Military to Corbyn : Don't apologise, it'll mean we did something wrong

Colonel Richard Kemp is turning purple at the thought of the next Labour leader issuing a formal apology for the party taking Britain into the illegal and disastrous Iraq War -

"[Corbyn] would not only be telling those troops and their families their sacrifice was for nothing but also their actions were illegal, immoral and dishonourable."

Rubbish.  The troops were bravely doing their duty and following instructions, which ultimately came from a government run by the Labour party. Indeed, one of the groups Corbyn will presumably be apologising to is the families of British soldiers killed during the invasion, who were every bit as much victims of Blair's illegal actions as the Iraqi dead were.

"Or will Mr Corbyn be apologising for the deaths of perhaps 219,000 Iraqi civilians killed following the 2003 invasion?  Maybe he is unaware that these tragic people were not killed by British or US forces..."

Woah, woah, woah.  Is the colonel really saying that NONE of those civilians were killed by British or US forces?  I think he might find that claim rather difficult to sustain.  And of course the more pertinent point is this : regardless of who killed each individual, how many of those civilians would still be alive now if Iraq had never been illegally invaded in the first place?

I'd suggest that the colonel start to reconcile himself to an apology.  It's been several years since Nick Clegg denounced the invasion as illegal while speaking on behalf of the government at Prime Minister's Questions.  At around the same time, the incumbent Labour leader publicly admitted the war was "wrong".  Corbyn will now go a step further and apologise.  He'll probably never do so as the occupant of 10 Downing Street, but the direction of travel is unmistakable - a government apology for Iraq is as inevitable as the Bloody Sunday apology was.  Let's just hope it doesn't take quite as long.

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Our old friend "TSE of PB" -

"After a decade of ‘austerity’ perhaps the country will want to try something different, particularly if it is felt that austerity contributed to a future recession. If you’re a Scottish Nationalist, you might want to skip the next paragraph."

Not at all, old chap, it's just more of the standard "too wee, too poor, too stupid" fare, and we've got fairly strong constitutions after the nonsense that was chucked at us last year.  But there again, TSE, you might want to skip this link.  You might also want to resist the temptation to re-read your embarrassing pre-election piece about how Labour needed to steer clear of any deal with the SNP, because the SNP slate of candidates were of such "low quality".  That assessment seemed to be mostly based on sniffy articles in the Telegraph about Mhairi Black being twenty years old and working-class, and Chris Law having a ponytail.  Oooh, the horror!