Don't mention the war?

The Guardian comment on the ‘sssshhhh’ today. You know, that little exercise in Middle East. They say that ‘Many in Tony Blair’s party who opposed the US-led invasion are keeping quiet about the issue now’.

‘However, candidates are mentioning their anti-war positions in constituencies where there has been strong opposition to the conflict, for example, in constituencies with large Muslim communities or student populations.

Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour candidate for Brent East, has not hidden her opposition. In her attempt to beat the Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather, she has written in a campaign leaflet: “The Lib Dems told voters who were unhappy with the Iraq war to vote for them. Less than a week after they won, they backed sending more troops.” ' - from the Guardian

Yasmin has got a drum and she’ll beat it. When I met her in Queen’s Park her key message to me was that the Liberal Democrats voted to support the Labour government in additional troop deployments in Iraq. But as I commented then, the Liberal Democrats DID NOT vote FOR conflict in the first place - they were against war. Or perhaps Yasmin Qureshi and the then Labour government didn’t want cross-party support for continuing to work at resolving the mess Tony Blair et al made Iraq. There is a difference between invading a country on false pretenses - something that the Labour government did - and being commited to sorting out the mess when made.

I also hear that Yasmin has been, perhaps only in her enthusiasim, miss-representing the voting record of Charles Kennedy. I hear that when meeting people from faith groups at their places of worship in the constituency, Yasmin has stated that Charles Kennedy voted FOR the Iraq war. To ensure clarity of information, here is a link here you can check for yourself the voting record of Charles Kennedy.