Outfoxed

Or, better still, Fox out.

Liam Fox against cuts? Pull the other one. He and and his CIA SpAd have a much-trailed scheme to abolish all three Armed Forces in favour of something like the United States Marine Corps, except in no sense an elite force, as part of the single EU defence "capability" under overall America command. It should never be forgotten that an absolute ban on Germany's having an Air Force was written into the Treaty of Versailles. To be deprived of this right by one's vanquishers is one of the great historic indicators that defeat has tipped over into humiliation.

Still, look at the people with whom the far more traditionally Tory David Cameron and William Hague have encircled Fox at the MoD. Apart from the Lib Dem Eurosceptic Nick Harvey, now on record against Trident, I do not know about Peter Luff, but Gerald Howarth is late of the European Arab Bank, Andrew Robathan has been on his travels courtesy of CMEC (Nicholas Soames, Hugo Swire, Crispin Blunt, Alan Duncan, Commons receptions to celebrate Norouz, you get the idea), and Lord Astor is actually CMEC's Vice-Chairman. No wonder that Fox feels the need for Luke Coffey to keep him company. Cameron has effectively given him a team of warders.

Swire, Blunt and Duncan are also Ministers, and could perfectly easily be bumped up to join Ken Clarke and Andrew Lansley in the Cabinet, as could Howarth, or Robathan, or whoever. Fox is far from irreplaceable, and appears to have been set up for a fall, taking the neocon entryist tendency down with him. We live in hope. Fox has an implacable, and probably pecuniary, opposition to Hague's pursuit of bilateral ties with Russia, with China, with Latin American countries, with the Arab world in general and the UAE in particular, with India, with Indonesia, with Japan, with the major Commonwealth countries of Africa, and through the Commonwealth generally. Never mind withdrawal from Afghanistan.

So, if you really wanted this Blairite defence policy and the abandonment of an anti-Blairite foreign policy based instead on common sense, decency and the national interest, then you could have hoped (and, if you could, voted) for David Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party and as Prime Minister. But not now. And Fox is also on his way out. Happy days. Happy, happy, happy days.