In essence, this is high politics at its worst – talk of leaders and prestige, of power and the military rather than jobs and homes.

Terrible isn’t it, that British Governments should have a foreign policy. Far better that they all talk exclusively about schoolsnospitals.

Interestingly, Hague insinuates a future Tory government is prepared to invest in the military, to build new industries…but what about investment in higher education and research for the same purposes?

He’s the shadow foreign secretary for God’s sake. Is it in some way inappropriate that he be talking about prospective Conservative foreign policy?

@1

Fair enough, but why should foreign policy be all about bombing the bejesus out of poverty-stricken places?

Same old neo con balls, and same old Tim Jerk defending it.

If Hauge had walked down Oxford Street shooting people Tim Jerk would be on here defending him.

So true Sally, but what can you do? I don’t think he’d choose Oxford Street though, not enough brown people and few if any starving children.

At least you have the guts to say what’s really on Hague’s mind. And Tim J’s.

I think it is important to realise that the question of whether we should have gone into Afghanistan is not the same as whether we should pull out now. I tend to think that we should try to clear up our mess and not just abandon the place. (Unless someone can convince me that pulling out immediately is the best for all concerned, or anyway the least worst.)

Surely a large part of the answer is scaling back deployments where they are unnecessary.

I do not understand why, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, we still have 25,000 personnel deployed in Germany. What is the need for this, when personnel and materiel are needed in Iraq and Afgahnistan? I can understand to some extent why we have garrisons in places like Cyprus which represent strategic forward locations for deployments in areas like the Middle East and protect vital strategic interests (e.g. oil coming through the Mediterranean); but deployement in Germany seems to be a complete anachronism.

At the very least the BFG could be redeployed in the UK where they will support local economies, create employment and recycle some revenue back into the UK economy.

Am I missing something?

@ 6 It’s actually cheaper to keep the troops stationed there than to relocate them. This is primarily due to rehousing costs, etc.The forces in Germany certainly aren’t necessary on that scale but keeping them there does save money.

Tim J: His speech, which my original article quoted in large amounts, did not restrict itself to foreign affairs. It created a link between Britain’s economic power and military power – I’m just creating a link between Tory policy on Britain’s military power and on social welfare.

If I’m not wrong during Ronald “Free Market” Reagan, the US public spending became the largest in history. Mainly to do with “defense”-related onanism.

Terrible isn’t it, that British Governments should have a foreign policy.

There’s more to foreign policy than military action, you know. Or is this simply the latest line of euphemism? What was once called “war” became “defence”, and is now becoming “foreign policy”…

I was under the impression that we had a diplomatic service at some point…

While Hague et al are to a large extent simply looking to carry on happily where NL may leave off (perhaps even more happily), the most worrying aspect is their explicit commitment to tying aid to foreign policy and defence.

While there are differences in emphasis, and reluctance on the the part of the tories to say so in public because they know their core supporters don’t like to hear it, there is an acceptance on both sides that DfID has done a pretty good job over the last decade. The Tory One World Conservatism paper from July 2009 says so. Yet the very same paper goes on to say that foreign policy, for which read geo-political strategic interests, will now influence how and where aid money is spent.