There is also an element of ‘last wordism’ in all on-line debates. And these can easily spread from thread to thread, from forum to forum, when the general audience has near as dammit forgotten what it was all about in the first place.

I, used to, find it near impossible to stop commenting on a thread where the final comment rested with the ‘illuminated parking lot’ armchair warriors of US foreign policy. Then I got tired.

So, your point is correct.

Still like the odd ding, dong, though.

But also he complains about the way his enemies “decided that the most urgent priority of the day was not campaigning for an immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq - or trying to prevent potentially catastrophic US/UK strikes on Iran, but… to try to gain asylum for Iraqi interpreters…”

Insofar as that criticism is valid (i.e not at all), if you exchange “gain” for “deny” in the final sentence, doesn’t it apply equally well to him?