Why won’t the Syria hawks talk about Libya?

On Coffee House today, the Tory MP Johnny Mercer says that Britain lost its ‘strength and leadership’ on 29 August, 2013,  the day we decided not to attack Assad. We’ve heard this line a lot from a certain sort of politician. Michael Gove and Nick Clegg lost their tempers in the hours that followed the Syria vote. Ed Miliband, who turned against the intervention, was called all sorts of horrible names by all sorts of MPs. George Osborne tells audiences in America with his most earnest face on that Britain lost its mojo that day (We got it back, apparently, when we decided in 2015 to bomb Isis – not Assad, but, hey, whatever!)

The let’s-bomb-Syria brigade has never quite recovered from the shock of being rebuffed in Parliament. According to the Mercer, Osborne & co argument, the 2013 vote undermined Britain’s status as a force for good in the world. We stood idly by and let evil flourish.