Voting = Bad, Terrorism = OK... Got That?

In August, The Foreign Secretary was speaking on BBC Radio 4 Great Lives programme about South Africa and the ANC when he said this in regards to terrorism:

“Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.”

I was a bit shocked when I read this quote as were many others, but there was no furore, it didn’t make the really make the papers or TV news, and another of Miliband’s student politic moments passed largely unnoticed to the wider population.

So, it’s lunch time today and I thought I would pop over to the DT blogs, as I usually do when I saw this post from Ed West, which linked to an interview from David Miliband with the DT where David Miliband has criticised David Cameron and the Conservatives for surrendering to:

“Euro-Extremism”

And goes on to quote more fully that:

“I honestly believe that the Conservative Europe policy is a massive strategic weakness for them as they try to persuade sensible, moderate ordinary people that they are a serious party of government”

[my emphasis]

So let’s get this straight; it is, in the Foreign Secretary’s mind sensible, moderate and ordinary to think that

“Yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective.”

But it is Extremist to want a referendum on a treaty that his own political manifesto offered?? Seriously, WTF?

The interview and the Foreign Secretary’s position is specific to the Conservative position on Europe, which to be quite frank in not a strong enough position for most people tastes – So if the Foreign Minister actually saying he thinks that more than half of the people in Britain are extremists for being against the current Governments position on the EU, whilst accepting that Terrorist Acts are acceptable to him, as long as he agrees with the perpetrators politics? … That’s what it sounds like to me.