Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

A sombre scene and a shift in power

Poppy day came early to Westminster today.  Brown began proceedings by reciting the names of the 37 men killed in Afghanistan over the summer. This took two minutes. The house was silent, funereal, almost awe-struck with the solemnity of the occasion. Brown looked like a man deeply moved by personal grief as he worked his slow way through the deadly list.

Ann Winterton punctured the mood with the first question, suggesting that once the Lsibon treaty is ratified the government’s first duty will be ‘to further the objectives of Europe in preference to those of Britain’. Brown denied this again referenced the Afghan conflict in response.

When his trun came, Cameron had no choice but to add his sympathies and to engage constructively in the debate about the war budget. He asked about rehabilitation services and the mental health of veterans. The PM blandly assured him that everything possible was being done for our service personnel. Cameron then quoted a member of the TA who claims he’s being paid for only half the training days he must complete before his deployment. This makes a mockery of Brown’s promise about adequate funding. But the mood of the house restrained Cameron from making a fight of it. You can’t have a punch up at a memorial service.  

Nick Clegg rose. Even before he’d said a word he was howled at enthusiastically by both sides. Somehow he brings out the inner bully in his opponents. He wondered why our troops were being sent to fight for the ‘deeply corrupt’ regime in Kabul. Brown asked him to wait for the final result of the presidential election and pointed out, rightly enough, that the troops’ great achievement is to have enabled an election to take place at all.

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