Another day, another Labour drama. It now transpires that Sir Keir Starmer’s army is in turmoil over a previous Labour party’s response to Bashar al-Assad’s regime – with one current Cabinet Secretary taking a pop at another. Talk about trouble in paradise, eh?
Appearing on BBC Question Time, Health Secretary Wes Streeting remarked that ‘if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone’. He went on:
With hindsight, I think we can say, looking back on the events of 2013, that the hesitation of this country and the United States created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.
How curious – particularly given some of Streeting’s colleagues were, er, on the opposition frontbenches at that time. In retaliation, Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband has hit back, slamming the Health Secretary’s take to fume:
We know that President Trump bombed Syria in 2017 and 2018. Clearly, that didn’t produce the fall of President Assad’s regime. So when people say that somehow if we bombed President Assad in 2013, he would have toppled over, frankly, it’s just wrong.
Oh dear. Mr S would remind readers that when Miliband was leader of the opposition, he voted against taking action on Assad after the Syrian dictator was found to be using chemical weapons. Even today, the Net Zero Secretary says he does not regret his decision – telling the Today show that there had been ‘no clear plan’ at the time and he had not wanted to put British troops in ‘harm’s way’. That view’s aged well, eh?
If this is what Starmer’s army is like just five months into government, whatever state will they be in after five years?
Comments