“If you’re not confused, then you don’t understand the situation,” said the Conservatives’ Sir Alan Duncan, the House of Commons’ resident Confucius. It was marginally less patronising than “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps,” though only just. By Duncan’s benchmark, there were a large number of idiots savants in the chamber for the day-long debate on bombing Syria: not least among them the prime minister, who appeared a great deal more confused about his position than a week ago. Just as well he hadn’t agreed to a two-day debate next week as he could have ended up voting against himself.
After urging his MPs not to side with terrorist sympathisers by voting with the opposition – well, most of it – the previous evening, David Cameron spent most of his opening speech ignoring interruptions calling for him to apologise. Every time he tries to play the world statesman, he manages to spontaneously self-combust. Perhaps Dave should just accept that he and olive branches don’t see eye to eye.
The failed apology seemed to bother the prime minister a great deal more than it did his opponents as he went on to admit he didn’t really have an exit strategy for military action, he didn’t have a clue if there were really 70,000 moderate Syrian ground troops to capitalise on air strikes and he didn’t quite know what a couple of Tornados could bring to the party.
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