Decentralisation key to Afghan pullout, says David Miliband

and I'll go to bed at noon

That settles it. Daniel Korski is now deliberately trying to make the red-blooded right-wingers of the Spectator comment threads die of impotent, frothing rage at his refusal to denounce the likes of David Milliband as baby-eating Bolsheviks.

Good work, that man :)

Simon Stephenson

"But in yesterday's Daily Telegraph the former Foreign Secretary showed that – for all his mistakes in office – his intellect, and judgement on a number of key issues, including how to bring the Afghanistan War to an end, was, and remains, razor-sharp"

Does "razor-sharp" in this context mean "supports largely what I think myself" or is it more general praise, as in "adds something to the debate not contributed by more pedestrian thinkers"?

Also, are you clear that Mr Miliband is expressing autonomous thinking, rather than merely acting as a specialist spokesman for a wider body of political thought?

Rhoda Klapp

What looks razor-sharp about a bit of re-packaged onviousology? Anybody who cared to pick up a history book about the Afghan wars or read a bit of Kipling would know this stuff. They will also know what is not written here, that as soon as we have pulled out all bets are off and no agreement can be relied upon for long, and that force of arms will again be the prime factor. Did I write 'again'? I meant still.

Steve E.

Much good it will do us. Milliband’s coherent thoughts will be ignored by the likes of the Beeb, who this morning ‘reported’ that the Taliban are willing to drop their ‘opposition’ to female education. That's a relief then.

Percy

Monkey Tennis?

Jonathan Woolf

From the extracts above, I fail to see anything that isn't (a) a statement of the blindingly obvious and (b) a repetition of things others have said.

Chris lancashire

Milliband "razor sharp" - oh, please.

And this would be the South Shields MP who resides in North London? It's about time that all MPs, from any party, prove they have actually lived in their constituency for a minimum of 5 years before standing for election.

Whey aye bonny David.

PuppetMaster

Methinks you over rate him.
It has long been our strategy to divide our opponents and rule them, are you seriously suggesting that we should now change that?
Let's not forget that it was a British government of yore that established the Durand Line, splitting the Pashtun's between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has kept them happily fighting each other for over a hundred years.
It is much better that they fight each other in their own homeland, than spread outside of it with their 'unique' culture. For those of you not up to speed with Afghan culture, it is a whole lot worse than your standard blood feuds and Islamic killings, try googling bacha bazi.

Rhoda Klapp

Was none of this evident when he WAS Foreign Secretary? He could have fixed it all, if only...now what was stopping him?

David Raynes

Razor sharp? Please....after 10 years?

It has been obvious from the beginning that attempting to create a democratic state, that we would recognise, from a feudal tribal system, was ALWAYS doomed to failure. It took us nearly 1000 years.

Too many politicians never understood that. Men & women have died in consequence and will continue to die.

You might legitimately call Milliband "razor sharp" if he had been blessed with the brains to understand this from when his government first became involved with the country.

yank

"...pointing out what all those of us who have worked in Kabul know..."

.

It's amusing to watch the troughers flit from position to position, and in just short years, too. It's sorta like the script gets passed about, and the rolling pantomime evolves, so that the troughers all sound and look alike... perpetually.

Except we're watching, troughers. We see you scudding along. We see the diametrically opposed positions you've evolved to here. We see the blood and treasure wasted, in pursuing previous acts of your pantomime. Why don't you all just shut up now? Have you no shame?

Yes, the US military is going to reject your troughing, and you'll only get limited trough fill, and the Afghan social terrain is treacherous for you troughers, so you must engage parasitical up town exclusively, and there's only a few spots at the trough there. So I can see why you want to pull out now. Your ox is being gored. There are more profitable locales for you.

Welcome aboard, if you're actually coming aboard, and move off to the side so we the crew can go to work here. You're in the way.

Feckless, fumbling buffoon Obama, tripling our troop counts there. Another pantomimist.

