Embedded No More

No Conservative speaker gave Michael Fallon unqualified support, and several were very hostile indeed.

Sir Edward Leigh, Julian Lewis, Philip Hollobone, Peter Bone, John Redwood: if there had been some kind of motion of censure this afternoon, then the Government would have lost it, and lost it very badly.

David Cameron did not dare show his face.

Everyone was adamant, really as if there were nothing to discuss (which there wasn't), that Parliament had resolved specifically and explicitly against any military intervention on any side in Syria, ever, and that that was just that.

As Barry Gardiner put it, the Government had never accepted the very express will of the House, and had gone out of its way to circumvent it.

Tom Watson asked the question that produced the smoking gun: the Government had known about this since last year. Fallon and Cameron ought to have resigned on the spot.

There is no well-established practice of embedding our personnel in forces that are fighting wars against British participation in which the House of Commons has specifically and explicitly resolved.

Not for the first time, I wish that Tom were standing for Leader, and that he already were.