Parliament The Sketch: Benn blazes away at targets all around the world

FOR THOSE armchair warriors happily anticipating an extension of the war in Yugoslavia, yesterday's debate on Kosovo was an object lesson in how a small force of highly motivated guerrillas can pin down a much larger body of men.

There is no question that, should the dissidents' dearest wish come true and a vote be taken on the Government's strategy, a large majority from all parties would vote in favour. They have the numbers and the artillery to take the lobbies. But their morale, their lasting resolve, may yet turn out to be a fragile thing. Almost every single member speaking in favour of the attack on Serbia yesterday prefaced their remarks with a note of misgiving or reluctance or anxiety. The spirit of those perched high on the back benches, pouring a steady fire down into the pass of parliamentary consensus, is quite different.

It is true that yesterday the sceptics had a defection - after a speech of grinding historical and philosophical detail, Harry Barnes, a long- standing Labour mujahedin, threw down his weapon and emerged from the rocks. He wasn't giving Nato a blank cheque, he said, but he had reluctantly come to the opinion that this time the "no alternative" argument had won the day.

It is not known how Nato has responded to the devastating news about the cheque, but events may outrun it anyway. I suspect Mr Barnes may be considering re-enlistment after watching a magnificent assault by Tony Benn, one of those headlong runs at an entrenched position for which medals are awarded.

I don't want to suggest by this that Mr Benn took his objective. His barrel is pretty worn by now, and his aim can be erratic. At one moment, for example, he enjoined the House to learn the lessons of history, reminding us that the Serbs had taken on the Nazis. He for one was grateful for this, he said, implying that the West should be too. But does a 50-year- old war record really provide a mitigation for atrocity? At one moment Mr Benn is laying down a withering fire on the Government for sidestepping the UN, and in the next breath he is scornfully pointing out the UN's repeated failure to enforce its own resolutions in the case of Israel. So, is it an impotent talking shop or the supreme representative of international law?

It hardly matters because Mr Benn has already changed magazines and is blazing away at another target, whether it is the Government's attitude to Gulf war syndrome or the murky history of General Walker, the American commander of the verification mission. He concluded yesterday with one of his wildest shots: Mr Milosevic would not get away with it, he said, because he has "got to find a way to live with the people of Kosovo". Well, he doesn't, actually. He can kill enough of them to make all the rest run away in terror, which is exactly what he was about when the first bomb dropped.

But Mr Benn's rate of fire is so intense, his joy in combat so hot and pure, that he is bound to hit some targets. He scored a bull's-eye yesterday on the sickly ritual of beginning every speech with support for "our boys". And after several speeches of excruciating caution - men advancing as though their every sentence was a mine that might be exploded by posterity - this reminded you what backbench speeches are for: to pepper received opinions until they are either abandoned as untenable or defended with real passion.

"This House is an assembly of free men and women - not a rubber stamp," Michael Howard had declared at the beginning of his speech. In truth it often feels like an assembly of rubber stamps, but when Mr Benn's blood is up you see what it could be.