An extreme error

Last night Charles Farr, a civil servant who coordinates the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, delivered the Colin Cramphorn memorial lecture. Farr was expounding on and defending the recently released edition of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy.

Listening to Farr, one was struck by how the government still can’t properly grasp that terrorism is merely a symptom of a wider problem, the hold of extremist Islamism on a small but significant section of the British population.

Frustratingly, there have times when the government seemed ready to grasp this nettle. After 7/7, Blair declared: “We will start to beat this when we stand up and confront the ideology of this evil. Not just the methods but the ideas”.  In the lead-up to this release of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, there were also heavy-hints that the government would move from trying to prevent violent extremism to trying extremism per se. Sadly, those advocating such a shift—most notably Hazel Blears—have been defeated inside government.