Mr Blair has the sympathy vote. But not mine

A few weeks ago a Labour peer, an old friend, was asking my advice about leaving the party. He was not asking about whether to leave – for that was a matter for him and, in any case, he had already made up his mind – but, rather, about the means whereby he should announce his departure. I recommended the method inaugurated by the late Duncan Sandys and followed by the equally dead Desmond Donnelly: I said he should issue a statement to the Press Association at noon on a Saturday. Sandys and Donnelly both used to swear that words so delivered secured more publicity than any lengthy speech. It gave more time for digestion to the Sunday papers; the whole production need take up no more than 300 words, if that.

My friend then raised the Liberal Democrats. He had never held them in the highest regard: but in the sad circumstances of the times they had been helpful. Above all, they were right. Hold your horses, I said. Nine votes on the Security Council, secured by heaven knows what bribery and corruption, not to mention by straightforward threats, might, even if followed by a veto, be taken by Mr Charles Kennedy to secure "authorisation" by the UN for any action which Mr George Bush and Mr Tony Blair might have in mind. They would certainly be taken in this sense by Mr Blair; while Mr Bush would not greatly care one way or the other.

The peer admitted that there was much in what I said. He promised to take it easy with the Lib Dems and not allow any romance to be rushed. Last week, however, Mr Kennedy proved me wrong in one respect. In an interview, he said his party would oppose military action even if only a single country vetoed a further resolution. But what he gave with one hand he took away with the other. He said:

"Once the first shot is fired, whether it is fired by British troops or at British troops, it is the duty of elected parliamentarians to give support to those troops. We may disagree with the fact that they have been put in this position in the first place, but there is no question about patriotism in supporting these troops."

The Government is relying on a similar response, not only from the Liberal Democrats, but from the few dissident Conservatives and the more substantial 120-odd Labour dissentients as well. The Labour Party was, until recently, terrified of being labelled the unpatriotic party. For over two decades after 1945, Conservative Central Office would put out propaganda to the effect that Labour's leaders, notably Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson, had been skulking in Whitehall while the brave Tories had been risking their necks at the front.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Tories were allowed to get away with it. No one boasted about the service of Captain Jenkins, Captain Crosland and Major Healey, to name but a few. This calumny undoubtedly damaged the party in the post- war years. Even greater damage was caused – or so the received party wisdom went – by opposition to the Suez operation. Some people still say that was why Gaitskell lost the 1959 election so badly, rather than because Harold Macmillan had brought about the good times.

But one of several respects in which it differs from the forthcoming war is that over Suez the working classes were broadly united behind the Eden government – for had not Colonel Nasser stolen our property, the Suez Canal? – whereas over Iraq all classes are divided, with the clear majority in all of them firmly against the war. It is humbug for Mr Kennedy to turn round and pretend that he supports it merely because it has started and our troops are involved. If you really want to support our boys, the truly patriotic course is to call for them to be removed speedily from the sands of Mesopotamia to the shores of Blighty, where they will no longer be liable to prosecution as war criminals at the new International Criminal Court, from whose jurisdiction the United States has prudently removed itself.

Mr Blair is forever going on, at tedious length, about how bold he is. He reminds me of Wilson boasting about his "guts". But Mr Kennedy can be bold as well, and should be so. He will not necessarily lose votes thereby.

In 1900 the daughter of a Cornish archdeacon, Emily Hobhouse, went to South Africa to investigate the Boer War. She found women and children imprisoned in concentration camps (the first use of the phrase), with houses burnt and food in short supply. She told her story to the leader of the Liberal Party in opposition, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who listened to it with growing horror. On 14 June 1901 he spoke at a Liberal dinner at the Holborn Restaurant:

"A phrase often used is that 'war is war', but when one comes to ask about it one is told that no war is going on, that it is not war. When is a war not a war? When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa."

The phrase "methods of barbarism" caused a tremendous fuss. But in four and a half years Campbell-Bannerman was Prime Minister. His party remained in power for a further 10 years.

If Mr Kennedy is showing signs of backsliding, Mr Blair grows more rigid by the day. There are dangerous indications that he may be attracting the sympathy vote. Journalists, often women, making no claim to knowing about politics, have been writing articles saying that while they cannot support the war in Iraq, nevertheless they admire Mr Blair's patent sincerity. Since about the 1960s, sincerity has been counted among the highest human virtues. But Adolf Hitler was entirely sincere in his desire to exterminate the Jews. It is all there in his early writings. It was even there in his instructions from the bunker to his various successors.

Mr Blair strikes me as possessing the capacity of the religious maniac to regurgitate, with every appearance of sincerity, any piece of garbage which may be required in the temporary service of some higher cause. Thus the week before last was morality week; last week, national-interest week. And yet Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness have been responsible for the deaths of more citizens of the UK than Saddam Hussein ever has: but they, unlike Saddam, are endlessly flattered and indulged, as much by Mr Blair as by other ministers.

In all this, the old party comrades are making no serious attempt to get rid of Mr Blair. They are rather like R A Butler in Enoch Powell's account of the Tories' 1963 crisis, who asked whether the revolver that Powell and others had handed to him would cause noise, injury and bloodshed. Instead they are talking about a special conference in May to refound the Labour Party. Somehow I cannot see Mr Blair being at all alarmed by that prospect.