A tribe which had resolved to vote for Abdullah Abdullah received no ballot boxes, but the ones that they should have had were opened to reveal thirty thousand votes for Hamid Karzai. Which were duly counted. Of course.
When you've lost Eric Joyce, then you really have lost. He had no doubt expected to be a Defence Minister by now. And he has a point. One such Minister was elected to this Parliament as a Tory, and another is Kevan Jones.
Blathering from the Tories about lack of military experience in this Government. But how much have younger Tories? How much has the Shadow Cabinet? Are we to have wars merely so that Ministers will have military experience? That is why they have the military top brass on-hand.
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Sorry hang on - so you accept ballot rigging in Afghanistan, broadly reported by the BBC and other reliable witnesses, but deny the same occurence in Iran, broadly reported by the BBC and other reliable witnesses?
ReplyDeleteThere are no reliable witnesses to it in Iran. There are some very, very unreliable ones.
ReplyDeleteIn Afghanistan, we are talking about whole villages and tribes of not remotely politicised (or well-connected) people normally, who can present hard evidence.
Couldn't be less like Iran.
And anyway, when did any of our soldiers die to ensure a free and fair election in Iran?
Your position is completely incredible, and you know it. Your definition of "reliable" has no basis in fact and instead seems very much to mean "what I think".
ReplyDeleteNice to see Eric Joyce (is he still serving a driving ban by the way?) rehabilitated. He is after all at least once the MP who topped the Expenses League. And did he not resign from the army he loves because of its institutional racism?
ReplyDeleteOr am I thinking of a different Eric Joyce?
Perhaps I am thinking of the Eric Joyce who voted FOR the Iraq War and against an Enquiry.
Yet its nice to see ex-army officers in the Labour ranks. Tony Benn and Denis Healy and several other old Labour types were army officers....albeit during a real war.
I bet Joyce was popular at Sandhurst.
Of course he must be disappointed at being passed over for Ministerial rank especially after making a career as a yes man.
and being Bob Ainsworths Batman must be a bit depressing.
Still he might make a comeback as a Tory minister.
After all the tabloids are now lauding him and have conveniently forgotten all that nasty Expenses business. And the driving ban.
Turn, it is highly unlikely that a country as culturally and politically advanced as Iran would have a massively rigged national election, and the complaints are coming from wildly untypical North Tehran Trendies who simply cannot believe that Ahmadinejad has won for no better reason than that they do not know anyone who would vote for him. Afghanistan could not be less like that in every way.
ReplyDeleteOh, one way or another, Eric Joyce will be back, all right. In fact, he has far from gone away.
Rigging in the chicest parts of Tehran (or Kabul) is far less likely than rigging in the backwoods of Afghanistan (or Iran). These complaints ring true, the Iranian ones do not.
ReplyDeleteIf Kabul had any chic parts, of course.
ReplyDeleteThe Iranian complainants are highly politicised and used to their own way. The Afghan complainants are neither.
And I ask again, when did any of our soldiers ever die to ensure a free and fair election in Iran?