The Sketch: Blair ignores more fuss and waxes lyrical to an undemanding audience

Tony Blair turned his attention from family matters back to everyday international politics - without giving a XXXX, about the Australian conman who had made a damp squib of a statement.

The Prime Minister was bogged down by other concerns, such as having to endure the ramifications and consequences of associating with his new best buddy, the Syrian conman, President Assad.

There is something vaguely incongruous about this new relationship but it probably has as much to do with the attractive appearance of the President as for any perceived change of policy from his unpleasant predecessor – his late father.

Suave is the new style for modern dictators and Assad, who leads a political party, the Ba'athists, not a million miles away from its cousin in Iraq, dresses in the immaculate Blair style.

This ploy worked and the full panoply of diplomatic niceties were laid on in Downing Street. The visitor worked his charm on a phalanx of diplomats, journalists and politicians.

It reminded me, however, of the way the Tories and the rest of the political establishment were embraced by Robert Mugabe in the 1980s. Afterwards, Mr Blair made a statement in the Commons on the European summit in Copenhagen. He claimed to have brought home the Danish bacon and a host of other festive goodies in time for Christmas. He waxed lyrical about the success of admitting the entry of ten countries from Eastern and Central Europe into the EU. He reminded the Commons that "to anyone who remembered the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the Prague spring of 1968 or the imposition of military rule in Poland in 1981, the transformation of these countries from tyranny to democracy and now to full European membership is a huge achievement of which Europe – and Britain – can be justly proud".

But there was to be no turkey for Christmas. It may have been served up in the Commons restaurants and canteens, but it was off the European menu. Neither was there any Turkish delight about this – either in Britain or Ankara.

Turkey still has, apparently, to do more cold turkey before "meeting the necessary human rights criteria". The Prime Minister is pro-Turkey but is up against the French and the Germans on this. "Too poor, too Muslim and too eastern" was once allegedly the comment of Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor.

Poor Iain Duncan Smith has not yet quite got the hang of these Euro love-ins and struck a sour note before even getting into his stride which he never did. "I think I speak for many on all sides of the House as well as for millions elsewhere in Europe when I express my regret at how long this enlargement has taken."

The rest of his statement was lost in Labour guffaws and he struggled to get a hearing. Mr Blair's little ray of European sunshine, Ben Bradshaw, led the Labour sniggers and Mr Blair riposted that "as large parts of the Conservative Party are queuing up to get out, this lot are queuing up trying to get in". It was a cheap shot, like the one last week about Mr Duncan Smith plunging into the swimming pool as it was emptying. Unfortunately, Mr Duncan Smith had rather asked for it.