Syria

‘Were we right to stop a massacre? Yes, we absolutely were,’ said David Cameron on his Radio 4 Today programme interview. But the real question is different: were we right to depose Gaddafi, given the chaos (and bloodshed) that has followed in Libya? Are things so much better for the citizens of Benghazi (and the 80,000 souls in Sirte) now that Islamic State has moved in? The Prime Minister stopping a potential massacre at Benghazi was fairly uncontroversial. But should he have then pressed on to topple the Libyan and created the vacuum now being filled with sectarian warfare and the migration crisis? We know quite a lot about all this due to the book

He looked bored. He looked dishevelled. His half-knotted crimson tie sagged disconsolately beneath his bearded throat. The drab jacket seemed as beige as ever. Corbyn spoke to the Labour conference looking like an embarrassed scout-master thanking his colleagues for a surprise party he didn’t want. ‘Any chance we could start the speech?’ he asked as the crowed clapped and cheered him. He began in ever-so-humble mode by saying how grateful he was ‘to be invited’ to address the conference. And he warmly thanked the three rival candidates he had trounced in the leadership election. He sounded as if they’d trounced him. The hesitant, informal style is so effective it looks

Now that the Middle East is basically moving to Europe after Germany did the national equivalent of advertising a house party on Facebook, it’s worth looking back four years ago to when the ‘Arab Spring’ was beginning, and what might have been done. At the time, you’ll recall, Egypt’s kleptocrat dictator had just fallen and the first protests were beginning in Syria. David Cameron flew to the Gulf where he attacked suggestions that the Middle East ‘can’t do democracy’. As the Mail reported at the time: He rejected the idea that ‘highly controlling’ regimes are needed to ensure stability as violence and protests continued in Libya. He dismissed the idea

At first the government was slow to react to the refugee crisis, but now things are starting to happen. It’s less than two weeks since David Cameron said Britain would take in an extra 20,000 Syrian refugees, but this week Theresa May promised that the first of them will be arriving ‘in the coming days’. Given the logistics of resettlement, this turn of speed is impressive. But if the pace of the response has picked up, the scale of it still remains disappointing. Having ruled out taking in any refugees who’ve already reached Europe, even as an emergency measure, the government really should look to increase the number it’s prepared to