Doorstepping and "dropping bollocks"

Bat alerted me to a John Kampfner article a few days back that I missed the first time round. If you've not seen it, it's a good rejoinder to that slightly desperate faith amongst New Labour circles that Iraq no longer matters to the voters:

Iraq does matter to people, terribly. In a three-day trip for the New Statesman to constituencies in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, I spoke to about 80 people, a reasonably representative sample, at some considerable length.

All but one volunteered their thoughts on the issue. I did not bring it up, I merely asked people for their general views of the political situation. Some, I would estimate perhaps a fifth, defended it on two counts, removing Saddam Hussein and helping Americans who had helped us during world war two. Of the rest, perhaps a half said it was a terrible mistake, but that on balance they would continue to support Labour because of the domestic agenda. The other half vowed that as long as Blair remained prime minister they could not vote for him. The most commonly used word was "duped". The two most colourful remarks were: "He couldn't lie straight in bed he's so bent" and "He dropped a bollock over the war; the evidence wasn't there".

His book, Blair's Wars, is also recommended (not least by Kampfner himself in the above article, but never mind.) It rather glosses over the vexed issue of Kosovo, however; since this glorious triumph for humanitarian intervention has had a surprisingly large (but little-noticed) impact on British domestic politics, it may be worth returning to this at some later date.