As British troops left Afghanistan, the press counted the cost and, in the Daily Telegraph’s case, published a “roll of honour” with pictures of all 453 UK dead during the 13-year war. The loss of young lives is always tragic and even one death would be too many. You may say that nobody should enrol without accepting the risks of death or injury but, for many in economically deprived areas, the armed forces offer rare opportunities for steady and reasonably well remunerated employment.
Is 453 a large number? It is more than were killed in Iraq (179) and more than in the Falklands (253), though both were shorter wars, the latter particularly so. On the other hand, 453 isn’t much more than a quarter of the numbers killed on British roads each year, with many of the latter coming from the same age group as those who served in Afghanistan.
But the biggest casualties in wars have always been local people who happened to be in the way and who, even if they escaped with their lives, lost homes and livelihoods. It is often said that mass civilian bombing in the Second World War was a new phenomenon, creating a “home front” as well as a military one. But there was always a home front: with rare exceptions, battles are not fought nor do armies march on uninhabited wastelands. The best estimates suggest there have been 18,000 to 20,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan, of which at least a quarter were direct results of foreign military action. No newspaper even attempted to count those forgotten victims.
The unstatesmanlike PM
It is often said that Ed Miliband doesn’t look like a potential prime minister. But David Cameron never looks or sounds like a prime minister even though he is one. It has emerged that he nodded through Andrew Lansley’s disastrous NHS reorganisation without understanding it. He appointed a press secretary who had committed, and was later convicted of, a serious criminal offence. By revealing the Queen’s reaction to the Scottish referendum result, he breached royal protocol, the one area where you would expect a Tory and an Old Etonian to be on safe ground.
Now we learn that the EU’s demand for £1.7bn came as a complete surprise. Yet the adjustment of members’ contributions takes place annually in the autumn. The formula used by Brussels may be arcane, but Cameron should have someone on his staff keeping a close eye on the subject. Quite simply, he is not, as lawyers would say, on top of the case.
Fallon, fallible but fun
I shall keep calm about Michael Fallon’s comment that British towns are being “swamped” by immigrants. Fallon, who became defence secretary in July, is a convivial, gossipy and (in my limited experience) rather likeable character from the Conservative right. He was always gaffe-prone. A few days after his appointment, it was revealed that, four years earlier, he jokingly referred to a newspaper columnist as “that slut” (without being aware that he was talking to the columnist) during a boozy Westminster party. Many male Tories talk like that and always have. Voters, in their wisdom, have elected them. Get over it. What I’d like to know is whether Fallon is any good at his job. The press is too busy revealing gaffes to tell us that.
Benn’s bequest
Et tu, Tony? Tony Benn left almost his entire £5m estate to his four children with nothing for CND, Labour or other lefty causes. Moreover, a legal tax avoidance device used after his wife’s death in 2000 (which, thanks to changes later made by a Labour chancellor, would not now be necessary) reduced the tax liability. But we should not rush to judgement. First, no whiff of scandal was ever attached to Benn’s parliamentary expenses and he held no business directorships or consultancies. Second, he lived modestly: no overseas holidays, lavish parties, alcohol, or school fees. Third, all his children – who, by contemporary London standards, are hardly inheriting fortunes – share his views; he may simply have thought they could best judge how to use his money in future.
I find the belief, held by many right-wing commentators, that nobody should support socialism unless they give all their money away slightly odd. Do they believe that nobody can be a true Conservative unless they set up a business or start a property empire?
Trouble at the vicarage
How sad to learn from the Daily Mail that my old friend Robert Harris, the well-known thriller writer, may have to sell his Berkshire vicarage if a Labour government introduces a mansion tax. But his friendship with Peter Mandelson flourishes. Mandelson, godfather to Harris’s youngest daughter, “is so generous and attentive . . . always buying her presents, telephoning and texting her”, Harris reports. Perhaps Mandelson, who has wealthy contacts, could organise a whip-round if the unfortunate author faces a mansion tax bill.
Birthday blindness
Now for an embarrassing admission. Journalists are supposed to be observant and alert. Moreover, we’re supposed to be terrible at keeping secrets. Yet my wife organised a surprise 70th birthday party for me in the pavilion at Lord’s cricket ground, involving around 40 friends and colleagues, right under my nose and without anybody dropping even a unwitting hint of her plans. Furtive mobile phone calls, the mysterious appearance of flowers (for table decorations, it turned out) in the garage, close questioning about anybody I might have fallen out with – all these failed to arouse my curiosity.
I wasn’t, I suppose, anticipating a party because I am not actually 70. I celebrate my real birthday in a few days, during a holiday in India which I planned to coincide with it. I shall be back, older but probably not wiser, just before the Autumn Statement.
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