Letters From A Tory

Dear David Miliband,

I simply cannot believe what I’m seeing.  Actually, let me rephrase that - I can believe it because your track record of hiding away from anything remotely serious is now verging on legendary, but your complete absence from the headlines as China kills another eight Tibetan protestors is unacceptable.

When things got tough in Palestine, or when the riots began in Kenya, or the situation got extremely serious in Burma, where were you?  Exactly - you were cowering behind Uncle Gordon hoping that he would do something or say something that would get you off the hook.  Now that China has become violent towards Tibetan protestors, your cowardice is plainly evident yet again and your desire to stay out of the headlines is a damning reflection on your attitude towards democracy, peace and human rights.  Even Nick Clegg, who has been a weak leader of his own party, has stood up today and said that the Prime Minister should boycott the Beijing games as Clegg and everyone else can clearly see that China is not fit to host such an event.

Since becoming Foreign Secretary, you have done nothing other than bring shame on this country and the values we cherish as a free nation.  You are happy to make the occasional statement about party politics at stupid events like the Progressive conference, but when it comes to issues that really matter you just run away.

With considerable contempt,

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

Your naivety and arrogance is really starting to test my patience.  How on earth can someone with such a weak understanding of international relations be Foreign Secretary?  The whole of the UK is already in fear of what catastrophes await us with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, but now we have to be afraid of what happens outside of the UK as well.

Today you will proudly announce that this country has a moral imperative to spread democracy throughout the world.  Oh - my - god.  May I ask who decides what is moral and what is not?  Seeing as philosophers, theologians and many other great minds have failed to settle on a definition of ‘morality’ since the dawn of time, I find it hard to believe that you have cracked the problem within a few months of becoming Foreign Secretary.  In effect, what you are saying is that the UK has every right to take military action whenever we feel it is ‘moral’.  Presumably this means that we will be invading Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Congo, Russia and a whole host of other nations in the near future, seeing as their human rights record surely provides a ‘moral’ case for intervening.  Oh, wait a minute, wasn’t there a ’moral’ case for going to help the protesters in Burma recently after some human rights violations?  I hear that the Palestinians also have a bit of trouble at the moment, seeing as the Israelis are starving them to death with numerous blockades and cutting their power supply - don’t we have a ‘moral’ duty to intervene there as well?

To give yourself a ‘carte blanche’ for invading any country whenever you feel like it is outrageous.  Your language reminds me of George Bush giving himself free reign to attack any country that he decided was supporting terrorist organisations, even in the complete absence of hard evidence.  It is quite clear to me that you will only play the ‘morality’ card when it suits you and will ignore countless human rights abuses, genocides and civil wars at the same time.

You’re a danger to this country - get lost, Miliband.

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

I’m getting really sick and tired of senior figures in the Labour Party disappearing from our TV screens once trouble erupts.  Normally this process involves hiding behind Uncle Gordon until the nasty journalists go away, but both yourself and Uncle Gordon have somehow decided not to care about the tragic events unfolding in Kenya.

I seem to remember that the collective government response to the appalling events in Burma not too long ago was to wag your fingers and say tut tut, seeing as you don’t have any vested interest in the country.  Over Kenya, your response has been equally tame - Uncle Gordon said he backs a diplomatic drive to resolve the crisis, while you said that the leaders of Kenya’s political parties should share power.  So, as innocent people are being murdered every day by government forces, you sit there safe in the knowledge that you have done nothing to help them.

I don’t know how you get to sleep at night, I really don’t.

Yours despairingly,

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

It was with great amusement that I watched Gordon Brown announce new plans for treating cancer patients last week, seeing as it was clearly the job of Health Secretary Alan Johnson to make such an announcement.  Alan Johnson was presumably instructed to take a back seat and hide behind Uncle Gordon and I suspect your orders today are to keep your mouth shut about the CIA destroying video tapes of interrogations involving terrorist suspects.

I wonder if you are naive enough to think that the Americans have only recently used torture to extract information from suspects.  To my mind, it is totally inconceivable that abominable practices were confined to one prison in Iraq and one detention centre in Cuba, although Guantanamo Bay was a focal point for a lot of criticism as the Americans evidently had a lot to hide - torture being a significant part of what they were carrying out.  Seeing as you don’t really like the Americans that much, I wonder whether you will fall in line and keep quiet or whether you might use this as an opportunity to attack the American government and CIA to knock their reputation?  My god, you must be tempted….

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

Yet again your feeble understanding of geographical boundaries makes you look rather stupid.  To suggest that the EU should include Russia is contentious; to suggest that the EU should include the Middle East and North Africa is absolutely unbelievable.

