DISAPPOINTING DEBATE

THE “foreign affairs” section of the party leaders' TV debate last Thursday was very disappointing. In the first place, why was “Europe” included when it should not be regarded as a “foreign” topic at all? Nothing was said about the Israel-Palestinian stand-off although it is considered by most experts to be at the heart of much of the unrest in the world today. Africa -- nothing.

But we heard from two leaders with no top level experience of diplomacy that Britain should “stand up” to America. Naturally, Afghanistan, with its impact in the homes and streets of Britain, got the most attention but even here the discussion was mainly about equipment and the debt owed to the troops serving there. Neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Clegg challenged Gordon Brown's emphatic assertion that there is a chain of terror linking Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and leading to Britain. This is the argument that holds together the western powers involved in Afghanistan -- that if these breeding grounds of terrorism are not neutralised they will in time make their destructive presence felt in our streets. Take that argument away and it is doubtful whether the west would want to sustain the huge effort to change the very nature of Afghanistan society. Obviously an issue of this kind could not be debated in an election atmosphere but whichever government is in power in May will need to re-examine present assumptions on Afghanistan in the most rigorous way possible.