Harriet ‘shambolic’ Harman

I’ve spent ten minutes reading the same passage and still don’t understand what it means. It comes from Harriet Harman, quoted in the Independent, criticising the government’s Libya strategy:

“The response to the terrible events in Libya has been a shambles. The key to their shambolic response lies in their ideology. If your perspective is that government is a bad thing and you want less of it, you’re not going to be on the front foot when the power of government is exactly what is needed.”

Do you get it? Is the Labour MP saying that her party would have harnessed the power of the state, principally the military, and ordered the bombing of Libya? Or that Prime Minister David Cameron is so enamoured with the Big Society that he can’t bring himself to use the military because it is a governmental institution? I’m baffled, and worried if the Labour front bench actually believe such nonsense.

The idea that the Tories can’t govern because they don’t like government is a well-rehearsed Labour ditty, but it has always seemed a bit odd when the party gave the country some of its most decisive leaders from Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps the ex-Labour leader is speaking in some subsonic tone that can only be understood by fellow Labour supporters.