Politics

William Hague’s attack on Israel is a hint of big changes to come

29 July 2006

On Monday, perhaps for the first time in his life, David Cameron turned right after boarding an aircraft. There is no business class in the RAF Hercules that ferried him to Afghanistan; to enter it by door rather than by loading ramp is luxury enough, and the only in-flight entertainment is an industrial-strength headset to deaden the sound of the engines. Icebergs aside, this was his first serious foreign trip as leader.

Since 9/11, Tory policy on the war on terror — with the exception of Michael Howard’s wobble over Iraq — has been largely inseparable from that of Tony Blair; so much so that the Prime Minister has often left the Commons chamber with the wrong kind of applause ringing in his ears. But among the quieter voices of dissent when Iraq was the main issue of the hour was Mr Cameron’s own. Privately, the young MP admitted to colleagues that he opposed the war, but did not feel strongly enough to rebel over it. ‘I’m not like you neocons,’ he once explained, only half-jokingly, to friends who proudly described themselves as such.

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