The first day back after summer break is one of mixed emotions as some are excited and ready to get back to work.
Others dread the first day and wish the summer would last forever.
For British Prime Minister David Cameron, the first day back went much worse than anyone would have thought.
Senior ministers are now telling him his party needs rebuilding after the first government defeat on the possible deployment of British troops in generations.
These aren’t the sort of problems anyone would want to face on their first day back.
What exactly happened to Cameron is as follows.
At the beginning of the week, President Barack Obama made a phone call to 10 Downing St. to discuss possible action in Syria, according to the BBC.
Cameron’s huge fault was that he and his inner circle never stopped to think whether this topic would win a vote in parliament.
The vote went ahead with Cameron confident that it would go through without problems.
Later, Cameron was informed that the vote had not gone through, and more importantly 30 members of his own party had voted along with the Labour party to swing the vote.
The Syrian issue is leaving senior ministers proclaiming that Cameron must take a page out of the late Margaret Thatcher’s book and appoint a heavyweight party chairman to be part of his inner circle.
This chairman will give advice on serious decisions in the future and help to avoid mishaps like this becoming a regular thing.
This whole situation is being termed a “wakeup call” for the party, which now has a sizeable group of parliament members who are willing to harm Cameron’s plans.
If Cameron doesn’t inspire confidence in his own party, then the public is going to find it hard to trust him.
What should Cameron have done?
What I’ve found is that the media often judges senior political figures without thinking about that person’s options.
Some simply sit back, expecting Cameron to find a “magic” answer and forgetting that he is, after all, a human being.
Cameron could have been stuck between his own moral conscience, the memories of Iraq and the need to protect his image as a leader.
If Cameron solely believed people in Syria were in danger, he had every right to try and use his power to intervene in the conflict.
And if atrocities continue to happen in Syria, and Cameron never tried to get this vote through parliament, the headlines could read “Cameron to blame.”
I’m not simply defending him, but I believe to get anything done, risks must be taken every so often. What has happened is the nature of the risk.
The stage is set for Cameron as I see it, with less than two years until the next general election; Cameron will either regain his party’s confidence, and with that the people’s confidence, giving him a real chance in this next coming election.
If he fails to do this, it could be the beginning of the end for Cameron.
It’s up to him now.
George Brown is a junior sociology major and contributing writer at the Daily 49er.
