The Sketch: No evidence, no rebellion: a supreme act of parliamentary management

When Jack Straw spoke about the twin towers attack in the Commons last year, a peculiar emphasis in his voice when he spoke about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons made it clear that the Government wanted to invade Iraq: they have been planning this eye-catching initiative for a long time. They assumed evidence would spill out of 11 September and provide the justification for whacking Saddam.

But after a year, there's no Iraq connection with the towers, and we've no indication that Saddam is much guiltier of sponsoring international terror than Colonel Gaddafi. There's nothing new in the Prime Minister's dossier, and delaying its publication to the morning of the debate raised suspicions that the material is in some way tainted (the Government's reputation in such matters is as fragrant as dead, or least very sick, fish).

So we had high hopes of a rebellion. Maybe Robin Cook would resign from the Cabinet to lead it, or maybe Clare Short? Yet more likely, would vertical take-off pigs perform aerial acrobatics over the Treasury benches?

No, parliamentary management and the Prime Minister's thespian skills carried the day. Tam Dalyell tried a procedure to get a substantive vote at the end of the debate. He failed. In what way success would have been better wasn't made clear. Tony Blair's statement was received in respectful silence with one or two dense "Amens" from his back benchers. Barry Gardiner's long, lubricated tongue came snaking over the benchback dripping a question so vile that his promotion must be imminent.

The loser of the day, leaving aside Saddam Hussein, was poor old Iain Thing. You know who I mean – nice sort of fellow. Possibly over-promoted. After failing to ask any questions about the war, he intervened on the Liberal Democrats' Menzies Campbell. Mr Cambell is a gent. That's a technical term whose meaning is largely lost to us now. He's dignified, experienced, but quite able to dump his opponent on his backside. This he casually did, and Mr Thing should consider whether it's worth getting up again.

That pale rider, Douglas Hogg made the most rebellious speech of the day – elegant and unanswerable: "I do not think the threat of war is sufficiently grave or sufficiently imminent to provide a moral basis for war."

"We should be unambiguous about what will happen to Saddam," Mr Blair said before ambigualising onwards. He will not admit regime change is his purpose. And no doubt, neither will they, as and when they retaliate.