The votes have been cast by 397 to 223, so by a large majority the UK is now committed to bombing Syria - targeting Daesh / ISIS. Just what that means is rather unclear for the UK. Our immediate RAF contribution is small, eight Tornados, plus support aircraft and limited reinforcements - flying from Cyprus.

Amongst the deluge of coverage yesterday I found these contributions helpful.

First in a surprisingly good speech in the House of Commons the Shadow (Opposition) foreign secretary Hilary Benn supported air strikes and was applauded - very unusual, if not unique in our parliament:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34991402

Tim Collins of Gulf War speech fame has a comment:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...ue-leader.html

Adam Holloway, a Conservative MP, an ex-soldier and reporter, wrote and citing one passage:
...for the last 15 years I have watched British governments join or create international "coalitions" that have used military force without understanding what drives each conflict on the ground. This ignorance has had disastrous consequences for tens of millions of people in the Middle East and North Africa. So last week, on the plane back from a visit to Iraq and Turkey, I knew that in (the debate) I would have stand up and say that I simply do not know enough about the big plan to fix the broken politics.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ver-again.html

Shashank Joshi, of RUSI, asks how robust are David Cameron's arguments:https://rusi.org/commentary/sound-st...-syria-strikes

My title derives from the 'alliance' against Daesh involving sixty nations, although to be fair very few contribute militarily, with some leaving for the Yemen and hence the UK being one more involved.