The trouble with sites like ConservativeHome is that the vast majority of posters are party political trainspotters obsessed with the minutiae of our niche fetish and/or the Westminster Village Commentariat. Now normally that is fine and, like the Collectors of Car Tax Discs, we can pursue our little hobby with all the fury and intensity of your regular anorak. However, when something as out of the box as the David Davis resignation comes along we struggle to fit it into our Weltanschauung because it it transcends the parameters of party political discourse – it’s the sort of thing one would discuss in a seminar as part of a Political Science degree…hence the bewilderment of hacks like Robinson and Crick – if they can’t understand it then it must be either a “stunt” or part of some sort of conspiracy.
Fortunately this issue is now beyond the village and the anoraks and and is in the hands of those ordinary, everyday folk who are not political hobbyists. These are the people who we often claim to represent and love but who do sometimes display an annoying tendency to make up their own minds and ignore our sage and well informed advice…..

“Military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al Qaeda”

So says The Washington Post in a recent article headed “The Iraqi Upturn”. Now the WaPo is the Bible of the Beltway, the parish magazine of the East Coast chattering classes, the Court Circular of the Democrat elite so when it starts to say this it must cause consternation at the BBC, The Guardian and The Independent where the concept of the Iraq “quagmire” has been deeply embedded as a self evident truth.

But, more worryingly, it must also be causing concern at The Daily Telegraph which, over the last few weeks, has been peddling a rather curious line about events in Basra and Sadr City, portraying the current offensives in a rather negative light – and it raises again the issue of the DT Editor Will Lewis and his relationship with Gordon Brown. The sudden spate of articles from Mary Riddell have been very defensive of Brown and it just makes you wonder if “Private Eye” is on to something when it describes a degree of “cosiness” between Lewis and the Brown coterie…..perhaps someone should tell those Barclay boys……