The Sketch: Even when grieving, Gordon cannot silence his critics

Silence, of course, always falls on the House when the PM "honours the dead" at the beginning of PMQs. Time was that the silence was serious; now it conceals an undercurrent of irritation. Some people sense, and it's impossible to prove, that Gordon is using this process to defy critics to deny his cause in Afghanistan is, as he puts it, "noble".

Tony Blair used to say, initially, that he grieved with the families of the young men. Advisers pointed out what a disabling emotion grief is and that he'd be hard put to run a bath let alone the country while grieving for so many. Now, Gordon lowers his voice and says these young men – and a woman – are "always in our thoughts". No disrespect to the dead but that isn't true for anyone but those who are grieving for them.

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Peter Tapsell found words to question the practice, not easy when the House is baying. He asked whether "the PM and his successors will be paying mournful tribute to those killed fighting an unwinnable and deeply unpopular war when it is widely understood that the Taliban are not international terrorists, and that international terrorists are trained not in Afghanistan but mostly in Pakistan, Iraq and in Britain". God knows what we're doing there; if it's bringing education to Muslim girls, are we allowed to wonder whether that's a proper use of British military power?

Jeremy Corbyn's point also went unanswered. He glanced at the fact that 100 of our troops had been killed but that 2,000 Afghans had suffered the same fate. He asked the question that never gets a response from the Government. With poppy production at an all-time high, why don't we turn the poppy into a cash crop to solve the worldwide shortage of diamorphine. Tax it, and use the funds to police the industry.

The only reply to this was instinctive weasling, "we have doubled, er halved, the number of poppy-free provinces". Which is doubtless consistent with an all-time high in production.

Many of us would like to know the objections to Corbyn's proposal but the PM can't tell us. He is unable to hold a public conversation. At best it's a dialogue in which one side has a turn to say things then he has a turn to say other things.

simoncarr@sketch.sc

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