You know it's a bad day when Ukraine and Isis come as a bit of light relief
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Version 0 of 1. When coming to the House of Commons to make a statement about a Nato summit aimed at preventing a third world war starting in Ukraine and the formation of a terrorist state in the Middle East is the chillax option, you know the prime minister is having a seriously bad day. Nor is there any sign of David Cameron's life looking like getting better anytime soon. Scotland, Clacton, Scotland, Scotland … the bad news just keeps piling up for him. The situation in Scotland has become so bad for the government, the prime minister can't go there in case he makes it any worse: his visit planned for later in the week has been put on hold. If Cameron could spend the next 10 days discussing Nato, he would happily do so. After paying tribute to the Labour MP Jim Dobbin, who died at the weekend, and congratulating the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for having sex, the prime minister pronounced the summit a total success. "Everyone could see its unity, its resolve and its determination in meeting and overcoming the threats to our security," he said. As he was later to ramp up the uncertainty of Scotland remaining in Nato if the country voted 'Yes' next week, it wasn't exactly clear how united Nato really was or if an independent Scotland represented a threat to its security. If it was the latter, the Scots can't say they haven't been warned. "After the end of the cold war, Nato stood down its highest readiness force," he said. "At this summit we decided to reverse that decision and scale up our readiness to respond to any threat. A new multinational spearhead force will be deployable anywhere in the world within two to five days." There we had it. As early as September 20, a ground force of Scout armoured vehicles, backed up by a fleet of hunter-killer submarines and joint strike fighter planes, could be assembled along Scotland's borders. Bring it on, Braveheart. On other rogue states, Cameron took a more conciliatory, ambiguous even, approach. Nato's commitment to Ukraine shouldn't be judged primarily on its military hardware, he said, but on its economic sanctions; the emphasis in regards to Isis should be on "degrading its ideology". He left it open as to how Nato would go about this, but seemed to imply bombing an ideology was a realistic option. The Lib Dem chief whip, Don Foster, closed his eyes for several minutes to meditate on the metaphysics of this: either that, or he nodded off. Keith Vaz was keen to return to Britain's more immediate security matters. "Was the crisis in Calais mentioned in his talks with President Hollande?" he asked. At this point Cameron could have been forgiven for banging his head against the despatch box and phoning his shrink. At one end of the country he's got thousands of people fighting to get in and at the other end five million trying to get out. Why not just send a fleet of boats to Calais to pick up the illegal immigrants and take them straight to Scotland? And if Scotland did vote to leave the union, how come he would get the flak rather than being congratulated by the Tory right and Ukip for achieving net outward migration? Cameron looked towards Foster for an answer to these existential problems, but the Lib Dem chief whip – like many others in the house – had already left the chamber. He was on his own. Again. |