Cameron signs up to muscular liberalism

“State multiculturalism has failed.” Angela Merkel put voice to that sentiment last October. Now it David Cameron’s turn to do the same. In a speech in Munich today, the Prime Minister has taken a rhetorical torch to Islamic extremism. “Frankly,” he says, “we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism.” It is, at the very least, a significant political moment.

What Cameron is doing here – as explained by Charles Moore and Paul Goodman – is publicly signing up to a philosophy of the world. It is a philosophy that rejects the idea that extremism should simply be contained. Instead, it says that extremism must be fought – and that means engaging in a battle of ideas. “Tough on extremism, tough on the causes of extremism,” is how Tony Blair might have put it.