“We need to make the Foreign Office the strategic engine of our foreign policy again” – Tugendhat’s RUSI speech

“We need to do something you might not expect me to say. We need to give Boris Johnson more power.”

Syria. May’s calculation and the dangers of a May miscalculation – to others and to her

She will be feeling a hand of history on her shoulder, and wondering if the other holds a knife at her back.

Jack Lopresti: What we should do now to help the Kurds – and why

Let’s remember that they bravely fought extremism for themselves, and to help keep our streets safe too. It’s reasonable to ask if Iraq is becoming a failed state.

Gary Kent: Two cheers for this report – which highlights the plight of the Kurds. While we turn a blind eye.

A new, diplomatically-phrased but still damning enquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee throws light on the Government’s failures.

Patel and Seely win Foreign Affairs committee places. Simon Clarke is elected to the Treasury committee.

The results of yesterday’s Select Committee elections weren’t at all bad for the Brexiteers – or Conservative Friends of Israel, for that matter.

Bob Seely: Post-Brexit, we need to be the world’s smart power nation. Let’s make it happen.

Our plan seems to have been little more than to cobble together just enough kit to make us a Great Power on the cheap. That cannot continue.

Nadhim Zahawi: How a leading Labour feminist – the Party’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, no less – gives succour to the Ayatollahs

Iran’s demonstrators are asking for reform, and all democrats should openly support their goals.

Profile: Tom Tugendhat, successful insurgent and a possible future Tory leader

With Rees-Mogg’s backing, how can he fail?

Conservative Select Committee election results. A squeeze on places, “Very high turnout” – and some prominent losers.

Ability, popularity with colleagues and specialist knowledge seem to have mattered more in these elections than intake or ideology.

Iain Dale: The biggest gossip in politics is interviewed by the biggest gossip in politics and names the biggest gossip in politics

Plus: The decline of books. Morgan sees off the cult of Mogg. Why I won’t fly RyanAir. And: As I reach a significant birthday, I mull writing my autobiography…

Tugendhat, Morgan, Halfon elected. The new power of the Select Committees.

They already elect their chairmen and there will be fewer trips abroad – at least when the Commons is sitting. That means more scrutiny of what Ministers are up to.

Mercer and Tugendhat show Parliament’s new generation is on the march

Over two-thirds of Tory MPs have joined the Commons since 2010. Now they are starting to flex their muscles.

Nick de Bois: Turkey is an essential post-Brexit partner to Britain

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s recent report is a good start, but much more work needs to be done.

No, we have not caused the agony of Aleppo

The driver of Syria’s civil war is a legacy of political, economic and cultural failure within the country itself and across much of the Middle East.