HJ

He may be "razor sharp" but his statement of the obvious doesn't provide evidence for it.

Neither does his 'D' in A-level Physics.

TrevorsDen

He may be right, he may be wrong but since we here have devolution thanks to Labour then we have no right to any moral objection to the idea.

Bexleyite

I saw Korski's and Miliband D's names in the same blogpost and thought, no, don't click on 'Read More'.

Is the same Miliband who's now vice-C of AFC Sunderland?

Is this the same Korski from the ECFR whose colleagues are currently rating Balkan countries by Facebook usage? (Well done, Albania, 51,900% increase in internet usage, yah boo sucks, Kosovo, are you really European? 21.8%). And which is currently featuring a video of 'Schengen', by Kali, "a classic 1990s pop-folk number from Bulgaria inspired by the EU visa policies".

Pay me enough, put me on your website, I'll write you a classic pop-folk number inspired by any EU policy you choose.

Vulture

Vulture's Law apples yet again - (vulgarly stated) anything Korki writes is a load of shite and the exact opposite of reality.

I'm surprised that after mugging up on Wikipedia all night he has not yet favoured us with his 'expert' analysis of Tunisia.

hexhamgeezer

Mr Korski, the man in the international nomenklatura bubble - joined now by 'razor sharp' Millibland - if only he had been in a position to apply that sharpness in the past.

When it comes to Afghanistan there are at least 5 bloggers on here who wipe the floor with M & K when it comes to consistency in their Afg. analysis.

By the way - whatever happened to the critical Afg. phase you were blathering on about a few months ago?

Cabbie

Mr Korsky I'm pleased you are so consistently batting for David Milliband. He does need suport because people have been so unkind to him and underestimated his talents and achievments. But like all decent politicians don't assume or expect any reward from this 'pillar of the community'. Of course as an objective commentator even if you and other members of your family had connections with the FCO, I'm sure would neither expect nor accept such help from this well connected polititian. In support I'd like to say to you and other CHers:

Yes "razor sharp" DK. His attempt to claim on parliamentary expenses for his baby's push-buggy (refused) was an abberation. His "judgement" was sound because as we all know MPs like kissing babies and wheeling your own baby around South Shields for the voters to smile at should be on an expense account. MPs shouldn't have to pay for a buggy like the rest of us and especially not David Milliband because he will have had to buy two: his wife and baby live in London. And yes I'd say the same even if he stayed in his constituency house in South Shields only ten nights in a whole year. Local people have confirmed that the baby in the buggy was a real one but even if it was not I'd say it's good for local people to see MPs as doing normal acivities as 'real' down to earth people like their constituents! That's why we should also pay for these second houses and why we should pay for people like him and other MPs to travel home in first class comfort to see the wife and kids.

People have wrongly maligned Mr D Milliband since he became MP for South Shields. It was wrong to say that he was parachuted into a safe Labour seat as a reward for his back-office work for Tony Blair.It was a coincidence that the former MP David Clarke decided to step down at the eleventh hour before an election he had stated he was going to fight. Obviously, the local Labour Party had to be refused the option of choosing from locally based candidates with such a short timescale. In such circumstances candidates have to be chosen from a national list. Oh and David Clarke had to leave in a hurry to become a Lord and Chairman of the Forestry Commision because we need more trees to suck up the CO2 contributing to global warming. Urgent indeed!

It's simply unfair to say as some folks do that he has no connection with a town like South Shields and that he has had no experience to be an MP or Foreign Secretary making decisions which affect many people's lives.

