Isil stands for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Does David Cameron not realise this?

It is very easy to make David Cameron and the Scottish National Party look ridiculous. But as every soldier and journalist knows, just because a target is easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hit it. The attempt by supposedly respectable politicians to use trickery and outright lies to rebrand Islamic State as a state that has nothing to with Islam is too good to miss.

David Cameron kicked off this week when he shouted at the BBC for calling Islamic State ‘Islamic State’. Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions he was at it again. Islamic State should not be called ‘Islamic State’ but ‘Isil’.

Meanwhile the SNP rounded up Boris Johnson, Caroline Lucas and Zac Goldsmith to stand alongside its own ample collection of charlatans and wishful thinkers. Together they insisted that not only should we not call Islamic State ‘Islamic State’ we should not call it ‘Isis’ or ‘Isil’ either. The preferred term should be – nay, must be – ‘Daesh’ because:

The use of terminology such as Islamic State, Isil and Isis risks taking away from the fact that this is a murderous terrorist organisation, and nothing more.