David Cameron’s decision not to offer Malcolm Rifkind the kind of elevated shadow cabinet position to which the former foreign secretary believed himself to be entitled, deprived the Conservative frontbench of one of the more lamentable figures from the Thatcher-Major era. Thanks to an article last month in the Spectator, we have not, however, been totally deprived of Rifkind’s foreign policy insights.
One particular pearl of Rifkind’s wisdom is especially noteworthy. The Conservatives, he argues, should reject Blair’s policy of ‘liberal interventionism’. Wars should thus only be initiated when Britain is attacked, has treaty obligations, or where ‘there is a serious threat to the international community and no other remedies are available’.
Whatever one’s feelings about the Iraq war, let’s recall exactly where the kind of thinking behind the former foreign secretary’s derision of ‘liberal interventionism’ led us before. In the early 1990s, when the Serbs were subjecting the former Yugoslavia to the worst act of mass murder in Europe since 1945, Rifkind, then defence secretary, was a strong opponent of the policy of ‘lift and strike’. This was intended to combine a lifting of the arms embargo that was preventing the Bosnians defending themselves, with a series of Nato air strikes on Serb weaponry bombarding embattled cities like Sarajevo.
As Brendan Simms’ Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia details, when Margaret Thatcher along with Paddy Ashdown (but not, shamefully, the Labour frontbench) advocated such a policy, Rifkind accused the former prime minister of ’emotional nonsense’. Sadly, it seems that while some Tories who lost in 1997 used their time out of parliament to consider their mistakes in government, Malcolm Rifkind only seeks to repeat his.
On the subject of Tory foreign policy, we all know that David Cameron appeared uncharacteristically shy of the media spotlight during the summer’s Middle East conflict. But, as Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph helpfully noted, was the Tory leader really so keen to avoid the topic that he used his first post-holiday interview to call for employers to provide showers at work, thereby encouraging more people to cycle to work?
Congratulations to former independent MP Martin Bell. By 11am on the day the plot to blow-up aircraft flying from Britain to the United States was revealed, he had already managed to post a Guardian Comment is Free blog blaming the government’s foreign policy. ‘Alone among the countries of Europe, Britain has not pressed for an immediate ceasefire in the month-long Middle East conflict,’ Bell wrote. ‘Our government has endangered us. It is time we connected the dots.’ On the other hand, maybe Bell just had a little something all lined up and ready to go just for circumstances such as these.
Sadly, it seems Bell wasn’t the only one playing politics with terrorism. Agence France Presse reports that on the day before the police raids began, ‘the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn’t: news of the plot could soon break.’ While one White House official told AFP that ‘weeks before September 11, this is going to play big’ and would ensure some Democrat congressional candidates would not ‘look as appealing’, another Republican Capitol Hill aide simply said: ‘I’d rather be talking about this than all the other things that Congress hasn’t done well.’ Nice to know President Bush’s party takes the threat of terrorism so seriously.
Finally, in our haste last issue to give you the low-down on David Cameron’s A-list, it seems that the appearance on it of Maria Hutchings rather escaped us. Readers will recall that Hutchings confronted Tony Blair on television last year about the standard of care received by her autistic son. So far, so fair. The Conservativehome website describes her simply as a ‘disabled rights champion’. Again, very commendable. But maybe her comments to reporters at the time suggest that her compassion begins at home – and stays there.
‘With an increasing number of immigrants and asylum seekers, the pot is reduced for the rest of us,’ she told them. ‘Mr Blair has got to stop focusing on issues around the world such as Afghanistan and Aids in Africa and concentrate on the issues that affect the people of middle England like myself,’ Hutchings continued, before masterfully concluding: ‘I don’t care about refugees. I care about my little boy.’