The other Dr Fox: Topping the charts for foolishness?

By David Higgerson on May 23, 10 06:20 PM

One of the criticisms ahead of the election about the Conservative Party was that it was short of experience of government. Fair point, but in their defence, the Tories could point to the likes of William Hague and Dr Liam Fox as members of their shadow cabinet who had been around pre-1997.

There was no surprise when Dr Fox (no relation to the old Top 40 show DJ) became defence secretary, but it hasn't taken him long to get into a muddle.

The Tories sent out three cabinet members - Foreign Secretary William Hague, defence Secretary Dr Fox and international development secretary Andrew Mitchell - out to Afghanistan to present a united front to the Afghan leaders.

Sadly, Dr Fox hadn't read the script. Or if he had, he chose to ignore it.

On the way out, Andrew Mitchell was quoted as saying:

"We need to ensure that we help the Afghan people to build a functioning state. That's about providing basic education and health care facilities, but it's also about ensuring there are opportunities for promoting livelihoods so that people have jobs."

Dr Fox later, was quoted as saying:

"We have to reset expectations and timelines," he said. "National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman. We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened."

The Press and the national TV reporters charged off, as expected, reporting divisions in the Tories on Afghanistan. To me, the most worrying thing is how naive Dr Fox appears to be.

National security always was the focus with Afghanistan, as it was believed to be where those behind the 9/11 attacks had a sanctuary. The reason terrorists found a home there was partly because it was a failed state so the idea that we could simply go into the country, blow it to bits to topple a regime and then leave is nonsense.

It might make Dr Fox very popular with supporters in the Cotswolds and other Tory havens to mock the idea that we have to help rebuild Afghanistan, but if we don't we end up opening up the opportunity for the terrorists to return there again. It's plain for anyone with an ounce of commonsense to see that making Afghanistan a stable country is in our national security interests.

With Chris Grayling not making the cabinet due to his loose mouth, Dr Fox is potentially the weakest link in the coalition government. He has the air of a travelling salesman who can't quite believe his boss puts so much trust in him, and gives the impression of being arrogant to boot. In many respects, he's an even bigger risk to the new government than all the first-time ministers who are determined not to screw up.

Calling a nation we have to work with closely a 'broken 13th-century country' might work very well on the campaign trail, but when you're actually flying into the country itself? But given it's clear Dr Fox doesn't even talk to his colleagues, is it any wonder that he doesn't think twice about criticising a close ally?