We see another fine example of the absolute incompetence of the British Govt, with the handling of the Libyan issue, firstly we had the William Hagues in his best south yorkie tones announcing that Col Gadaffi, was in Carracas, with his mates Hugo Suarez, Beelzebug and Vlad the Impaler, having run away like the coward we all knew he really was. No doubt he went through the same rigerous level of checking the veracity of the statement as the Bliar did over weapons of mass destruction.
Then we have the news on Sunday from "14 pints "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/871543.stm
that the top priority of the British Govt was to arrange a charter flight to remove British nationals from Libya, as yet that Charter flight is yet to arrive.
Fact 1 The Italians and Austrians have managed to get a charter flight in and out of the country
Fact 2 The French have managed to get 2 charter flights in and out of the country
Fact 3 The US Govt have chartered a Ferry and it is waiting off the Libyan coast
Fact 4 Other than the Italians the British Govt has better relations with Libya than other western counties.
On the radio today there was a piece from a Govt source extolling an example of the "Big Society". In the face of cuts to the local Goverment transport budget, residents of a village that was due to have it's bus service cancelled have clubbed together to buy a bus.
Perhaps Mr Hague was expecting our citizens in Libya to follow their example and buy themselves a plane.
Hague also announced that he was sending a Frigate to wait in International Waters, gun boat diplomacy.
The weapon platform that would be most useful in this scenario is a carrier, in their defence review the Tories have scrapped both of our carriers and have decomissioned the only aircraft we have capable of flying off the carriers. We are due to commision two new carriers into service in the next couple of years.
My suggestion to the Govt is that they call for a resolution at the Security Council of the UN requesting that the world has no new conflicts for the next couple of years until the carriers arrive, whoops that's no good, because although we are getting the carriers, the aircraft to fly off them are not due to arrive until 4 years after that.
Putting aside ideaology for one moment what is particularly stunning about our Government is how incompentent that are.
Since 1410 most Welsh people most of the time have abandoned any idea of independence as unthinkable. But since 1410 most Welsh people, at some time or another, if only in some secret corner of the mind, have been "out with Owain and his barefoot scrubs." For the Welsh mind is still haunted by it's lightning-flash vision of a people that was free.
Gwyn A. Williams,