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 the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. 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.
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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 all needed to be said. Perhaps it did.
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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.