Well, that was not a great day for the terrible twins, Nick 'n' Dave. Nick Clegg was the first to make a gaffe, claiming in his first ever turn at PMQs that the Allied invasion of Iraq 2003 was illegal. In a snarky exchange with Jack Straw, substituting for Harriet Harman on the Labour front bench, Clegg, standing in while David Cameron visits Washington, said: "We may have to wait for his memoirs, but perhaps one day he will account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all: the illegal invasion of Iraq." Ouch! The invasion may have been illegal in Clegg's personal view, but Prime Minister Cameron has always said he backed the war and, anyway, we're still in the midst of a long-running and expensive inquiry - by the Chilcot committee - one of whose aims is to ascertain whether, indeed, the invasion was legal or not. Downing Street spin-doctors were still picking up the pieces yesterday afternoon - "individual members of the coalition government are entitled to express their person views etc etc" - when Clegg's boss made his own gaffe. Having picked his way through the Washington minefield - the Afghanistan withdrawal, the BP oil slick, the Lockerbie saga - Cameron fell straight into the quicksand when, during an interview with Sky News, he described Britain as having been "junior partner" to the Americans in 1940, a full year before the US deigned to enter the war after Pearl Harbour. "I think it's important in life to speak as it is, and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US, but we are the junior partner," said Dave. "We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis." Ouch again! Downing Street, besieged by historians, generals and furious Daily Mail columnists reminding them that the Brits had fought the Nazi menace without any solid American help until 1944, tried to get out of it by saying Cameron had been referring to the 1940s in general. But the damage was done. "I am quite sure if Winston Churchill were alive today he would be dismayed," stormed Gen Sir Patrick Cordingley, former commander of the Desert Rats. Labour had a field day, too. "David Cameron is guilty of talking down Britain and disrespecting Second World War veterans who know that Britain was fighting alone against Nazi tyranny while America was still putting its fighting boots on," said former defence minister Kevan Jones. No doubt an inquiry will now be launched into how Cameron achieved a grade A when he took his History A-level at Eton in 1984. But in the short term, Clegg's gaffe is actually the more serious. Clegg - and Downing Street - can claim all they like that he was expressing a personal view, but the fact that he said it from the very formal setting of the House of Commons dispatch box means he could well have increased the chances of charges being brought against the British government over the Iraq invasion in an international court. Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, told the Guardian: "A public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation would be a statement that an international court would be interested in, in forming a view as to whether or not the war was lawful." Filed under: The Mole, David Cameron, Nick CleggA day of gaffes from Nick Clegg and David Cameron
The Mole: Cameron flunks his WW2 history. But Clegg’s claim that Iraq invasion was illegal is more serious
Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/66190,news-comment,news-politics,the-mole-a-day-of-gaffes-from-nick-clegg-and-david-cameron?DCMP=NLC-daily#ixzz0uPK0qKgF
Thursday, 22 July 2010
LAST UPDATED 7:56 AM, JULY 22, 2010
Posts
