David Cameron’s Syria defeat was unexpected, but Prime Ministers are regularly forced to bow to Parliament’s will

David Cameron’s defeat last night in the Commons on his motion on military intervention in Syria has been met with shock, and correctly seen as a very visible assertion of parliamentary power. Dr Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at UCL argues that although such confrontations are unusual, it would be wrong to assume that parliamentary checks on government ambitions are the exception. In fact, they happen all the time.