Ed Davey Part 2

You may recall this extract from Ed Davey’s twaddle a few days ago:

“Third, we must respond enthusiastically to the strong leadership shown by President Sarkozy, not just over Georgia, but in his historic revision of Gaullism, with his proposal for France to join NATO. With Europe’s other major military power for the first time in decades prepared to join the defence pact we have with the US, surely we should be setting aside the lingering doubts some have over the place for the EU’s Defence and Security Policy.”

It was pointed out in the comments that France is a founder member of NATO, and has always been a member of NATO, even if its troops have not always been under NATO’s integrated command. Now we have THIS sad news from Afghanistan, where ten French soldiers have lost their lives.

One can’t help wondering how angry the families of these soldiers would be that a senior party spokesman on foreign affairs from Britain, one of their major allies and closest neighbours, is unaware of that France is not only a member of NATO, but is losing its own sons fighting along side British forces.

The Failures of Ed Davey

Ed Davey, the LibDem Foreign Affairs Spokesman has written a wonderfully incoherent article for LibDem Voice on the Georgian crisis. I thought Nick Clegg had ordered his troops to turn their fire on Labour rather than the Tories, but Davey appears not to be listening to his leader. He lays into Cameron for his "macho language" and then a few lines later talks about Russia being a "brutal bully". I think Cameron just used to the word "brutal". And then to cap it all, despite the Russians being "brutal bullies" he then says they have been "deliberately excluded and antagonised". Breathtaking.

He then writes...

Russia might be more impressed by macho talk from Dick Cheney and the Conservative Leader if it was accompanied by pledges to return defence expenditure to Cold War levels and introduce conscription. Yet the cold logic that led Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher also to propose major rearmament seems to have passed the neo-Conservatives by.

What on earth does that mean? That he supports a massive increase in defence expenditure? he then goes on to reaffirm the LibDems' commitment to abandoning the British nuclear deterrent - just at the time that the Russians are threatening a NATO ally (Poland) with being nuked.

It was Ed Davey, of course, who was behind the LibDems' policy of constructive abstention on the Lisbon Treaty, and who conjured up their embarrassing walkout from the House of Commons when the Speaker refused to call his abstention on an In/Out referendum.

Davey was once a LibDem rising star. In his current job he is totally out of his depth. Ming Campbell must be shaking his head in disbelief.

Of course, the real story is that Nick Clegg never wanted Davey in the job in the first place. He offered Chris Huhne the job of Foreign Affairs spokesman, but Huhne turned it down and insisted on Home Affairs. And the rest, as they say, is history. A bit like the LibDems.

Caption Competition: What is Nick Clegg Thinking?

LibDem Foreign Affairs Spokesman Ed Davey was ordered out of the Commons Chamber after the Deputy Speaker ruled that a LibDem Amendment to the Lisbon Treaty Ratification Bill would not be called. It sought a referendum on EU membership. Davey reacted with anger and after he repeatedly argued with the Deputy Speaker's ruling he was ordered out of the chamber. Several LibDem MPs upped sticks and followed him. Truly a pathetic sight. I could never understand why Nick Clegg didn't junk this ridiculous policy when he had the chance to, and instead commit his party to sticking by its manifesto pledge of a referendum on the EU Treaty itself. Anyway, see if you can come up with a suitable caption for what Nick Clegg is thinking in the above photo. Photo credit: BBC.