david cameron

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Unprecedented does not mean unexpected

The word of the moment is unprecedented. First we had unprecedented rain in Cumbria, then unprecedented rain in Lancashire and the latest unprecedented rain is in Yorkshire. In a few days we may well have more unprecedented rain. Everyone knows that we cannot control the weather therefore we can hardly be critical of government when mass flooding is the result of unprecedented rain.

This sounds a bit like the bankers comments about unprecedented debt default in 2007/08. But if your risk strategy is based upon calibrating future risk based upon past events you are always in danger of being caught out by changed circumstances. If default levels were low at times when credit was only provided to people who could afford to repay it one cannot use risk levels based on this when you start giving debt to anybody that asks for it, indeed to many who did not even ask for it.

In relation to the unprecedented rain levels they should not have some as a surprise to any government. Earlier in December 195 countries from around the world got together to talk about how collectively they were going to tackle climate change. Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have provided reports making it quite clear that our weather is now and will be more and more affected by climate change. Earlier this year Committee on Climate Change provided a report to the Government warning of precisely the problems we are now facing. The government chose to ignore it.

If you are told that unprecedented weather is likely to become the norm it is not good enough, once that weather comes, to say it is unprecedented as if this provided an excuse. Governments are supposed to have an eye to the future they should be preparing for what is going to happen not what has happened. The last government was much criticised for “failing to mend the roof when the sun was shining”. Ironic that we now have a government who seems to have done the same only rather more literally.

The truth of the matter is the government were unprepared for events which global, international and national agencies have warned about increasingly loudly for years. Expressions about our hearts going out to the victims of this devastation and the sterling work of our brave emergency services and armed forces does not cut it. This government needs to get real about climate change and recognise that it is going to cost serious amounts of money for sustained periods. The longer we pretend this is not the case the worse it will be in terms of personal upset and disruption and societal cost.

There is one important thing we should not lose sight of and that is the low number of casualties and very low fatalities resulting from these floods. This is in large part a testament to the improvements in weather warnings issued by the met office and Environment Agency. Timely warnings have enabled, in the main, contingency plans to be put in to operation. It is ironic we are so dependent on the micro-forecasting capability of climate scientists whilst we continue to treat the macro warnings with such a cavalier attitude.

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If you don’t know the answer don’t ask the question

What on earth is the West’s strategy in relation to Syria. Following the defeat of the executive in Britain, President Obama is setting things up for a rerun in the US. Congress cannot agree the time of day at the moment. The idea that they will vote for a strike to degrade Assad’s chemical weapon capacity is at best optimistic.

Congress might be persuaded that the credibility of US foreign policy is at stake and that it will undermine their authority globally, far beyond the issue of Syria, if they vote against the President on this key issue. If they do vote for it however, it will be on a motion so restrictive that Obama will have no room to respond to whatever the consequences are.

If they vote against it and Obama stands the troops down what will the consequences be? Too awful to contemplate for the opposition forces and civilians in Damascus. Whilst Assad is clearly a man with little regard for world opinion not knowing what the West would do will have stayed his hand, even if only slightly. When the West declares they are going to do nothing then nothing will stay his hand.

David Cameron has displayed a spectacular level of incompetence. He neither developed a compelling rationale for action nor managed his party in the division lobby with ministers allegedly missing the vote. He is now attempting to transform a humiliating defeat into a triumph for democracy. It is not. It has made an awful position a whole lot worse. Even having seen the mess in the UK President Obama is set to compound the problem. The decision of the UK to step back from taking action damages the credibility of our foreign policy. If the US steps back it damages the credibility of the West.

It is impossible to imagine circumstances in which Syria is going to end well. What is more it is set to ignite conflicts beyond its borders in the Middle East which looks more dangerous than it has for a long time. Beyond this the superpowers are banging up against each other. With all this it is highly unlikely that the West and the UK will not be forced to engage in the region in the not too distant future. It is a holy mess which it is impossible to see a way out of. I do not know whether now is the right time to intervene and whether intervention would have the desired effect. I am absolutely certain however that threatening to intervene and then withdrawing is the worst of all possible worlds.

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Fight, fight and fight again…

The Parliamentary debate on Syria has been an unedifying spectacle of incompetence and the scramble to secure the support of public opinion. Nowhere amongst the leaders of any of the main parties has there been a whiff of integrity. The prime minister has spectacularly misjudged his own party but has also failed to provide a compelling vision. A vision of how a limited strike against Assad, for acts of state sponsored terrorism against his own citizens, will improve matters for ordinary Syrians.

Mr Milliband has dithered to a position, which in the short term seems to be benefiting him. Starting from surprisingly strong support for the Government to a second position of significant caveats through to whipping his party to vote against an intervention. At best you can say he has read the mood of his backbenchers and tacked accordingly.

Considering the gravity of the issue neither the PM nor the leader of the opposition have adopted a position of principle and stuck with it. In 1960 Hugh Gaitskell lost a vote at the Labour Party conference on unilateral nuclear disarmament. He Did not say that he now “got it”. He did not extol the virtues of debate and the benefits of Party Conference democracy. His response was that he would “fight,fight and fight again…”

At the time it was an incredibly divisive debate and did have implications for Britains defence posture. However it was not about immediately committing the UK to military action in a foreign theatre. If the PM comes to the view that  that there is sufficient reason to contemplate this then he should not accept a defeat in the Commons as the end of the story. He should fight to reverse the decision or resign. Acts of war, which this would be are probably the most significant single decisions a prime minister makes. When they come to that decision, putting British lives in harms way, they need to be certain that what they are proposing is critical to British interests.

Britain is a Parliamentary democracy, not a democracy run by parliament. Parliament is a safety valve, a way of voting down a government which is doing something they deem unacceptable. When voting down a government MP’s minds are focused by the reality of a consequent election. It is said the House was stunned when the vote was announced. Clearly the result was not expected or wanted by David Cameron. We will never know but one suspects it was neither expected nor probably wanted by Ed Milliband.

I do not know whether we should have engaged in the current action to deter Assad in the use of chemical weapons against his own people. However, it is probably only a matter of time before we (the West) has to intervene in the Middle East. Syria is not an isolated problem, it is part of a region which is being torn apart by the religious schism between Shia and Sunni Muslim believers. Behind them are global powers with their own agendas and interests. There are a wide range of economic and security interests the UK has in the region which means almost inevitably we will have to engage.

The poor judgement of a Prime Minister casts a long shadow. The Iraq war was an unmitigated disaster albeit its citizens were subject to the same oppression by an odious tyrant, one who incidentally used nerve gas against his citizens in the Al-Anfal campaign in the 1980’s with impunity. Accepting Mr Blair acted in good faith then he is guilty of making one of the worst judgement calls in British Foreign policy, one which has reverberated through the current debates and one which may have fatally undermined Britain’s ability to develop an effective foreign policy for years to come. Mr Cameron’s judgement call was almost as bad and has compounded the problem. Many would argue that his handling of domestic policy is not right but it is at least arguable. His handling of foreign policy and defence is a disaster.