Last Friday, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, produced a gloomy 13-page report about the situation in Syria. ‘The overall level of violence in the country remains quite high,’ he wrote, before adding that ‘there has been only small progress’ on Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan. And then, as if to prove his point, around 90 people — children among them — were killed in the town of Houla. The government has denied responsibility for the atrocity, instead blaming ‘terrorists’. But, whoever or whatever it was, you get the picture. It’s a bloody and terrible mess.
The question that has loomed across this weekend is: what now? For its part, our government is talking tough this morning, with William Hague calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, and Nick Clegg (see video above) saying that any Syrian officials who have ‘abused human rights’ will be blocked from coming to the Olympics.
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