We are the foreign office, and we are all at sea

We f**K things up from Athens all the way to Tripoli

                                                                                                                   (Ethel Slog, anon)

Having exerted zero pressure upon, and made minus 5000% input into, the narcissists screwing up Greece while lining up Spain and Italy, William Hague’s foreign office continues to march stoutly backwards from its hubris in Libya. The war that was “as good as won” six weeks ago (according to the Telegraph’s Government cypher Con Coughlin) is now bogged down in stalemate – if you can be bogged down in sand. ‘The rhetoric on Libya is getting weaker every day,” wrote Ben Brogan this morning. Not only does the FO not know whether it’s coming or going, what the Coalition says depends on whether Hague is going somewhere, or just coming back. I think Bald Willy is the only Foreign Secretary I remember where nobody knows where he is at any given time, or what one earth use his being there might be.

His untrustworthy lieutenant Liam Fox, meanwhile, can’t make his mind up whether Colonel Gadaffi is staying or going. I thought this observation from yesterday by our Liam was a corker:

“”The key for the Libyan resolution will be whether or not the close circle around Colonel Gaddafi realise there’s no point in investing in him, he’s a busted flush, he will sooner or later have to leave power”.

I’ve always been firmly of the opinion that Fox is a clown, but that ‘judgement’ clinches it. Gaddafi’s circle has seen the West chuck jets, tanks and several divisions of the SBS advisory UK ground troops in there. What it hasn’t seen is any sign at all of power slipping away from their man. What the folks round Muammar can see, however, is Europe and the US going bust, losing interest, and then losing their way.

The near-universal incompetence of government now would be just about bearable if the ‘mainstream’ media didn’t keep giving them quite high marks out of ten. They clearly don’t get out enough: go forth into the streets and ask ordinary Brits about Cameron, Osborne, Hague, May or Hunt, and the air will be replete with Anglo-Saxon from 20% of those you talk to. But therein lies the rub: the other 80% will say, “Ooo?”