The Tories On Afghanistan

The party tipped to be the next British government is split on familiar lines:

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, and Michael Gove, the education spokesman, are staunch Atlanticists and supporters of military intervention “neocons” to their critics, although Dr Fox prefers “neo-realist”...

Other Shadow Cabinet ministers think that the priority must be to hand over to the Afghan Army and bring British soldiers home. “There is a significant section of opinion in the parliamentary party that wants the thing over as soon as possible you can call it isolationist or realist but it is there” one frontbencher says. George Osborne, an instinctive neocon, has, colleagues say become an “economic realist” who is struck by the cost of the war at a time when he must save billions. William Hague hovers between the two positions.