'The Houthis might be a threat but do we really need to be bombing again?'

13 January 2024 , 18:40

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US and UK jets struck targets in Yemen on Friday morning (Image: PA)

Strange feeling, to go to bed on a Thursday and wake up Friday morning seeing we’ve decided to unleash air strikes on yet another country.

Not me personally, I should stress. My air power is limited and I don’t really have the time these days to start trouble in the Red Sea.

Nah, your Government took the overnight decision to get involved in Yemen. Incredible, really, how quickly everyone has become an expert on a country that despite years of terrible problems has barely had a mention lately.

First thing on Friday I had someone ring for what I assumed was going to be a conversation about Leeds letting Britain’s favourite right-back, Luke Ayling, go to Middlesbrough.

But instead, it turned out to be a brief history of the Houthi. Be like this for a while, I suppose.

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I have to agree launching these things without speaking to Parliament first was out of order. The situation deserved some consideration, some discussion, and those with objections could have aired them.

There’s some urgency, I guess, when drones and missiles are being launched at ships. But the speed of it was pretty bewildering.

The US insisting action was necessary is a driving factor – and that’s always worked out well, hasn’t it? When have we ever got into trouble following the US into military action? More pressing for our Treasury is the effect problems in the Red Sea have on shipping. Something just shy of 15% of the world’s shipping has to go that way, or face a 5,000-mile detour round Africa.

And Treasury modelling shows any disruption could drive crude oil up by $10 a barrel, natural gas by 25%. Not ideal, in an energy crisis, and could be quite a blow to the UK economy. I’m sure there are more noble reasons to bomb a country but they really do escape me right now.

Anyway, it’s worth reading about Yemen, where civil war has raged for the best part of a decade and 21.6 million people need aid. We should really – and I include myself – pay more attention. But we don’t, until oil is a problem.

Mr Sunak now has foreign affairs to concentrate on. I’m not too sure how it will play in the country. A lot of people can’t understand why we’re involved. This is not the Falklands, though. No poll bounce for limited action in Yemen, nothing to be gained from Ukraine grinding on. Grim as it is, I suppose trotting round the world stage is a distraction for our beleaguered PM – even to these trouble spots. Doom tourists, I think they call them.

Still. Parliament will be back next week, the Post Office problem rumbles on and all this has really done is stress the one glaring fact in British politics: we can’t wait till the autumn for a General Election.

Keir Mudie