Cuddly Conservatism, Scapular Sociability

Daveybloke, the Cuddly Conservative, is doing his statesman thing once more, continuing his effort to be a Tony for the 2010s by extruding one of the Vicar of Downing Street's more vacuous clichés: "We are in this together, as equal partners, two sovereign countries working shoulder to shoulder to deal with a problem that affects us both," he said. Given that Tony was talking about the United States and Daveybloke was talking about Pakistan, it is arguable that Daveybloke at least has some idea of Britain's actual status in the world. Unfortunately, he also appears to imagine that Operation Iraqi Liberation had something to do with "trying to impose democracy on foreign countries"; more unfortunately still, the senior political correspondent of Britain's leading liberal newspaper appears to agree with him.