Speak for England, Ed!

I am in London for several days for the first time in fifteen years and the hot city (scorching hot by British standards) is discussing property prices and  whether 'we' (but do I still feel the British Government is 'we''?) should bomb Syria. Once foolishly I had hoped for democracy in Syria but when the facts change I change my mind and I try to learn from others misfortunes. I prayed yesterday for Mr Cameron to lose his vote in the House and now he has been forced to vote a second  vote before war. Time for public opinion and parliament to try to prevent it.

As the wretched Matthew D' Ancona (repeating, I imagine, what George Osbourne told him) makes clear in this afternoon's Evening Standard, an air strike would not be a punitive strike but a full-scale attempt to win the war for 'the moderate rebels'. 

it is stretching credulity to claim that [David Cameron's] objectives in Syria will be contained by a single cluster of strikes in response to a particular chemical weapons attack. The question he must answer is: what does he want to happen after the response has been delivered, the penalty exacted, the message sent? Back to business as usual?
Patently not. In private, the PM sees this tactic as his best chance yet of launching — at last — the strategic process he previously hoped would be expedited by arming the moderate rebels: to shock Assad into realising that he is a pariah, to force him to the table, and to plan the new Syria as the Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians mapped out the future of former Yugoslavia in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.'Patently not. In private, the PM sees this tactic as his best chance yet of launching — at last — the strategic process he previously hoped would be expedited by arming the moderate rebels: to shock Assad into realising that he is a pariah, to force him to the table, and to plan the new Syria as the Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians mapped out the future of former Yugoslavia in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.'

But Mr Cameron does not say this or anything like this. And chemical weapons are an excuse not the reason for the air strike as WMD were in 2003 in Iraq. If you think it is about chemical weapons you are a fool. Is Mr Cameron any better than Mr. Blair? First homosexual marriage, now this.

This morning reading the papers I have the strange experience of applauding Mr Miliband - if he is playing politics over Syria please let him continue to do so and to vote against any intervention there. I also applaud Mr Putin and am glad we have Mr Obama not Mr McCain in the Oval Office. McCain wants US intervention to bring about regime change in Syria. For the avoidance of doubt the Assad regime is vile and kills and tortures tens of thousands of civilians, but defeat for them would be worse and a democratic election in Syria would be an utter disaster.