Our leaders’ suicidal urge to sex it up

It has been over a month since Parliament voted to bomb Isis in Syria, yet in that time there have been fewer raids than there are Lib Dem MPs. A flurry of three attacks took place immediately following the vote on 1 December, but since then there has been only one — by an unmanned Reaper drone on Christmas Day. And even that only ‘probably’ killed some Isis guards at a checkpoint. The three earlier manned missions had focused on an oil field that a US military spokesman later described as having previously suffered ‘long-term incapacitation’ at the hands of the US air force. Presumably the facility had already been blasted to smithereens and the RAF (perhaps to justify the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon’s claim that Britain was ‘really upping the tempo’ in Syria) was invited in for a celebratory kick: late to the party, late to the fight, and bombing bomb sites. The British Lion roars again.

To critics like me of Britain’s participation, the ‘I told you so’s’ will come easily, of course. But that isn’t my point here. I want to suggest how David Cameron might have presented his case better, proofing himself against the sneers of such as I. He could just have told the truth. The honest case for Britain’s joining the scrap in Syria was a fairly decent one.

The honest case for Britain’s joining the US-led invasion of Iraq was quite strong, too. And the honest case for holding a referendum on our membership of the European Union, and for recommending a ‘stay’ vote when the referendum comes, is also mildly persuasive. But in all three examples a sitting prime minister has hyped up the justification in a perfectly unnecessary way, strained honesty, strained credulity and risked simply irritating citizens (and commentators) who could see all along what the real justifications were, who were persuadable, and who might have accepted an unassuming argument where they rejected the overblown one.