Cameron declares a jihad on the Neo-cons

Well, perhaps that's putting it a little strongly, but never-the-less I wasn't expecting him to come out with this one. It's all part of the touchy feely re-aligning of the Tory Party I suppose. No longer are they for firing the gays out of cannons into hordes of Cha Wallahs. That's all in the past my friend.

The leader of the opposition told a, possibly bemused, audience in Pakistan that "We should accept that we cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun; that we cannot drop democracy from 10,000 feet and we shouldn't try. Put crudely, that was what was wrong with the 'neocon' approach and why I am a liberal Conservative, not a neoconservative."

Thanks for this. Because despite the fact I hadn't expected Cameron to actually say anything like this it's still not a particularly radical thing to say seeing as 90% of the population understand this to be the case. It's an utterly uncontroversial truth that the neo-con project was flawed from the very beginning but it has taken an extraordinary loss of life to convince respectable politicians that this was any sort of error.

Whilst there is a part of me that welcomes this speech, because it signals the possibility of a marginally less aggressive foreign policy (as British political leaders prepare themselves for an Obama Presidency). For a rightwing politician to come out so clearly against American foreign policy is something to take notice of, but I can't help thinking a begrudging "You lot couldn't have said this five years ago?"