Oh Nick... A Foolish Cunt Art Thou.

The Iraq war is an emotive, and important issue. However after Nick Clegg's ludicrous performance at the despatch box today it took on a bizarre hue. He took the time, amidst answering important questions on government policy to declare it illegal. Two things spring to mind, firstly the speciousness of the legallity argument when used in certain contexts and secondly whatthis wasn't government what the fuck? On the first point after declaring the war illegay, most people's next step is to quote the number of civillian dead and to highlight individal cases of suffering. These have little to do with legality and more to do with morality. My own instinct is that the war may well be legal but was quite immoral. Resolution 1441 was interpretable as it was thrashed out between leaders who fundamentally disagreed with each other, to me it was a typical UN fudge in that it allowed both sides to interpret it and make their case. Whether the war was immoral is another question for which politicians quite rightly have to answer for. Secondly what the fuck? PMQs is a forum for asking questions on government policy, not for the expressing of ill informed personal views. Nick Clegg was there to put the case for the government's policy. Unless I'm very much mistaken this wasn't government policy, nor did it have anything to do with Jack Straw's question. In fact by using it to escape from a corner in which he was trapped over lies made by the coalition (the Sheff forgemasters money is a loan, of what is a tiny amount of money, which would be paid back, so 'no money left doesn't cut it as a defence.) he belittled what is a very important issue, it goes to show that Clegg is a mere opportunist prepared to use the most serious issues for political football and trivialities. Tony Blair may be a war criminal, people may have cases to answer, and above all many have perhaps suffered unneccessary. To Nick though they didn't die in vsin, they got him out of a sticky one on PMQs.