Dr Julian Lewis: Will the Foreign Secretary tell us what the outcome of that proper political process would be, given that even commentators who absurdly used to claim that there were 70,000 moderate fighters against Assad in Syria now accept that the overwhelming majority of the armed opposition is run by Islamists? While accepting that Assad is a monster in the tradition of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, does the Foreign Secretary also accept that there is a distinction between punishing him for using chemical weapons and removing him to replace him with a virulent Islamist regime?

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson): I strongly agree with the wisdom of that remark. It will be essential to have a political process that preserves the institutions of the Syrian state while decapitating the monster.]