Most previous debates on military action had been held on the procedural device of a motion for the

Most previous debates on military action had been held on the procedural device of a motion for the adjournment.I profoundly disagree with the decision that Parliament reached to go to war in Iraq, but I welcome the constitutional precedent of a prior decision by Parliament. I do not believe it will be possible for any future government to commence military action without the explicit approval of MPs.It is odd that Clare should complain that power is uniquely concentrated in the hands of Tony Blair when she herself is such a close ally of Gordon Brown, who has achieved for the Treasury the same independence from Number 10 that he himself has conferred on the Bank of England. The standing joke within Number 10 is that their relations with the Treasury are the British version of cohabitation.For the past fortnight, editorials in British newspapers have been calling on Tony Blair to assert the right of the Prime Minister to have the final say on the euro I hope he does. But the doubt over which of these big beasts has the upper hand is hardly evidence of presidential government.There are, though, real issues of concern obscured by the spotlight on personalities. As Parliament First argues, Cabinet government and parliamentary democracy are not what they were half a century ago.Some years ago, I asked Jim Callaghan for his advice about an MoD demand to withdraw troops from the South Georgia islands, which I was resisting. I still remember my sense of surprise when he advised me to insist on taking it to Cabinet.

The idea that anyone should use the Cabinet as a court of appeal to resolve a real decision seemed to belong to the past.In part this is because the cult of celebrity enhances leaders at the expense of the team. The current preoccupation with whether the Conservatives can win under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith only underlines the fact that no one is asking whether a Tory government would have a strong enough Cabinet to reach collective decisions, which may be as well for the Tory party.The decline in collective government may also have come about because we have grown accustomed to the first-past-the-post system, which throws up mega-majorities that leave prime ministers in the comfortable knowledge that no political rival could conjure up an effective parliamentary rebellion. Yet few of those who complain about presidential government make the logical connection that the best way to put Parliament back at the centre of action would be to adopt an electoral system of proportional representation that obliged prime ministers to assemble a majority rather than take one for granted.These are important strategic issues which will occupy constitutional debate for years to come. In the meantime, it would be a pity if the shock and awe language of Clare Short’s resignation speech obscured her immediate point about Iraq.I believe Clare was wrong to say that there would have been no point in her resigning as Tory support for war guaranteed a majority for military action. Had we both gone together, it would have had an added impact on backbench opinion. That, in turn, makes it all the more significant that she should now have been driven to the conclusion that US intransigence makes it impossible to carry out the task of reconstruction with international legitimacy.

After brushing the UN aside in the run-up to war, we are in danger of compounding the damage by leaving it on the sidelines in the aftermath.At the end of all other recent conflicts, it was the UN that was in the driving seat for the process of nation-building. In Cambodia, Kosovo, East Timor and Afghanistan, it was the UN in New York that set the strategy and UN officials on the ground who followed it through. Ironically, Ian Martin, who won praise from Britain for his courage and patience as the UN administrator in East Timor, has just resigned his Labour Party membership in protest at Britain’s conduct in Iraq.This time, it is going to be the US that puts together the new government of Iraq. It is going to be the US that will have de facto control of the rebuilding of the oil industry.