Eric Joyce’s resignation as PPS to defence minister Bob Ainsworth is to say the least, intriguing.

Joyce is most certainly on the Blairite wing of Labour, and even under Brown until recently a major loyalist, and with little chance of influencing any sort of attempt to overthrow the prime minister, it seems his decision to go is based purely on his considerable discontent over the war in Afghanistan.

Joyce sets out, while clearly trying to be as non-threatening and as lightly critical as he can while questioning the entire current strategy, that the public is not so stupid as to believe or to much longer put up with the “terrorism” justification, that we are punching way above our weight in our current operations, and that we should be able to make clear that there has to be some sort of timetable outlining just how long our commitment is both able and willing to last.

All of this should be way beyond controversy, yet already we have the ludicrous sentiment from both Bob Ainsworth and the even more ridiculous Lord West that they don’t recognise the picture which Joyce sets out (“confused and disjointed” was West described it).

The only part which it’s difficult to agree with Joyce on is his criticism of the other NATO countries’ contribution: who can possibly blame France, Germany and Italy for not wanting to spend a similar amount of both their blood and treasure to us on a war in which they can’t even begin to claim as we do that it’s preventing terrorism on their streets?

The reason why it doesn’t seem right to truly coruscate Labour over the utter cowardice of their current lack of a policy is that it’s a failure of leadership which is shared across all three of the major parties. For all their protests and attacks on the government over Afghanistan, you could barely get a cigarette paper between both the Conservatives and Lib Dems’ own ideas on what we should be doing.

All still think, at least in public, despite doubtless their private misgivings, that this is both a war that is worth fighting and one which can be “won”, whatever their own idea is of a victory.

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