I seem to remember writing you a letter not so long ago about the fact that Turkey is not in Europe and has little in common with European values, history and attitudes.  Obviously you haven’t checked a map since then, because the very notion that Africa and the Middle East should be inside the European - yes, that’s the EUROPEAN - Union leaves me almost speechless.  To say that enlargement is “our most powerful tool” to promoting stability makes me think that you see expanding the EU thousands of miles outside Europe as a way of helping bring peace to the world and let everyone live in harmony with one another.  Are you out of your mind?!?!  Jesus christ, where do you get these ideas?  Do you honestly think the EU and the Middle East can develop ’shared values’?  Have you not seen the chaos that wildly different cultures living inside the UK is currently fuelling?!?!

And it gets worse.  “[The EU] is not and is not going to become a superstate. But neither is it destined to become a superpower.”  Wrong to the former and wrong to the latter.  It is going to become a superstate and it is going to become the biggest market in the world - which is why I would never want the UK to leave the EU trading area even if we renegotiate our political links to other European nations.

I really am struggling to control my temper so I’m going to stop writing this letter before I explode.  The EU is already stretched very thinly.  If you think that you can bring about world peace by drawing artificial borders around countries, you are living in a dreamworld.  I’m an atheist myself, but god help us all if you remain Foreign Secretary for much longer.

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

I would have thought that, as Foreign Secretary, you would be looking to build an impressive reputation for yourself before you challenge for the next Labour leadership vacancy (probably just a couple of years off).  Your dearth of experience at ministerial level left me and many others stunned at your appointment to such an important cabinet position, but I would happily have eaten some humble pie if you’d done a good job.  My humble pie is still in tact.

“It is very strongly in the interests of the stability of Pakistan that democracy and the rule of law are the order of the day.”  Is that it?  The government’s finger wagging at the crisis in Burma was bad enough.  For an almost exact replica of a cruel and brutal regime cracking down on dissenters to get nothing more than a light tap on the knuckles is astonishing and may I say deeply embarrassing for Britain.  To not even threaten the withholding of aid (which is probably the only thing that Musharraf will listen to) shows how little influence you have over foreign policy.

Do us a favour - go back and hide behind Uncle Gordon like you’ve been doing for the past six months.

Yours in disgust,

A.Tory

Dear David Miliband,

Like Alan Johnson, you are clearly detached from the reality of what Labour’s foreign policy has done to this country and many others, hence the need for me to write this letter to you.

For you to stand there in front of the conference and the media and state that “every citizen of every nation deserves the freedom and equal rights of a true democracy” is galling.  If this were true, perhaps you and the Labour Party would desist from assaulting the freedom of the British people in terms of our civil liberties (surveillance, ID cards, largest DNA database in the world etc), or have you forgotten these events?  To further suggest that Britain is a “true democracy” is laughable, as the Labour government have done everything in their power to lessen their accountability to the public.  But perhaps your greatest mistake is to imply that everyone on the planet WANTS a democracy.  This imposition of Western values on non-Western nations has been one of the key elements of the hatred shown towards us by many Arab states.  They don’t want our values, they have values of their own which they wish to practise without fear of being invaded or blown up by Western armies.

We have no right to impose our values on them, in the same way that they have no right to impose their values on us.  I cannot believe you are so naive and out-of-touch that you think democracy around the world will solve everything.  In fact, if democracy were allowed to take it’s course Algeria and Egypt would have Islamic governments instead of their pro-Western dictators - but you wouldn’t want that to happen now, would you.

Yours in utter disbelief,

A.Tory

P.S. It would have been nice for you to have covered the Iraq war in your speech as well, or are Labour’s lies and deceit still a bit fresh in the mind?

Dear David Miliband,

I wasn’t exactly surprised by your appointment to the Cabinet under a Brown leadership, after your late decision not to challenge him in the leadership election.  What did surprise me was that you were given such a senior position, despite your lack of political experience and complete anonymity as far as international relations goes.  Your article in the Telegraph this morning trying to convince us that Turkey is crucial to the EU does nothing but expose your ignorance in terms of international politics.

Let me remind you of a few things about Turkey.  Firstly, it’s not in Europe.  Perhaps you weren’t paying attention in your Geography lessons at school, but on consulting my atlas I am convinced that there is no justification for including Turkey on geographical grounds because IT IS NOT IN EUROPE.  Secondly, for all your talk about the wonderful democracy in Turkey (don’t ask me where you got that idea from) you declined to mention their disgraceful human rights record, including the frequent use of torture by the authorities, and the complete absence of freedom of speech and freedom of expression - both of which are fundamental values in European countries.  Why the hell would we want that type of government to be part of Europe?

Your arguments promoting Turkey joining the EU are baseless and somehow seem to focus around Al-Qaeda and Islam, which didn’t make any sense.  Let’s talk human rights and freedom of speech instead.

I await your response to those issues.

A.Tory