Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"The other thing Blair and his increasingly lefty lawyer cabal did was to commit the UK to two enduring operations way beyond the scale of the defence planning assumptions"
But the Tories abcked them as did almost all the press - you can't have it both ways. Labour has done some pretty dreadful things in defence but I don't think that overall there's a scrap of difference bewteen the parties. Neither funds the armed forces properly.
It's not both ways in any way shape or form. You are conflating supporting a decision to commit HM forces with the responsibility to provide financial support for that commitment. Both operations were arguably necessary - the first (Herrick) to remove a direct security threat, the second (Telic) as a response to a regime that was openly and continually defying UNSCR. That Labour found it necessary to conduct some fairly dodgy
PR intelligence briefings to garner support, doesn't change the facts. Only one party had the power to provide the finances - and chose not to.
In other news, Nice But Tobias has been given a vote of no confidence by Tubster, Jones, Drax and Twigg.
committees.parliament.uk/publications/41005/documents/199678/default/