Politicians prefer everything to be black and white. A binary world of on and off switches. Where all is either good or bad. That’s why they so often like to construct so many lists. If five promises don’t work then try six milestones instead. The problem is never the delivery, it’s always the message. If ministers can only get people to understand what they are trying to do, then all will be well. They don’t quite get that most of us trade in nuances. Life is much more complicated than that. It can’t be reduced to a few slogans.
So something like the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria presents Westminster with a problem. How to present something that no one foresaw happening just a fortnight ago? It was on no one’s radar. Least of all the Foreign Office’s.
