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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Responsibility for the attacks in Paris has been claimed by Islamic State or ISIL with the massacre being described as an act of war by the French President.  Pressure here is mounting for a fresh parliamentary vote about British intervention in Syria as the French are already doing.  Well speaking this morning, the Home Secretary Theresa May has said the government won’t go to the House of Commons again without clear political consensus.  I am joined now by Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative MP who himself was a refugee in actual fact from Iraq and from Birmingham by Clare Short, the former International Development Secretary who resigned over the Iraq War, a very good morning to you both. Staying with you Clare Short, that very issue of intervention in Syria, given that our key allies are going for Islamic State there, shouldn’t we join them now?

CLARE SHORT: No, I agree very much with the Tory led House of Commons Select Committee, there is no coherent policy, there is no way of dealing with ISIL. Britain has got eight planes out there, if they bomb on both sides of the border it is a tokenistic intervention, it won’t make anything better.  What we’ve got to do is focus on getting a ceasefire, getting some long term stability for Syria, coping better with the refugee problem, trying to get a better policy in the wider Middle East.  This is a disaster, it’s going to take time to sort things out but Britain bombing across the border would change nothing, it would be pure tokenism and would show Britain as a non-player just pretending to be somebody.   

DM: Okay, well Nadhim Zahawi, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, as Clare Short is quoting there, no coherent policy over Syria your committee has said in the past, but doesn’t this change things, this attack on such a scale, such a threat, don’t other options now have to be looked at?

NADHIM ZAHAWI: Well taken in isolation Clare has a point but actually you have got to take the whole picture and what is happening on the ground is very different.  In the last 72 hours the Kurdish Peshmerga with the support of the RAF, with the support of the American air force, have actually taken the strategic area of Shingal and Sinjar City, cut off ISIL’s supply route between Mosul and Raqqa.  The Iraqi army as we speak is entering Ramadi and that campaign, if successful, will mean the retaking of Mosul becomes much more realistic and imminent.  What happened in Vienna where Philip Hammond has been is this plan, a beginning of a real mind shift amongst the regional powers, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, of course Russia and the United States, for us to actually begin a process, the 1st January, the delegations have been identified, a transition for Assad.  So taken holistically this is a strategic plan, we must take a lead on this and I would say if we are standing in solidarity with France and France says to us help us in Syria, do we just turn our back, do we just turn a blind eye?  When your neighbour is attacked and they come after your neighbour and you turn the other way, they will come after you in the end.

DM: That is the key point, that is the question I was going to put to you Clare Short, haven’t things changed now?  President Hollande says he wants to be merciless, this is a war.  If your neighbour, if your ally is attacked and calls, as Nadhim Zahawi said, calls and asks for Britain to help out in Syria, shouldn’t we join them?

CLARE SHORT: I haven’t heard France say that and if your friend is in trouble you don’t just say I must do something, I’ll do something that makes the trouble worse, you should be wise and stand back.  It is true, I agree with what’s just been said about there’s a bit more hope about the talks and moving towards a ceasefire and that’s largely because Russia has intervened and ISIL is a bit on the back foot suddenly and that’s largely a consequence of the Russian intervention.  Western policy is incoherent, our allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey to an extent, have been arming these extremist ISIL supporting organisations, we’ve got to make our mind up is our job first to get a ceasefire, stabilise the situation and then get some transition or are we so focused on getting rid of Assad that we’re letting the country get more and more chaotic.  So of course what’s happened in Paris is terrible but doing something that doesn’t work doesn’t make us a sensible friend.

DM:  Do you go along with that, Mr Zahawi?  Clare Short seems to be saying there that whether we like it or not, President Putin of Russia is taking the fight to Islamic State and indeed other opponents of Assad, should we leave him to it or in actual fact give him some more help?  

NADHIM ZAHAWI: Look, what’s happening on the ground, the Free Syrian Army as well as what’s happening in Sinjar and Ramadi, the Free Syrian Army is making significant inroads against ISIL with the support of the US, the Jordanians and other air forces.  Of course Russia has effectively gone in they claim to support the campaign against ISIL, I think we should hold them to that and make sure that actually they are good on that, the Vienna talks are important to have Russia around the table.  Look, this is a global problem, this poisonous ideology that kidnaps and rapes teenage Yazidi girls yet claim that we in Paris and London are somehow immoral, is something that we all have to work to go after.  I don't think it’s good enough to simply say some of our allies may have behaved badly in the past, I don’t believe Turkey or other countries in the region have been supplying ISIL.  We’ve got the G20 happening in Antalya, in Turkey at the moment, we want to make sure all those countries, Saudi Arabia and the Iranians, work together with us.  It’s no good name-calling, we’ve all got to work together to defeat this evil ideology.

DM: I’m sorry we are out of time.  Thank you both very much indeed, Clare Short and Nadhim Zahawi, much more analysis coming up.