A strange silence has followed an extraordinary allegation from former
Lib Dem leader Lord (Paddy) Ashdown.
Lord Ashdown is, in general, a keen supporter of liberal intervention, and is careful about what he says, being a former soldier and a Privy Counsellor.
But a few days ago he said on BBC radio, while noting the feeble contribution of Gulf countries to the fight against Islamic State and to taking refugees:
‘The failure to put pressure on the Gulf States – and especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and Wahhabists; secondly to play a larger part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.’
I think this is an astonishing thing for a major politician to have said.
And:
The most miserable and dispiriting part of Wednesday’s war debate in Parliament was the number of MPs who were not embarrassed to read their pathetic ‘speeches’ from scripts which seemed to have been written by the Government whips.
Shouldn’t it be a minimum qualification for membership that you should be able to make a brief, coherent speech from the heart?
The trouble with these nonentities is that they don’t know or believe in anything, and have arrived in the Commons via a conveyor belt of ambition and flattery, quite unfitted to debate the future of a canning factory let alone the country or the world.
I wonder how many of them chose to ignore the views of their constituents, accept the orders of Downing Street, and then pretended that they were speaking their own minds?
And if Hilary Benn’s politically illiterate, factually challenged and emotive diatribe was a great speech, then we have indeed fallen on hard times.
I am not surprised that the Speaker, John Bercow, did not need to urinate throughout the long hours of drivel through which he had to sit.
I expect the whole thing put him into a politically induced coma, and all his natural functions shut down.
Lord Ashdown is, in general, a keen supporter of liberal intervention, and is careful about what he says, being a former soldier and a Privy Counsellor.
But a few days ago he said on BBC radio, while noting the feeble contribution of Gulf countries to the fight against Islamic State and to taking refugees:
‘The failure to put pressure on the Gulf States – and especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar – first of all to stop funding the Salafists and Wahhabists; secondly to play a larger part in this campaign, and other actions where the Government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative Party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.’
I think this is an astonishing thing for a major politician to have said.
And:
The most miserable and dispiriting part of Wednesday’s war debate in Parliament was the number of MPs who were not embarrassed to read their pathetic ‘speeches’ from scripts which seemed to have been written by the Government whips.
Shouldn’t it be a minimum qualification for membership that you should be able to make a brief, coherent speech from the heart?
The trouble with these nonentities is that they don’t know or believe in anything, and have arrived in the Commons via a conveyor belt of ambition and flattery, quite unfitted to debate the future of a canning factory let alone the country or the world.
I wonder how many of them chose to ignore the views of their constituents, accept the orders of Downing Street, and then pretended that they were speaking their own minds?
And if Hilary Benn’s politically illiterate, factually challenged and emotive diatribe was a great speech, then we have indeed fallen on hard times.
I am not surprised that the Speaker, John Bercow, did not need to urinate throughout the long hours of drivel through which he had to sit.
I expect the whole thing put him into a politically induced coma, and all his natural functions shut down.
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