IT HAS been amusing watching our politicians arguing whether we should bomb Syria or not.

Surely the first consideration should be whether we are capable of doing so.

And clearly we are not.

The last Government spent much of its time selling off the RAF.

When it was decided to bomb in Iraq a few years ago we only had seven planes to do it, two of which were continually being serviced by the ground staff.

So poor is our capability these days that we have had to ask other countries if there is a Russian submarine lurking off Scotland.

The Battle of Britain commemorations showed that we can put together more vintage Spitfires than modern operational jets.

David Cameron tries to tell us the French are our great allies when everyone knows we have been fighting them for centuries: from the Welsh archers who decimated them at Agincourt to Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo.

It is also conveniently forgotten that the French switched sides in World War Two, to such an extent that Churchill had to order the destruction of the French fleet. And it was a French made missile that took out so many of our ships in the Falklands, and would have continued to do so had the SAS not raided the stores.

I do not argue about concerted action now, but let us be realistic about what we can do.

Let the French use RAF Akrotiri, share intelligence with them - perhaps send a plane to the Foreign Legion, with one each from other European countries too.