Neither Pacifist Nor Isolationist

As the Great Man, Paul Embery of the Lanchester Forum, puts it on Twitter, "Just three RAF strikes in Syria since the vote in parliament. Pure tokenism. UK now a bigger target because of shameful political posturing."

Meanwhile, as Saudi Arabia beheads 47, the very logistics of which boggle the mind, "The only thing Washington has not blamed Iran for is global warming."

Away with Bomber Benn!

We need a Shadow Foreign Secretary who understands that we either pull out of Syria, in which we are barely engaged as it is, or we buckle up for a full-blown war on land, sea and air, for and alongside Assad and all his allies: Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Hezbollah's Christian and other allies in Lebanon, everyone.

I am not advocating either of those options. But they are only two available. There is no Third Way. That has been proved. We have tried to find and follow such a Way, and we have failed.

Diane Abbott spelled this out when she was last on Question Time, as Ken Livingstone had done the previous week, that being the context of his perfectly sensible remark about what had caused the 7/7 bombings.

George Galloway has also repeatedly made this point on RT, and expressions of it by Neil Clark, John Wight and others, have appeared in opinion pieces there and elsewhere, such as the Morning Star and CounterPunch.

The Hard Left is neither pacifist nor isolationist. The clue is in the name. It is Hard. And it is Left.

Critically, but unsqueamishly, it can lionise even deeply unpleasant figures from the revolutionary or the anti-colonial past, in the way that, critically but unsqueamishly, the Old Right can lionise even deeply unpleasant figures from, for example, the British Empire. The alliance between their respective heroes was, of course, how we won the War.

Trotskyists are a partial exception to this. But only a partial one. And they are the worse in a very great many other ways. It is no wonder that neoconservatism emerged among them.

Moreover, John Mann also cited the absence of the necessary alliance with Russia and Iran as his reason for voting against the Government on Syria.

Several other firmly Blairite figures also voted with Jeremy Corbyn, such as Mike Kane, Ivan Lewis, Jonathan Reynolds and Wes Streeting. Lewis is possibly the staunchest and the best-connected Zionist in the House of Commons, so his vote was an interesting insight into Israeli thinking.

They would need to get behind Abbott if, as is being widely trailed, she were to be appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary. I am sure that they would.

As I am sure that they would also get behind Clive Lewis if, as would be ideal, he were to be appointed Shadow Defence Secretary, bringing to that position what have always been the Army's profound doubts about the Trident that even Dan Jarvis did not vote to save when the SNP pressed the matter.

When Galloway stood against Oona King in 2005, then the word went out from the Blair machine that she was to be supported absolutely and unconditionally because she was a black woman.

I do not necessarily agree with that type of politics. But it was theirs. If necessary, then they need to be reminded of that fact.