Not a Retreat, So Much as a Redeployment

Daveybloke, the Cuddly Conservative, has capitalised upon the occasion of the three-hundredth significant death in Afghanistan to put the little people in the picture concerning the state of the Great Game. Daveybloke would like Britain to have "a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, including helping to train their troops and their civil society" to know their place in future; but Daveybloke would also like to withdraw British troops from the country by the end of the present parliament. After all, given the likely effect of all those Osborne budgets, the Government is likely to have a significant and increasing need for crowd controllers, strike-breakers and armoured social workers, in order to keep the British people firmly in mind of just how far we're all in it together.