Syria defeat: What next for David Cameron?

Having lost last night’s vote, David Cameron needs to spend today fighting back. There are quite a few ways he can do so. He can easily brush off the more excitable charges: that he faces a leadership challenge, or that Tories will come for him at party conference. They won’t. Cameron was elected to fix Britain, not Syria, and he’s doing quite well with the day job. Employment is at a record high, schools and welfare are being reformed, crime’s down. Cameron has not been defeated on a cornerstone of his foreign policy, but on a plan to join an American missile strike that may not take place. It was a grave error for Cameron to put his reputation on the line and portray the Syrian missile strike as a moment that would define Britain for good and for ill. Having blown all this up, he’ll have trouble deflating it.