I spent a lot of time - and I mean about six hours! - listening to the debate. It was, I would say, the best I have heard from Parliament with many people clearly having to tried to think it through carefully. But very soon key phrases and ideas started popping up which immediately said how people would be voting even before they had declared. One was that the speaker rejected the claim that this would make UK more of a target, because we were already a prime target. Which is clearly nonsense because it is the kind of thing you can always have more of. There were, it seems, seven threats against the UK prevented last year. With more people committed to it, it could be seventeen, or seventy. And obviously the larger the number the greater the chance one gets through. So could this action persuade Daesh to dedicate more planners to attacking the UK? Clearly it could.

Oddly enough the best reason to think it might not came from a reporter in Damascus who said there had not been a mention of the upcoming British vote in any of the papers and no-one she spoke knew there was a vote. It suggests a level of indifference from the Syrian viewpoint which is at odds with our self-importance.