It's a fallacy to suggest that MPs need to have had some sort of other life experience
before becoming an MP.His father was an intellectual and a marxist. So young David came into contact with lots of famous politians. He went up to Oxford and read PPE. There's politics in that and going to a posh university means he can deal with posh folks and higher-ups on behalf of the people of South Shields. He studied political science at MIT. Another posh place and more politics. He also got a proper job at the Institute for Public Policy Research so loads more politics and policy papers. He must be good cos you don't see jobs like that every day at the local job centre. The IPPR are founding members of The Global Climate Network so more of that warming up.He then worked for Tony Blair writing political speeches and policy papers. Look he's done all kinds of politics and being an MP is all about politics. Oh that thirty thousand pounds he claimed for gardening and repairs to his house was within the rules.

To say that David Milliband is not committed to South Shields is scurillous. As soon as he found out that he wasn't in the running for the Washington job, he re-affirmed just that! And what most readers of the MSM will not know is that despite going to posh universities and with a wife who plays in a famous orchestra he is humble enough to have accepted a position of honorary president at a local South Shields working mens club. Name me another MP from that kind of background who could do that without appearing condescending?

Out of the office expenses he receives he manages to maintain an office in South Shields. His office can answer letters from constituents when he is in London at home with the family and it works really well because not only does he not need to answer them himself, he doesn't even need to see read or even know about them. It's very efficient.

Part of the degree that he read contained a component of economics so he must understand business! Confirmation of this can be seen by the fact that he has recently set up a Ltd company called The Office of David Milliband Ltd. A co-director is his wife. Some cynical people have suggested that unscrupulous MPs with such a vehicle may now be able to conceal the true levels of income they receive on top of their salary and declared allowances by artificially re-charging under the new system as well as re-directing payments to other related directors. It will also be tax eficient. I say tosh! The MP for South Shields wouldn't do that he's set it up to show he understands business.

David Milliband has been recently linked to an appointment as a vice chairman of Sunderland football club on a reported retainer of 50K a year. Steve Bruce the manager said he "had asked for someone on the left...." What a wag! So I say to all of his detractors that this cannot be about the money, 'he wants to put something back' and it also shows courage because the town of South Shields is roughly split 50:50 between Sunderland and Newcastle United supporters with the local derby tomorrow! Milliband is one of those modern MPs who support football teams and in his case it's the gooners apparently. I seem to remember when it was not so fashionable for MPs to follow foootball so as a fan I'm sure he will be able to contribute to the Club for his 50k?

To those who take a cynical view of this appointment they should be rebuked because Milliband regularly gives support to all manner of local businesses including Sunderland Football Club. He was very supportive when the Club had problems getting planning for a large Academy on sacred local green belt land. It was very very acrimonious with councillors and officers determining the application having to declare which teams they supported but as an outsider he was supportive of the Club. The former chief executive of South Tyneside Irene Lucas was in charge of the council at the time. She had to be impartial of course. True professionals can do this even in difficult circumstances and her circumstances were very difficult because she regularly sits in the director's box with her husband who is a local businessman with longstanding support for the Club. She was at the game with her husband last week but doesn't get to so many games now as she left South Tyneside to take a promotion in Whitehall looking after councils ( with at the time a grace and favour appartment at The Arch ). David Milliband once had a miisterial post looking after local councils too. I guess they know lots of the same people?

Milliband is a statesman. He was the man who actually signed the Lisbon Treaty. As a nation we must all be truly thankful! Now that really is history. You cannot reasonably criticise him for underestimating the numbers of bullets that would be fired in Afganistan.

David Potts, a Conservative councillor in South Tyneside resigned this week one day after tweeting that Mr Milliband was "a wanker". You will of course agree with me I'm sure, that calling him names like that is wholly undesrved and for the councillor in question, resignation is not enough. It's just not in the rules. Neither the spirit nor the letter and he should be banned from office and surcharged.

If the courageous David Milliband does take the Sunderland job then the 2011 election will be interesting. South Shields is a Labour Stronghold. The electors will forget financial crises, fiscal mismanagement and all political ills and still vote Labour. But when as Shankley said "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." He would not be surprised by the 50% Newcastle Utd fans who will forget their Labour allegiance and swith their votes if he declares himself allied to the Mackems!