Latham has done his sums and come up with an answer that will further wind up the left wing baggage of the ALP. To have any chance of Government Labour needs to debate and where relevant support the Government in it’s Security issues. To disallow every Coalition submission because it doesn’t sit well with the left wing is going nowhere fast.

During a wide-ranging interview with The Australian, Mr McClelland – who, like Mr Latham, hails from the NSW Right – suggested many Labor grassroots members, such as teachers, lawyers, university students and social workers – were out of touch with the security concerns expressed by ordinary voters. “Some of the relatively narrow membership base that we have in the party is refusing to acknowledge the legitimate security concerns and anxiety that working Australians have,” told The Australian

It’s not so much the grassroots members but the left wing portion that drag the party down. Rational thought lost in a hate haze of Bush/Howard et al, they refuse to see any good that can come of the current world power grouping. Both Latham and McClelland are heading in the right direction in this article in todays Australian but I don’t think much of their chances of dragging the left wing into any arena of rational thought. Carmen Lawrence, given any power, will only want to lead the ALP into a 40 years sojourn in the wilderness. It’s a pleasant thought but we do need a viable opposition. McClelland isolates the left wing further by cannonising Satan and calling the UK labour to task over Iraq.

In further controversial remarks, Mr McClelland conceded that Tony Blair’s Labour Government in Britain had been “dishonest” in its arguments for joining the war in Iraq. “America was far more honest in their reasons for going into Iraq,” he said. “It was essentially the doctrine of pre-emption.”

Anyone not handicapped by the hate haze could see the Iraq war was pre-emptive and that the establishment of a democracy in the centre of the Middle East is a good idea but McClelland is being a bit disengenious by claiming the US were far more honest that the two junior partners. The US set the agenda and both the UK and Australia went along with it. The WMD only mattered until Saddam lost his ability to deploy them.

I have to wonder at the value of CHOGM and the Commonwealth in general. What does it do? What does it achieve and how does it help smaller countries in need? The recent CHOGM meeting in Abuja ended up being a committee meeting on Mugabe with some black African nations supporting Mugabe and blaming the whole problem on us white guys. Howard, trying to do the right thing by having Zimbabwe banned until Mugabe mends his ways, is attacked by the African chaps for his hardline stance. I mean, does anyone consider Mugabe redeamable? He’s not going to change and Zimbabwe will simply sink deeper into the cesspit until someone knocks him off. African precendence will have the next guy doing the same thing. Africans, black and white, get slaughtered and CHOGM discusses the problem. Too many tinpot African countries lead by tinpot men have a vote at CHOGM and at the other toothless tiger, the UN. The death toll in Africa underlines Democracy’s weak points – another thousand poor bastards dead – lets have a committee meeting! The chair calls for a show of hands – I think the No’s have it! Warning! The feint hearted, the politically correct, the Democrats (both of ’em), the Greens and assorted dreamers should click the back button – racist statement coming. The whole African continent has fallen to shit since the white guy got kicked out. There is no other word for it. History teachers are busy indoctrinating kids with the killings and arrogance of colonialsm while the Hutus in Rwanda slaughter 800,000 Tutsis and the UN takes seven years to set up an investigation. Yeah, I know – old stuff. But are we going to lay back and accept that this will happen again? What I’d like to see. A team of ‘suits’, some camouflaged, arrives in Zimbabwe and walk into Mugabe’s office. Mr Mugabe, the millions you have stolen from your people has been withdrawn from your Swiss Accounts and deposited in Zimbabwe’s National Bank. You are leaving on a plane tonight to Nigeria where we have set up a small cottage for you to eke out the rest of your life. You may take two buffalos, one wife and all your children. Let’s go! Administrators then manage the economy until local elections, monitored by soldiers, elects a government. Subsequent to the elected representatives being educated and attaining degrees in economics and government the Administrators hand over the reigns but maintain a small presence of advisors, backed by the aforesaid gentlemen wearing camouflaged suits. Yeah, I know, won’t happen this side of hell freezing over. In the meantime people knock on my door and harrass me on TV with visions of starving African children. Starving because the warlords confiscate donated money and goods and sell them to their tribe. The other tribes can starve. And we set up another committee!