Hague, The Arrogant

Hague, the younger

How arrogant of William Hague to be so furious with the foreign office that he considered publically criticising them following his disastrous previous week.

Perhaps it has escaped his attention that the foreign office has employed the same civil servants since the election as it did before, but the foreign office showed little incompetence under that administration.

Several days after other countries evacuated their people; the British finally chose to act. According to the Guardian, the government was worried that Libya might be offended by an evacuation, and that this may affect future business opportunities.

Indeed, it is important for business people to consider carefully whether they wish to leave a country during a crisis. Those who stay during the difficult times, earn enormous respect from the population and find that when the situation calms their business interests will prosper.

But surely this is a decision for the individual businessperson not for the British government. And surely the families of the business people should be evacuated regardless. Did Mr Hague consider the families at all?

For the government to dither for days, placing business interests over the lives of British citizens is an extraordinary dereliction of duty and suggests that the values of the Conservative-led government are misguided.

Yet they present a facade of integrity which seems dubious by their actions.

Mr Cameron, on a perfectly legitimate arms running exercise to a neighbouring Arab state, had the cheek to claim that part of his mission was to promote democracy and British values. As if we’re expected to believe that he interrupted his delicate negotiations to sell arms in order to lecture the Arab customers on the benefits of elections.

Meanwhile, Mr Clegg appears not to have realised that he was running the country while Mr Cameron was abroad. When asked in an interview whether he is in charge he said “Yeah, I suppose I am. I forgot about that.”

Then he promptly went on holiday to his apartment in an exclusive Swiss skiing resort and only returned once the government was accused of being in chaos.

You get the impression that these people are not professional politicians. They don’t seem to have a clear set of principles or policies on which to base their decisions.

It’s as if the country is being run by a bunch of gentleman amateurs, who decided on a Swiss ski slope that they were offended by the Labour Party being in charge, and that they should jolly well do something about it.

But we don’t want gentleman amateurs running this country. We want professional politicians who know the job and have a history of public service rather than city bonuses.

With another four years to run, I worry that this country will be irreparably damaged by the time the British public have a chance to get them out.