield and it is fairly marginal.
Who shall we choose to slay them - Ed Miliband, no?
Malachy
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