Blair will lead a divided country into war

When a young officer tentatively expressed a view about the best way to proceed in some military situation or other, the Duke of Wellington rebuked him with the words: "That, sir, sounds to me dangerously close to the expression of an opinion." And when I began this trade, many years ago now, columnists were expected to observe a similar reticence. We might write that Mr Harold Wilson was in danger, or Mr James Callaghan up to no good. But about the merits of the case we were expected to keep quiet. Likewise, the use of the personal pronoun was eschewed, unless it was absolutely necessary.

How different, how very different, today! All columnists are required to hold decided opinions, whether about a fire officers' dispute or a war in Iraq, and to express them forcibly. Young women of about 19-and-a-half have opinions on everything on earth and are paid good money by our great newspapers to tell us what they are. Accordingly, there is nothing wrong with the expression of a few opinions in this space.

Unlike, say, Mr Tam Dalyell and Mr Tony Benn, I have never been a fully paid-up member of the Peace Party. I was, weakly, for the war in the Falklands and, more strongly, for the war in the Gulf. I was against the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan with more or less equal degrees of conviction. And I am even more strongly opposed to any war in Iraq, UN resolution or no UN resolution.

Many people find themselves in the same position. They are completely unrepresented by the Conservative party. At Prime Minister's Questions last week Mr Iain Duncan Smith dropped the ball with no one between him and the line, presumably because he did not wish to embarrass the Government. Not that Mr Duncan Smith is much good at this normally, but he could at least have had a try. He declined to question the Prime Minister on the disagreement between Mr Geoff Hoon and Sir Michael Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

At a press conference Sir Michael had said, repeating what he had already said before a Commons committee (which received less publicity), that the deployment of troops to man the army's fire engines was impeding the efforts to make a force ready for Iraq. It will be surprising if Mr Tony Blair recommends Sir Michael for the peerage which for someone in his position normally comes up with the rations.

The kind of Conservatives who might have been expected to support a war in Iraq – those famous "C2s" who are supposed to have put Margaret Thatcher into power – may not be so inclined to support Mr Blair as they were to support Mrs Thatcher over the Falklands, or Anthony Eden over Suez. What, they may ask, has it got to do with us? Why should our brave boys have their lives put at risk because Mr George Bush wants a pointless sacrifice?

To be fair to Mr Bush, he does not seem to require massed battalions. He is asking for specialist backing, such as Mr Michael Portillo's favourite outfit, the SAS. Most of all, he would like a show of support. Mr Blair is disappointed at this modest approach. He wants to be able to put on a performance. Most of all, he wants a parade of tanks – just like the leaders of the old Politburo in Red Square on Lenin's birthday. Our tanks may not frighten the enemy but, by God, they will certainly make good pictures on television news. There the matter rests.

But the Conservatives who are more likely to be disturbed are those who are often of a military background, as Mr Duncan Smith is himself. They tend to have done quite well in life, as Mr Duncan Smith has too. They live in places like Winchester, Guildford and Eastbourne, all formerly considered safe Tory seats. The first two are now held by the Liberal Democrats, while Eastbourne is narrowly held by the Conservatives, having been won over briefly by the Liberal Democrats after a by-election in 1990.

Of all the events since he became leader, it is war in Iraq which offers Mr Charles Kennedy his greatest opportunity to make converts both from the Conservatives and, perhaps to a lesser extent, from the Labour Party as well. So far his appeal has been to the high-minded, to those who put their faith in the United Nations. That did not prevent him from asking the politician's question which Mr Duncan Smith should have asked: about the inability of the armed forces both to put out fires and to prepare for war. But his general approach has been that of his party and, previously, of the Liberals also.

The trouble with this approach is that it invests the UN with an almost sacerdotal authority. Labour MPs who were opposed to a war with Iraq fell into precisely the same trap a few months ago. There were, naturally, a few old irreconcilables – Mr Dalyell, Mr Benn, Mr George Galloway, Mrs Alice Mahon – who were opposed to a war come what might. They will presumably maintain their position in the debate tomorrow. But there were more of them who asked merely for the authority of the UN and for nothing else, on the assumption that Mr Bush did not give a 10-cent cigar for the United Nations and would behave exactly as he liked.

This was a fair assumption to make. But it is not the way he has behaved, whatever his intentions may be. The backbenchers asked a question fully expecting the answer to be No. It has turned out to be Yes instead, even if surrounded by qualifications and doubts about its meaning. Mr Blair saw this from the start: that the way to get both his own party and his European equivalents on board the Bush battleship was to ensure that it was sailing under the UN flag which, under the circumstances, is something of a flag of convenience, like those carried by our decrepit oil tankers.

The Prime Minister's other ploy has been to try to make our flesh creep. He devoted almost an entire speech at the Lord Mayor's bunfight to the peril in our midst, or shortly to descend among us. Anyone would think we had never experienced terrorism before. But it has always been official policy to regard terrorism by the IRA as qualitatively different from terrorism by other groups. It is, after all, our terrorism rather than theirs, conducted by chaps who speak – actually, rather good – English and are devout Roman Catholics rather than by chaps with beards who follow a stranger religion. That most of the latter hail anyway from Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the Gulf states rather than from Iraq does not seem to make the slightest difference.

Mr Blair will get his vote tomorrow, if there is one. But he will not be leading a united country. For him, this will be a new and an uncomfortable experience, of which the most obvious beneficiary is Mr Kennedy.