In an opinion poll released yesterday, support for the war in Britain had shot up to (I quote from memory) 54% against about 30% against. So Blair's gamble that people would rally round the war, even without UN approval, has been proved correct. Possibly they big show of a full transparent debate provided the moral equivalent of that sense of due process.

However the poll was taken at the weekend before the mounting troubles of the campaign.

One detail was interesting, although the base numbers were small for each category, the results were analysed by newspaper readership. The readers of the broadsheet press remained against the war, including the readers of the Financial Times.

This is not a clever war for finance capitalism even if the US armaments industry may benefit. Fundamentally it does not represent the interests of finance capitalism.

Yes it is a stretch, but I am going to stick my neck out: if the people of the world and finance capitalism are not in favour of this war we should not expect it to be very successful politically. Who will be the fall guy?

Chris Burford
London

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