A series of YouGov tracker polls reveal that public opinion is changing on whether military intervention in Libya is gong well or badly, and on whether it is right or not for Britain and its allies to take military action. Only one week ago a week ago 57% of the British public thought intervention was going well and only 19% thought it was going badly but this has changed to 42% thinking it is going well compared with 34% going badly. Changes in view about whether the intervention is right or wrong have also moved over this time and today the poll shows that more people disapprove of the intervention than support it. Continue reading
Tagged with Libya
Left opinion shifts against Libyan intervention
Two organisations today came out against military intervention in Libya, perhaps indicating that opinion amongst Labour MPs is not representative of the Labour movement as a whole. Unite, the biggest union in the UK, has today called for a halt to the air attacks on Libya and an immediate ceasefire, saying that the intervention is a mistake and will provoke a lengthened civil conflict. In addition, Welsh Labour Grassroots which – uniquely amongst the British nations and regions — covers the Left spectrum from Compass and the traditional Left through to the LRC also opposes military intervention and disagrees with the support given to it by the Labour front bench. Continue reading
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Fears grow of depleted uranium use in Libya
Campaigners from the UK Uranium Weapons Network and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament today expressed their growing alarm at the possibility that highly toxic and radioactive depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been used in Libya. The inhalation of DU particles, spread when the weapons hit their target, is thought to be linked to the sharp increases in cancer rates and birth defects reported in affected areas. Continue reading
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Revolution and the rise of Al Jazeera
Perhaps it was unintended, but two or three weeks ago, at the height of the protests that were gripping the great cities of Egypt, the director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, appeared on the channel’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, in London as part of a debate on the future of newsgathering, and mentioned the BBC and Al Jazeera in the same sentence. Continue reading
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What’s the Exit Strategy, Dave?
Overnight he was transformed from Mr Bean to Stalin. In the same way that Thatcher had her Falklands, Cameron had his Libya. But then it didn’t go according to plan. At the first site of a cruise missile, Gaddafi didn’t throw down his weapons and put his hands in the air. Nor did he try to surrender to the F16s that were circling above him at 30,000 feet. He didn’t rush down to the beach and swim out into the Mediterranean in search of a British Polaris submarine, so that he could beg to be taken prisoner. No. He just sat tight and waited for it to pass. Continue reading