And so it’s not-war, again. “At my order overnight, the RAF engaged in a second wave of strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen,” Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons. Something had to be done, this was something, and he had done it. Twice.

“The strikes were limited to carefully selected targets,” the prime minister assured MPs. Not that many of them seemed that fussed: the chamber was half-empty. Sunak explained that since he ordered the previous bombing, the Houthis had carried on launching drone strikes against ships. “So we acted to further degrade their ability to mount such attacks.”

The Houthis are just another addition to the list of intractable problems the prime minister has to deal with every day

There’s an idea around that these moments of military action are rally-round-the-flag moments from which a prime minister can benefit politically. That’s probably true if you recapture British territory that’s been violently seized in the South Atlantic. It’s less clear that it makes any difference when you bomb bits of the Middle East.

Sunak probably knows that. His delivery was businesslike rather than grandstanding. The Houthis are just another addition to the list of intractable problems the prime minister has to deal with every day. They’re not even the worst ones. Say what you like about the Houthis, at least they don’t brief nasty polling data to the Daily Telegraph.

Likewise Keir Starmer knows that the two options for a Labour opposition leader at a moment like this are to be bland or to risk blowing yourself up. Perhaps if Jeremy Corbyn were still Labour leader, he’d have suggested we work with the Houthis to find out if the attacks on Red Sea shipping are really the work of the CIA. But Starmer wasn’t going to mess about with any of that. “Let me be clear that we back this targeted action,” he said.

He did his best not to make it sound like completely unqualified support. “While we do not question the justification for action,” he said. “It is right that the House hears more about its effectiveness.” Is this, that is to say, actually achieving anything?

But this wasn’t a stirring challenge to the government, more like a coordinated dance. Sunak even complimented the Labour leader’s reply. “He raises all the right questions about the action,” he noted, which is rather nicer than anything he’s likely to say at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. He explained that he was indeed “confident” that the bombing would make a difference.

That wasn’t the only thing about which the prime minister was confident. He assured us, several times, that there was “no link” between what was happening in the Red Sea and what was happening in Gaza. More than that, if the thought has crossed your mind that events in the Middle East may all be related, you should be appalled at yourself. “Those who make that link do the Houthis’ work for them,” Sunak said, sternly.

Not everyone was persuaded. “The prime minister said 10 days ago that the airstrikes against Houthi targets would send a clear message,” Caroline Lucas, of the Greens, told him. “The foreign secretary said this morning that more strikes send the clearest message. Can the prime minister tell us where that will end, given that the only message actually being received in the region, whether he likes it or not, is about the UK’s failure to back an end to the suffering in Gaza?”

“The Houthis have been under almost constant bombardment from Saudi Arabia for the best part of eight years,” he said, “they did not get that message, so why are we so confident that they will get our message this time around?”

Sunak replied that Lucas shouldn’t “link and conflate” the issues. “It’s not me!” she shouted back. He conceded the point: “It is the Houthis who are doing that.” But, he added, they were wrong to. Perhaps if he could get them down to Westminster he could show them the error of their ways.

Although many Labour MPs are definitely sceptical about the value of all this, there was little direct criticism of the strikes. Instead, despite his pleas that the issues were unrelated, Sunak faced repeated calls to condemn the language and behaviour of the Israeli government in Gaza. In response he was notably cooler in his support for Israel than he has been in the past.

But even the SNP, always keen to create dividing lines with Westminster, accepted that the Houthis probably aren’t entitled to attack random passing ships. Instead, the party’s leader at Westminster, Stephen Flynn, asked a more uncomfortable question.

“The Houthis have been under almost constant bombardment from Saudi Arabia for the best part of eight years,” he said, “they did not get that message, so why are we so confident that they will get our message this time around?”

Sunak looked weary. “To do nothing would also be a choice,” he replied. Something had to be done, and this is something, so he’s doing it. Again.