Tim Pendry

Fourteen reasons against bombing in Syria … there are many others … pick the one you like most … it may be your kid and friend turned into mush by the arrogance of our rulers so take responsibility …

1. It is grandstanding by a posturing Prime Minister who wants to be ‘up there’ with Thatcher and Blair

2. It is a not-so-cunning plot to try and split the Labour Party while weakening Corbyn-critical loyalists

3. It represents desperate competition with France to be ‘top dog’ in a flailing Western alliance

4. It is Cold War pique at the decisiveness of the Russians who actually do have an interest in Syrian terrorism

5. It is a continuation of the failed policies undertaken since Blair’s malign 1999 Chicago Speech

6. It is militarily futile and mere posturing without a ground war in which regional states are engaged

7. Russia is doing a better job than we can and we should be working with it and not competing with it

8. The French bombing provided the incentive for the Paris killings: people will die in London … or Birmingham … or Tunbridge Wells … or Glasgow.

9. Killing from the air has been a brutal war crime from long before Guernica … civilians will die. War from the air is also cowardice.

10. There is no national interest in a weak air response that stirs up a hornet’s nest …

11. It is a gross misuse of our national defence budget which would better serve domestic security and social cohesion.

12. It represents yet another primitive short term reaction to a problem that was created because of foreign policy short-termism

13. It is typical of the British Crown in being tactical rather than strategic – pique combined with pride, typical of these clowns and comic singers

14. It is quite simply stupid – a duff idea from cynical posturing second rate half wits