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.
If you had dared to suggest it as a possibility last month you’d have been laughed at. That doesn’t easily fit into a scheme of ones and noughts. The overthrow of Assad may be a reason for rejoicing but the victory for the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham may be less so. We just don’t know. They may turn out to be democrats in disguise. They may live up to their proscription by the British state as a terrorist group with links to al-Qaida.
But just because a thing is problematic, it doesn’t mean that Westminster falls silent. Far from it. Politicians are only too happy to parade their ignorance on almost any subject. For reasons that escape us mortals, they believe their office bestows on them a special level of insight. Most of all, they believe that if a topic has not been debated in the Commons, then it can’t really be said to have happened. Only MPs can make something real. Confer validity.
It was inevitable, then, that David Lammy would want to make a statement on events in Syria. Hell, even if most of us weren’t demanding one then the Syrians sure as hell were desperate for one. Damascus would stop in its tracks and watch Parliament TV for an hour. Only then would the Syrians be able to understand what they had been doing for the last two weeks.
It also goes without saying that we would all have been much better off following the updates on the BBC News channel than listening to MPs. Listening to the reports of Barbara Plett Usher, the first journalist into the newly liberated Damascus. Tuning in to the analysis of Frank Gardner and Jeremy Bowen – people who are more likely than most to be able to make sense of what has been going on.
But the Commons it had to be. For the stamp of approval. Otherwise anything that had existed before this moment could not be said to have necessarily happened. Here was the Commons at its most self-important. Men and women who knew little that they themselves had not gathered from TV reports, holding forth in judgment.
Lammy rose to his feet. Serious face. His voice modulating for dramatic effect. Milking every moment. The fall of the regime was momentous. It had happened so quickly that even he had been partly blindsided. Imagine that. But not completely taken unawares. When Labour had got into power in July, there had been many people urging him to start negotiating with Assad. But he had said no. Because Assad was tyrant. A butcher. A drug dealer.
Not that the foreign secretary was trying to take any of the credit for the collapse of the Assad regime, but without the UK standing firm then the dictator would have been around a lot longer. Just saying. Only maybe things weren’t entirely that simple.
Because David Lammy had given an interview to Laura Kuenssberg back in September in which he said he had been talking enthusiastically to the Italians about their deal to send refugees back to Syria. So not quite the same as talking directly to Assad. But nearly so. By such threads are reputations made.
Then to the known unknowns. The government would be cautious in its dealings with HTS. Who would have guessed? They would judge the new regime by its actions.
But for now Lammy was standing by the ordinary Syrians. They had a right to decide their own future democratically. And in Keir Starmer they had a man who would speak out against human rights abuses wherever he found them.
Only not in Saudi Arabia, where the prime minister happened to find himself having a tete-a-tete with Mohammed bin Salman. You may remember that MBS, as he likes to be called, is in the frame for ordering the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As well as for killing and imprisoning anyone who offers a word of dissent. A man who rules his kingdom with an iron fist. Who only last year accorded the red carpet treatment to one Bashar al-Assad. How sweet. Two lovable rogues together.
For reasons that only Keir can know, he forgot to raise any of this on his whistlestop tour of the Middle East. Was sure it must have been all a bit of a misunderstanding. Somehow Khashoggi’s body parts must have put themselves into a suitcase. Instead Starmer just put an arm round MBS, grovelling for Saudi investment. Offered to take him to a football match. Because that’s what best mates do.
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, kept her reply short and sweet. She was fairly sure that it had been the Conservatives who were primarily responsible for the fall of Assad because they had called for him to go over 10 years ago. You know how it is. First these things happen glacially slowly, then they happen all at once. She wanted reassurances that the UK would not grant asylum to any of Assad’s henchmen.
But by now everyone was down to what they could find about Syria on Wikipedia. Lammy insisted Libya was right next door to Damascus. He might want to check that out on a map.
The Liberal Democrats wanted to mount an SAS raid on Moscow to make sure Assad faced justice. Jimmy Dimly proposed reopening an embassy in Syria immediately. It was all mainly nonsense. But somehow the MPs thought it needed to be said. Perhaps it did.
Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
