The reason that the government is incompetent in the area of defence is the same as the reason it is incompetent in managing the economy. Labour has lost its former belief in socialism - taking the means of production into public ownership - and is now, give or take a couple of taxes, virtually indistinguishable from the Tories. But while the party may have ditched socialism, its members have retained the prejudice against capitalism and capitalists. Indeed they have elevated this prejudice into a virtue, evidence of their concern for ‘working people’. This explains the unreasonable and unjust imposition of IHT on farmers, VAT on the parents of children at independent schools and increased NI contributions on employers. And of course America is the home of capitalism and Trump an arch-capitalist. So if Trump has initiated an attack on Iran, a vicious theocratic tyranny which recently murdered thirty thousand of its own citizens and is trying to build a nuclear bomb, he must be opposed and certainly not helped. So Keir Starmer dithered over whether the Americans could use the base on Diego Garcia and has failed to send British assets into the area, leaving Britain’s allies in Cyprus and the Gulf unprotected and making the country look weak.
Steven Rose ● 2h