Dannatt's departure means one less cook stirring the defence broth

strapworld

So, not only have the Labour Party done this fine man down. So has Cameron! Now Cameron has gone down in my estimation.

At the very least he should be elevated to the Lords and allowed to sit on the cross benches, or wherever he wishes. This man has served this country far more than the Lord Prescott god forbid!

I thought Cameron had every respect for this man? I thought he respected the armed services.

To treat such a good man this way is shabby and quite disgraceful.

Cameron, to have allowed this, is weak and duplicious. Blair lite I once described him. Perhaps I was right?

TrevorsDen

Nope - I do not see this as doing anybody down.
It was always a piece of pre-election positioning, to emphasise Labours shaky position on Iraq and Afghanistan. Labour had Sugar, Tories picked up Dannat.

Surely the likely reason is Dannat not liking the idea of the world of politics; probably got a more lucrative offer.

I am not sure Dannat's record (or anyone in the army to be honest) on persisting spending on FRES as opposed to MRAP makes him a good advocate. Although I thought his comments in a recent (Telegraph?) article were sensible enough - and he was not particularly peddling an anti treasury or cuts line.

Tarka the Rotter

Awww cummon - we are talking about politicians and their promises... is anyone surprised? They promise the earth and give bullshit, get real!

Tiberius

Strapworld: you're writing a lot of good stuff at the moment, but your underlying opinion of Cameron does seem to be built on sand. The guy is for the long term, a fact that also seems lost on Melanie Phillips.

Victor Southern

Melanie Phillips of course hates Cameron and anything other than the Right red in tooth and claw. In that she is with Heffer and Hitchens - caricatures and becoming figures of fun.

You may notice that her blogs do not seem to have any dissenters at all. I have found that I attempt to reply with some demurral over the extreme statements she makes my posts simply do not appear.

I do not even disagree with her basic position on Israel, just with the wildness of her writing, so inflammatory in style, so condemnatory of any politician who is not an Israeli hawk.

Richard of York

The useful idiot is not longer useful but still an idiot.

Used and now burned.....nice one sham man.

Frank P

Victor Southern (11.07pm)

Your non sequitur would surely be better on the wall of a lavatory cubicle?

Moreover it is basically bollocks. Melanie attracts a great following of detractors who constantly dog her posts with spite and vitriol. What makes yours so special do you think that they are singled out for rejection so that you have post them elsewhere?

Perhaps you could comment on the theme of Pete's post now and let us know what you think of Dannatt's Departure?

Perhaps he's just Dannatt, been there, got the T Shirt and now wants to enjoy a hard- earned retirement?

maddy1

The good General was a "one trick pony."

David Bouvier

Frank P -

Melanie would be delighted to see spittle-flecked rants from the left and indeed allows them because it confirms her self-image.

Whereas undermining her anecdotal detection of grand conspiracy or criticising her righter-than-though trek into the unelectable wilderness would not.

I don't know if there is selective censorship of not. The Speccie platform seems to delay or loose posts quite often, but it does seem to happen to me more than others on Melanie's blog (but then again probably more work has to be done filtering out the really nasty stuff we probably don't see).

But, Pete, I would like to know the policy of the Speccie on this - are blog authors censoring posts for reasons other than offensiveness, or not?

Victor Southern

Frank P

I was not aware that you had been given the authority to control the content on this thread. I was replying to Tiberius who brought Mel into it directly referring to the attacks on Cameron over Dannatt.

I think that General Dannatt is a good man with worthwhile opinions. If I agreed at all with appointing still more Lords I would even recommend him for a peerage but that is not my prerogative any more than it is yours to dictate what I may write.

Neither you nor Mel Phillips have any knowledge at all of what Cameron and Dannatt may have discussed in private. For Ms. Phillips Cameron is the Bogeyman just as BP is the root of all evil for the USA and was obviously responsible for the Kennedy assassinations. That is exactly how stupid this inflammatory habit of attack on Cameron appears to many.

Lord Monkington-Smythe

@Frank P

To be fair, whilst I have posted the occasional critical Israel-based comment on Melanie's blog, the majority of comments show it to be a bit of a fan club, and generally many of the comments there could have been written by an IDF comms team. Lots of "God bless you for exposing the truth" type stuff, not really a decent argument.

I don't think it is this way because no Coffeehousers disagree with Mel, I think they probably just avoid commenting because it all looks like it could descend into a pointless row at the slightest criticism of the more hawkish Israeli policy. From a personal point of view it has put me off. It is like reading the Guardian in reverse.

Tiberius

I'm rather relieved to see that I'm not the only one who feels rather disappointed when reading Mel's blog these days.

Frank P

Victor Southern

Like giving it, but not taking it then? Tough!