Will Libya be Cameron's Shot in the Arm?

I’m pleased Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green MP, voted against continuing Britain's military involvement in Libya.

There are so many valid arguments for not getting involved in the conflict even when it’s just about protecting innocent civilians i.e. hypocrisy,what about similar situations in other countries; the costs of involvement at a time when we’re all tightening our belts; the possible opened ended nature of the involvement; the tricky nature of the tasks involved, and so on.

Also the majority of us see regime change as the ultimate goal. Here I think caution needs to be exercised. For the simple reason that Gaddafi, irrespective of the tyrannical figure he presents, probably has a lot more support in Libya than we want to believe.

A couple of years ago I had some contact with a Libyan family who were staying in Widnes as the father was on a technical course at Halton College (now Riverside). The family had a meal with us and during our conversation I talked to them about Gaddafi and what they thought about his regime.

They seemed to accept the status quo in Libya – as long as they didn’t step out of line they were OK. They had community meetings were any problems they had could be thrashed out in a communal way. They were not particularly pro Gaddafi and were aware of his many faults but they were doing all right - no reason to rock the boat.

Being an extreme liberal with socialist and Green tendencies I found this incredible. But their calm response was that it was an imbedded cultural phenomenon. They kept saying that people were reasonably well off in Libya and Gaddafi was canny enough to exploit this.

A couple of issues – first, revolutions that are successful have to be overwhelmingly popular – is this the case with this revolution? I don’t know. Second - a population which presumes itself to be under assault from foreign forces, even though it might not be particularly supportive of its ruler, will rally to his call in such circumstances.

Anyway, Maggie Thatcher had her Falklands in the early 1980’s to provide her with a new lease of life - will Libya be David Cameron’s and the coalitions shot in the arm given its current stormy passage, or not? Only time will tell.