Cameron fails test of trust

But what is certain is that, tempting as it is to blame the vacillations of Ed Miliband or his own recalcitrant backbenchers for the Commons defeat over military intervention 
in Syria, the lion’s share 
of the responsibility lies 
with the Prime Minister himself.

Mr Miliband realised belatedly that, should he back the Government, he could not count on Labour MPs’ support and Mr Cameron had the same problem with his own party. Inexplicably, however, he did not grasp this until after he had been humiliated in the final vote.

Of course, Mr Cameron has always been detached from large sections of his parliamentary party, as shown by the furores over Europe and gay marriage. But this latest failure to read the Conservatives’ mood was an error of an entirely different order.

The Prime Minister is clearly sincere in his belief that Britain cannot stand idly by while Syrian dictator Bashar Assad apparently flouts international law by using chemical weapons to massacre his own people and he made a moving and eloquent speech to that effect. Yet he seems to have assumed that his word would be enough to convince a sceptical Parliament – and an equally sceptical public – to follow him.

A House of Commons still war-weary from the carnage of Iraq and Afghanistan, however, and with a consequently lingering distrust of intelligence documents, needed convincing evidence of Assad’s responsibility for Syria’s latest nerve gas attack, as well as a clear set of Western strategic objectives, before committing Britain to military action. And Mr Cameron could provide none of this.

Of course, the Prime Minister has hardly been helped by the behaviour of the US President. A leader who is determined to build a global coalition to enforce international law should surely have spent the last few days making the case for military action.

Instead, Barack Obama has made it as clear as possible that he does not want this confrontation just as he knows that most of his voters do not want it either. He has employed none of his fabled eloquence to whip up international concern over the mass slaughter in Syria and has failed to explain publicly what sort of mission Britain was being asked to join.

In the end, though, it was Mr Cameron who recalled Parliament in the confident belief that it would trust his judgment and its verdict was a humiliation which it will take the Prime Minister a long time to overcome.

Danger of unchecked online abuse

SO RAPIDLY is the internet transforming the way that society operates, it is hardly surprising that the process of adapting to the changes is taking a lot longer.

One glaring example of this is internet crime. As Mick Lawrenson, head of West Yorkshire Police’s economic crime unit, points out, the growing threat of cyber-crime means that officers must learn a host of different skills in order to keep up with the expertise of criminals.

They are also being faced with a huge volume of crimes that would simply not have been committed before the onset of social networking sites. Indeed, if police were to chase up every obscene or offensive remark posted on Twitter or Facebook, they would simply not have the time to pursue any other type of crime.

This is why, as Mr Lawrenson also warns, the policing of social networking sites cannot be left to the police alone. And, although it is true that there is a vast amount of low-level offending, the most serious crimes are grave offences of bullying and intimidation which can have the most profound and tragic consequences.

Of course, if police were to receive more help from the providers of social networking sites, the chances of a tragic incident would be considerably reduced. So far, however, the proprietors seem more interested in shrugging off their responsibilities rather than facing up to them.

Troubled waters for Filey’s cobles

EVER since the days of the Vikings, or so it is said, cobles have departed the beaches of Yorkshire, setting their pots for the rich harvests offered by the North Sea.

It seems, however, that in Filey at least, yet another tradition is nearing its end as the fishermen battle a combination of 21st century bureaucracy, economic difficulties and sheer bad luck in the form of fierce winds which have stripped away the sands.

In past centuries, of course, the community would have banded together to ensure that its fishermen came through these difficulties.

Yet now, when the local lifeboat team says it is no longer its duty to help to launch the cobles, and the council says it takes six weeks to get a licence to improve the beach, it

seems those days are

long gone.

Indeed, in lamenting the likely passing of the cobles, perhaps we should mourn the community spirit vanishing along with them.