Ministers’ empty pledges

÷ September 2015: ‘Assad has to go, Isil has to go and some of that … will on occasion require hard military force’ David Cameron, then PM

÷ February 2017: ‘ Assad … has no future as leader’ Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

÷ April 2017: ‘[We want] a process that preserves the institutions of the Syrian state while decapitating the monster’ Boris Johnson

÷ ‘A stable Syria … means a political transition away from President Assad’ PM Theresa May

÷ ‘Someone who uses … chemicals to kill his own people simply cannot be the future leader of Syria’ Sir Michael Fallon, then Defence Secretary